Krav Maga is not Choreography

With Krav Maga gaining popularity around the world, lots of new places are springing up claiming to have the best Krav Maga instructors in the world teaching the most realistic and practical system of self defense and hand to hand combat on the planet.  With so many choices out there how do students select the best one?

There are many factors to consider when selecting the training center that is right for you.  Obvious choices include school ambiance, accessibility, class schedule, instructors’ Krav Maga qualifications and affiliations with respected Global Organizations.  But taking these criteria aside, how do you know that you are being taught realistic Krav Maga?

To address this question, I am going to summarize a recent post that one of our Instructors, Alan Predolin, made on his FB page:  Krav Maga is not a choreographed, memorized set of techniques.  It is a fighting system that is more comprehensive than most other combat system.  This means that a good Krav Maga practitioner must be a good stand up fighter, he/she has to be well-versed in ground fighting techniques that are applicable for the street, he/she has to learn to defend against a variety of weapons, fight in unpredictable circumstances and unconventional environments and ultimately deal with multiple attackers.

So what does this have to do with spotting a fake instructor?  Everything!  A true Krav Maga Instructor will teach, advocate and demonstrate one main principle: Dealing with the intent of the attacker.

Krav Maga deals with real world threats, where the intent of the attacker is to harm or kill you.  Hence, authentic Krav Maga doesn’t just concentrate on the immediate attack at hand, but rather deals with the attacker himself.   For example, Krav Maga techniques should work against an attacker that is not just throwing one punch and stopping, but may continue with more attacks.  Do the techniques taught to you address this?  Does your instructor have you practice these scenarios in class? What if the attacker attempts to stab with a knife, will he stab once and stop and wait for you to do your defense.  NO!  Techniques taught to you should keep the behavior, reactions and the intent of the attacker in mind.

Same applies for weapon disarms.  If you are taught to focus on a disarming the weapon and forgetting that the problem and intent rests in the person wielding the weapon then you are taught fake Krav Maga.  Neutralize the person and the threat with the weapon is gone.  Try to disarming the weapon alone, and in a real life or death struggle you will die.

Krav Maga should be simple and effective.  Fancy moves and crazy techniques work well in choreographed confines of a movie screen, but not in real life.  A fight is unpredictable; where the only constant is that your attacker(s) is out to hurt you.  The self defense system taught to you should reflect that notion.  Significant time in classes should be spend on striking, aggression drills, fighting drills,  conditioning as well as techniques to succeed in a real life or death confrontation.