In his second published work, Combat Judo to Kajukenbo: The Evolution of Martial Arts Systems in the Military 1943-1970, Barron Shepherd covers and uncovers the WWII era Restricted Judo course, long thought to have been developed by Dermot Pat O’Neill. Barron hits the ground running uncovering and giving proper credit to the WWII hero who actually developed it. Barron then very impressively expands on and modifies the Restricted Judo course.
The book then moves on to one of Barron’s systems that he calls “O’Neill H2H”, based off the tactics and techniques that were taught by Dermot Pat O’Neill to the First Special service force. He incorporates a small hand full of techniques taught by O’Neill that were caught on film into modern usage with a tactical pen.
If you’re into knives well there is something for you in this book as well. Barron puts together a knife system and delves again into Dermot Pat O’Neill’s concepts from the single knife technique that was shown in O’Neill’s Proposed US marine Corp manual during the 60’s.
The chapter on “The Science of hitting someone with a planet”, Is just that, a science. Barron breaks it down beautifully avoiding confusing terms and terminology making it easy to understand the concepts needed to make throws work in the street. I honestly dont think anyone could haven’t written it better which makes this section my personal favorite in the book as well as the following chapter, “Dirty Judo”. Lastly there is a chapter on Kajukenbo which like the rest of the book delivers in instruction.
Laid out in a progressive manner, each section builds upon the previous one. The instruction is clear and concise. It is well laid out and well thought out. There is no fluff or filler in this book, it serves as a blueprint for those who are serious about their personal combatives training. This book is almost two hundred pages of nothing but instruction. Barron quite articulately and almost single handedly propels the old antiquated combative systems into the future.
Combat Judo to Kajukenbo will be a manual that you will constantly refer to in your training.
