Charles Nelson

If you look at the photo of Charles Nelson, you would not think that he is an elite special forces type of fighter but he was.

In 1987 I went to New York for a seminar on how to produce special interest videos. There I had the honor and pleasure of meeting Charles Nelson , one of New York’s most famous military combat instructors. He showed me all kinds of stuff for an hour and then said he had a book for sale for $25 which of course I bought. He trained extensively in China and was a Marine combat instructor. Numerous blackbelts in all kinds of arts used to take lessons from him and found out they didn’t really know anything practical. He was an old guy but very powerful. There was nothing he could not handle. He wrote a little about himself here:

The Charles Nelson Legacy

Charles Nelson (1915 - 2003)

I was born in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. When I was three years old my parents separated and I was placed in an orphanage under the care of Catholic Nuns. When I was around eight, I was sent to a home run by Christian Brothers, who taught me how to play baseball and how to box. If we got into a fight, the Brothers made us put on boxing gloves and settle it.

At the age of fourteen, I was placed on a farm in upstate New York. I ran away a few times and lived on other farms. When I hit nineteen, I joined the Marine Corps and served for ten and a half years. When I joined in 1934, the Marines were teaching hand-to-hand combat, bayonet fighting and jiu-jitsu – all of which I absorbed. I trained with other Marine and F.B.I. agents under Colonel Biddle. I also met a Sergeant Kelly, who had been attached to the International Police in Shanghai, China in the 30’s. He was looking for someone to practice with and I had the qualifications. This is how I came to learn a unique fighting method that no one else in the U.S. teaches.

This method is based on Mongolian wrestling techniques intended to maim or cripple. Combined with other methods that I studied through out the years, these techniques form a complete system. My method combines boxing, jiu-jitsu, karate, principles of Tai-Chi and Aikido, and dirty fighting. Keeping only what is useful and practical for Self-Defense, there is not a wasteful technique.

Over the years I have had many students with black belts in other martial arts come to me; all were amazed at how little they knew about real self-defense, despite years of training. They felt my method had rounded out their knowledge of self-defense.

Many black belts and other so-called experts in the martial arts have been killed or injured in street fights because their skills didn’t work outside the dojo. I am convinced that anyone, even with no prior martial arts training or experience, can learn to defend themself in any ordinary or life-and-death situation.

Yours in Self-Defense
Charles Nelson
Former Instructor, U.S. Marines

https://www.cnsds.com/about/charles-nelson