Caution: The contents of this article are for education purposes only. The principles described are extremely dangerous and are for military close combat training and operations only. Their application applies solely to the military.
Post-training with Col. Applegate at Charles Nelson's School of Self Defense New York. From left, Tank, Charlie, Herb, and Howard Bell.
I assured Charlie, as the only life member instructor that was operating a full time combative and self-defense facility back then, that I would continue with his work.
Col. Applegate and Tank. Applegate History room.
It was during my early visits to New York that I first contacted Colonel Rex Applegate. After considerable communications between Colonel Applegate he invited me to visit him in Oregon to have my questions answered firsthand. On the Colonel's request I had already made several combative demonstration videotapes and had fulfilled all his pre-visit requests.
Applegate knives.
I prepared the list of subjects I wanted instruction in and brought along an assistant to be my training partner, Howard Bell, as requested. It was the special operations close combat that most interested me especially the skills of the very specialist nature that Colonel Applegate had been privy to and involved with developing back in the OSS and SOE times that he called his Applegate Kill or Get Killed system. Especially of interest to me was the World War II developed skills in lethal armed and unarmed close quarters combat developed for special operations. This was an area of close combat that had been kept under wraps to a major degree since that era especially the exotic weapons and advanced delivery systems and detailed specifics in a lot of subjects. Poisons, chemicals and covert and overt delivery systems of the cloak and dagger and dirty tricks brigade were subjects shrouded in secrecy that I wanted to know more about.
Sergeant Major Harry Baldock, World War II.
Harry Baldock had spent his entire life with the study of the human body and how it worked as well as identifying and treating injuries and ailments. Harry was a pioneer tutor in physiotherapy and his wife Iris a graduate of physiotherapy as well as nursing and during World War II was a nurse to return military personnel that had been wounded. Harry combined his knowledge of wrestling unarmed combat jujitsu and physical culture with his knowledge of therapeutic massage and physiotherapy to achieve a high understanding of the anatomy and both healing and the medical aspects relating to close combat.
Mrs Baldock, World War II.
It was compulsory that I had to learn all the medical aspects of close combat as well as therapeutic massage and manipulation. To be deemed confident competent and qualified by Harry meant several years learning from him every day in the non-combative requirements as well as the combative. My wife Trish and other assistants were the guinea pigs for the massage therapy and manipulation practice in my learning days while I was closely observed and critiqued by Harry.
Wrestling room, Baldock Institute, yesteryear
While Harry was a clinical master of the medical aspects and physical culture Charles Nelson was a master of body mechanics and medical implications relating to unarmed combat and self-defense and as part of my training always instructed the medical aspects and implications with a great emphasis on leverage and striking and kicking to incapacitate. Harry had instructed me in the use of the bayonet, knife, sword, riot stick and billy club in relation to their use on the bodily targets and the required degrees of destruction impact force and likely outcomes.
I had learned these lessons well and the subject was of major interest to me, I had taken extensive notes especially on the bodily targets and methods of their destruction that included angles and lines of attack and required levels of force to achieve the objective. I was always fascinated with the specific force levels required to affect or destroy specific targets and how these force levels were determined.
It was always very much handed down information with little details of reference sources other than the instructor that provided the information but it did make sense and had been proven in combat and both Harry and Charlie were in agreement with the principle of overkill to ensure the objective was achieved.
Colonel Applegate was very much in agreement with both Harry and Charlie with the overkill principle but did have some interesting medical aspects facts that he had worked on back in the OSS days. I was also interested in the Colonel Applegate's work with knife and other close quarters weapon's design.
On my visit to Colonel Applegate's on day two Howard and I were shown a martial arts videotape and asked my opinion on it. I told Colonel Applegate I considered it tactically incorrect and certainly nothing to do with military close combat. His reply was I was hoping you would say that and you are definitely not one of the flowing robe brigade.
A great part of the day was spent on note taking in regards to the specialist operational skills I had requested information about. Colonel Applegate had enlisted the services of a lady to assist with getting his files in order and he was in the process of destroying his notes and files relating to what he called the more sensitive combative subjects. He gave myself and my assistant Howard full access to this material prior to its destruction. This material was only useful to the military elite and to instructors to the military elite he said and he would never make it available to just any combative enthusiasts.
During the remainder of day two and three I had all my subject and skill questions answered including being shown knife fighting program skills from World War II. Colonel Applegate instructed in a very informal and irregular manner that I was well accustomed to and I can remember him telling me to focus on the view and before I knew it he had a knife to my throat and was demonstrating to Howard and I how he would take someone out in the said situation.
He briefed me on projects he was working on including specialist's role pistols and he introduced me to a recently new product on the market back then in pepper spray. He then took Howard and I to his country club for dinner where we discussed future plans we had for projects and military instructing units in not only unarmed combat but also instructing his instinctive point shooting program and other weapons aspects. Before I left Colonel Applegate had requested that I deliver his instinctive point shooting package to the military units I trained.
Instinctive point shooting was something very important to him and he advised me that he would support and endorse me as an instructor of his program as it could be the difference between life and death and operators needed it. The Col had a lifetime of involvement with firearms and he really appreciated skilled shooters but despised firearms used for crime or the careless or dangerous use of firearms. He said it's not the weapon that's a danger it's the weapon holder and those that misused firearms had no place in his world period.
He requested my assistance at future tradeshows and become actively involved in the forming of the International Close Combat Instructors Association that he actually named and he was the patriarch of. He wanted the association to be elitist and only for qualified combative military instructors to the military.
He said there would be many of the flowing robe brigade that would want membership but the association would never be for them and unless they had been trained and qualified in military close combat they would or could never understand or appreciate the required caliber and expertise and experience required for membership. He said there would be those that through jealousy would be resentful and they tend to be the most hollow and make the most noise.
SOF Convention 1997 – Tank assisting Col Applegate.
This visit was a very important part of my future career in instructing military special operations in specialist CQB. My next meeting with Colonel Applegate was at the 1997 Soldier of Fortune convention and the International Close Combat Instructors Association convention as well as the Special Operations convention that was being conducted at the same time in Las Vegas where I assisted Colonel Applegate with the promotion of his knives and had the opportunity once again to personally seek information and advice from him.
Col Applegate was so dedicated to the association and it meant so much to him that he called in favours from old friends such as Col Brown of SOF that ensured we had everything we needed to conduct our training at SOF as well as our convention and formal dinner. Col Applegate addressed our membership at the formal dinner and said you would not find a more deadlier group of individuals gathered together and that the Association was truly the elite of elite in military close combat and that standards must always be maintained. We attended the Paladin Press cocktail party while there with Col Applegate and it was a week to be remembered.
International Close Combat Instructors Association convention USA.
From my initial meeting onwards Colonel Applegate was my mentor and adviser up until his passing. I received my last package of course material only weeks after he passed and that he must have sent it to me immediately prior to falling ill.
By now I had met or been in contact with many military and law enforcement personnel including elite forces master level instructors. They were extremely interested in the Baldock Institute and the long history it had in military unarmed combat especially the fact that the facility was the oldest of its kind in existence and that Harry had been the chief unarmed combat instructor to the NZ Army in WW2.
Just prior to the Gulf War, I found myself on a combative trip of a lifetime that included a stop over in Oregon with Colonel Applegate as well as training in New York with Charles Nelson before heading for Fayetteville and Fort Bragg. This was my first meeting with then Master Sergeant Lawrence Jordan now Sergeant Major retired who was the chief hand-to-hand combat instructor with the 5th Group. I was privileged to be privy to his instructing of his program for special operations and this was the beginning of our working relationship and friendship.
I was now the chief instructor of the Baldock Institute, which became the Todd Group with the changing of the guard and time, as had been the usual way with systems and facilities chief instructors before me.
I returned to the US on many occasions and was qualified as a Special Forces combative Master instructor by chief instructor Sergeant Major Lawrence Jordan. By now I was instructing regular force and elite forces in CQB as well as operating the Todd Group and its depots.
Bayonet disarming, Tank Todd and Larry Jordan, Texas.
I had achieved my ambitions to be a qualified special operations CQB instructor and the chief instructor of my own facility and now had constant instructing duties and research and development projects that provided an entire new direction in the field and more challenges.
I continued to travel in pursuit of advanced knowledge and excellence in military close combat and have met some great people and achieved considerably more than I could have ever envisioned. My motivation has always been simple and is that I wanted to be trained and qualified in the most terminal combative practices that being military close combat from the most highly qualified and respected experts and then instruct the military at the highest level. Col Applegate gave me some very good advice that has led to my not wasting good time on fools.
After I once went to his defence against a detractor at a trade show he told me I needed to stop my not taking kindly to fools and simply not give them the time of day. Turned out to be great advice when I became chief instructor and the detractors and slanderers would launch their character assassinations from afar.
I've always had a pit bull mentality when it comes to setting goals and pursuing them and I was around at the right time and made sure I was in the right places to achieve my ambitions and career goals associating with those that were the legends and experts. What I have achieved I've been told by military combative experts would not be possible today in these times and that I am a very lucky SOB with a lineage of no other living military combative instructor on the planet. In fact some of the Association members I hold in the highest regard told me some would give a limb for the opportunities I've had.
I had the honor of introducing Colonel Applegate to some of our Association members and had always wanted to introduce two of my closest and dearest friends and combative colleagues in Larry Jordan and Ron Evans to Charles Nelson. Charlie had retired and moved to Arkansas and prior to his passing I had the pleasure of one last visit accompanied by Larry and Ron.
Final meeting with Charlie at Arkansas, accompanied by Ron Evans (far left) and Larry Jordan.
I've spent over 30 years now as an exponent and instructor of military close combat and have instructor qualifications in military close combat in three countries. This is my 15th year as a military special operations group CQB chief instructor as well as being a chief instructor to the regular army. Since taking charge of the facility and systems from Harry Baldock and being instructor qualified in the systems of Colonel Applegate and Charles Nelson and approved to take charge as chief instructor a whole new facet of my work has developed. Like with my previous instructors that operated under their names, the Charles Nelson School of Self Defense, the Baldock Institute, Applegate kill OR get killed system my facility became the Todd Group and the system the Todd Systems. The acronym for TODD being tactical operational death destruction or take out death destruction.
Much of my time initially as chief instructor was taken up with the re-evaluation of the former systems to establish one complete system that had commonality and was the most current and battle proven. This meant considerable work on the doctrine and training and management packages. This process had begun some years earlier during my drafting of military programs out of necessity to provide the very best and most current content. Some of the previous teachings of my former instructors had been surpassed simply because of changes in weaponry tactics and general warfare over time.
Some skills were made redundant simply because they had been superseded or they did not provide the required levels of safety, efficiency and effectiveness or some have been modified. The end result was a complete combative package that provided individual programs and individual skills covering all the combative required roles and that had commonality. The roles included special operations, regular force, reserve, and related skills for land, air and sea military forces. The system also includes programs packages and skills for security forces, law enforcement, specialist police units, specialist close personal protection and urban operators self-protection.
The Todd Group has managed to work in a very gray area of being both military and civilian training providers at the highest levels. We operate under strict security restraints with what information can and cannot be released by us publicly and so that should be the case. Most of our military and police work is confidential and such information is only for official use between organizations and individuals cleared to have such access. It's a referral business backed by course reports and proof of qualification and service that while you are active is kept private, as those in the business are well aware of the experts in the field and expect privacy and confidentiality.
Over time the former experts can use their prior qualifications and the like once they are retired or information is no longer current or restricted and this was the case with Harry Baldock, Col Applegate and Charlie Nelson when they were retired and working in the civilian sector.
While those in the know and close to me are privy and well informed of my qualifications and instructing service generally a lot of my work and prior training is not public. I have course reports and qualifications certification detailing my rank and qualification as a military close combat instructor that at this point in time are not for general release but I also have some records of training and qualification that are of a historic nature that are not restricted and are available for public release.
To a certain degree it's a very closed shop business and anyone who breaks protocols is frowned upon and this is why there are very few current instructors that work in both the civilian and military sectors as a career option. In my early days I was told you will never be able to achieve your career goals in this field and make a living especially setting such high standards and maintaining such a low profile.
Fortunately unlike most others in my field I have been fortunate to have over thirty years doing what I do best and now have an instructing cadre of over 120 assistants and have courses running 48 weeks of the year and have been operating at capacity and critical manning for the past decade. We have courses confirmed up to five years in advance and constant inquiries to export the Todd Systems internationally from a wide range of services.
Late '80s School of Self Defense New York, Tank and wife Trish with Charlie Nelson.
For further information read The Applegate Todd Connection.
Interested in Close Combat Training? Todd Group Depots are located throughout New Zealand and at various overseas locations.
For more information on Todd System of Close Combat see the following books, dvds and cds:
- Close Combat Books
The Do's and Don'ts of Close Combat – Tactical C&R – Control and Restraint – No Nonsense Self Defence – Military Close Combat Systems Phase One - Close Combat DVDs
Self Defence of the Elite – 80 Years of Combative Excellence – Primary Option Control & Restraint – Military Unarmed Combat – Phase 1 - Close Combat CDs
Technique To Command – Combative Code of Conduct
