Combatives (or combat at close quarters) is a derivative of close combat used during wartime operations by such fighting forces as the commandos, special operations forces, and the USMC.
It is not a traditional martial art or mixed martial arts style, it is instead an aggressive mindset geared towards eliminating your attacker expediently.
Many individuals practise what is termed traditional WW2 combatives and pay strict homage to the syllabus of Fairbairn, Styers, Applegate and Biddle.  All noted Second World War close combat instructors of much experience and skill.  That is they're choice.
 
We do not.

Modern Combatives utilises the core skills set but also feels free to introduce other close combat concepts into the training. We tailor what we need to fit the situation at hand for today's World.  If it works USE it - if it doesn't BIN it!   We do after all live in the real world of gang attacks, security threats and street assaults, and as such Modern Combatives is adaptive to the situation on the ground.  Quite often in a violent encounter we will have no second chances. 
This is our approach and viewpoint to combatives and self protection, it is not a style or system but a range of "serial" strikes and attacks designed to help the individual prevail under a violent assault from an aggressor.       

So, while we train in the more well known techniques we also intersperse them with a variety of concepts based on our own training and experiences from working in the security industry and from working in high-threat environments worldwide.
Our approach to close combat is flexible and we are not locked into a technique or syllabus unless we have confidence in it gained from first hand experience.  

I like the Line, "good technique is not a museum piece."
Its says it all. 
We respect what has gone before, but we can also look to the present and future as well.  We never stop learning.

For us close combat can be delivering a face smash or chin jab to an attacker, close combat can be using a stick or brick as an impact weapon, it can be biting, gouging, spitting, smashing limbs, breaking bones.

It can be stabbing with an improvised weapon, scalding with a hot drink in the attackers face, slamming them into a wall or kicking them into the ground.  

It can be jamming a firearm into the bad guy's guts and unloading a half-magazine in at close quarters, or maybe just pistol whipping the bastard to put him down. 

Is the picture we are painting vivid enough yet?

Close combat has no rules and no referees; you do what you have to do to survive.  It doesn't matter what the technique is called as long as you get a result from the strike and it has POWER behind it (This doesn't stop some bonehead prattling on about "ah, but you have to deliver a chin-jab in exactly the only correct way as in the manuals" - nonsense there are many different types of chin jabs/strikes - the only way that works is the way that works best for YOU!).
Some combative practitioners, who have come late to the game, say early 1990's onwards - now have an almost zealot-like loathing for future instructors who want to tread the path.  Look in the dictionary and you will find a picture of these types under "hypocrite." They started out with one martial arts style, then another, now they try to re-write history and play combative "catch-up" in order to gain some kind of legitimacy as the first to promote this.  They have missed the point completely about close combat and what it involves. 

Best advice is to ignore the log-in legends (and their yes men) and treat them with disdain.  

But enough of negative influences.

I started close combat training in the mid 1980's as a teenager when it was virtually unheard of.  I had a combat background in boxing intermingled with regular wrestling training and kickboxing skills.  It was a good grounding in unarmed combat.  However I was looking for more practical skills. 

My first instructor was also my old boxing coach and had served with the Airborne forces during the War.        

He was a punchy little street-fighter, who knew from first hand experience how to throw a powerful chin jab and put in devastating boot kicks.  Little Tommy taught basics only - basic strikes, kicks, and personal weapons skills, but above all else he instilled aggressive ATTITUDE!    It was definitely a condensed curriculum. 

He summed it up with the line, "That's all you need - after that it's up to you to find out the rest and work it your own way."
And it's true. You need one good experienced instructor to show you the fundamentals of how it works in the real world - then the rest of the journey can be yours alone.

It is a personal thing with no rights and no wrongs - ONLY RESULTS MATTER!!

That is what we train for - results. End of story. 

Close combat - to quote Carl Cestari, "is not rocket science" despite the best efforts of some to turn it into almost a quasi-science/psychology lesson.  At base level, and this has been said many, many times before, it comes down to the individual. 
When it all goes belly up in the dark car park late at night, no combative guru will be there to help, the DVD's from "celebrity" instructors will seem inconsequential and probably most of the reading matter that you have researched or downloaded will be the last thing on your mind.   

What will matter will be pure naked aggression and powerful strikes, all gained from realistic scenario training.

Anything else is just "fluff."

I would like to leave you with a quote by the legendary US security operator Kelly McCann, which perfectly sums up what close combat is all about;  "A martial art is what you do with someone, (a reciprocal arrangement of strike, parries, and counter-strikes); combatives is what you do TO someone."

Read it through a few times until you get it - it's all there in that sentence.

Look forward to training with you soon.