Self-Defense

Charles Nelson was revered for his "do-whatever-it-takes" school of self-defense. Many well-known exponents of the fighting arts – Carl Cestari, Bob Kasper and Kelly McCann – learned from Nelson at his school in New York, and thousands more have learned from his famous Red and Gray Manuals. The last of Nelson's manuals, Self-Defense by Charles C. Nelson , is less well known but still quintessential Nelson in its sensible, hands-on approach to self-defense. Nelson's genius was he spent a lifetime studying the way predators attack and then simplifying what he had learned into a system of uncomplicated principles and techniques that work for everyone. The exclusive new foreword by Paul Gerasimczyk, a long-time student at Nelson's school who worked on both the Red and Gray Manuals, traces Nelson's role as a self-defense icon – from his days first learning and then teaching hand-to-hand combat in the Marine Corps to his pioneering role as a civilian self-defense instructor. Now a whole new generation can learn about Nelson's self-defense program from this little booklet, which few people even knew existed.