Gene LeBell's Handbook of Self-Defense

This is a well-rounded book on physical combat and covers the rudiments of boxing, wrestling, judo, jujitsu, and karate, drawing from each system those methods which best solve a given problem.

In its raw, practical sense, physical combat cannot be considered a sport ... at least not since the days of gladiators. Boxing, wrestling, judo and other similar sports, with their national variations, have been the result of organized and scientific efforts to make civilized used of man's inborn belligerence. As a result, the most deadly techniques, and those likely to result in great bodily harm, have necessarily been omitted from each of these sports. Those outlawed methods obviously, when cataloged and studied, form the beginnings of any system of serious physical combat.

Gene LeBell is a recognized authority in a Japanese art which is rapidly becoming an American sports craze. He is a holder of the coveted Black Belt award (judo's highest) and is well known as an expert instructor. Mr. LeBell says, "Much of this book was written into tournament records, on gymnasium blackboards, and in students notebooks over more than a dozen years of active competition and practice. Every single technique has been 'field tested' personally and proven successful." Gene LeBell operates his own judo school in Hollywood, California. (Circa 1964)