Combatives is the United States Army's term for hand-to-hand combat training and techniques.

Militaries have long taught unarmed combat, both as physical conditioning, and as a supplement to armed combat. Among the samurai of Japan, such combatives were known as Bujutsu (jujutsu, tantojutsu, bōjutsu and so on). Like weapon arts such as kenjutsu, yarijutsu and naginatajutsu, these often were adapted in later stages to cultural or sport forms such as kyūdō, judo, or kendo. Though technology changed with the emergence of gunpowder, the machine gun in the Russo-Japanese War, and the trench warfare of World War I, hand-to-hand fighting methods such as bayonet remained central to modern military training.

Sometimes called Close Quarters Combat (CQC or close combat), World War II-era American combatives were largely codified by Britons William E. Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes. Also known for their eponymous Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife, Fairbairn and Sykes had worked in the British Armed Forces and helped teach the Shanghai Municipal Police (SMP) quick, effective, and simple techniques for fighting with or without weapons in melee situations. Similar training was provided to British Commandos, the First Special Service Force, Office of Strategic Services, Army Rangers, and Marine Raiders. Fairbairn at one point called this system Defendu and published on it, as did their American colleague Rex Applegate. Fairbairn often referred to the technique as "gutter fighting," a term which Applegate used, along with "the Fairbairn system."

Steven Frederic Seagal (born April 10, 1952) is an American action film star, producer, writer, martial artist, guitarist and reserve deputy sheriff. A 7th-dan black belt in Aikido, Seagal began his adult life as an Aikido instructor in Japan. He became the first foreigner to operate an Aikido dojo in Japan.

He later moved to the Los Angeles, California, area where he made his film debut in 1988 in Above the Law. By 1991, he had starred in three successful films, and would go on to achieve greater fame in Under Siege (1992), where he played Navy SEALs counter-terrorist expert Casey Ryback. However both On Deadly Ground (1994, which he directed) and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) did poorly in theaters. During the later half of the 90s, he starred in three more theatrical films and a direct-to-video The Patriot. Aside from Exit Wounds (2001) and Half Past Dead (2002), his career shifted almost entirely to direct-to-video films (often low budget productions and shot in Europe or Asia). Between 1998 to 2009, he appeared in a total of 22 of these. At the age of 59, he returned to the big screen as Torrez in the 2010 film Machete. As of 2011, he's currently busy with the third season of his reality show Steven Seagal: Lawman.