Advice regarding resolutions and goals for Krav Maga practitioners.

Other than real world application, Krav Maga has nearly no benchmarks for personal performance.  Although we train to deal with any type of violent altercation, we hope that we will never be forced to use these skills in the real world.  The closest true measure of your development is testing for your progression from one rank to the next.  But even testing itself is not a true assessment of your abilities.  In the words of Eyal, “your patch or belt will not fight for you”.  It is up to you to set your own goals and push to achieve them.  It is our job as instructors to guide you towards setting and achieving your goals.  It is also our job to structure the training such that you can gauge your progress and develop as a Krav Maga practitioner.  When we teach, we focus on a variety of things that improve you as a fighter and a Krav Maga practitioner.  Among these, there are self defense techniques, striking, ground fighting, full contact drills, stamina and physical strength drills, agility exercises, coordination and movement training, and much more.  Within each of these there are tiers and little nuances that can serve as guidelines for your progression as a Krav Maga fighter.

Let’s start by taking a simple pushup.  How many can you do today?  Has that number improved since you started training?  Has your form improved when you do these?  Obviously we don’t test you on pushups, but getting stronger, more agile and fit is a good sign of your progress.

Let’s push this a little bit further.  Were you able to do a proper one/two punch combination before you started training at Impact?  Can you now?  Do you have more power when you strike? Can you strike correctly while moving towards and away from your opponent?  What if we add lateral moment?  How about more advanced combinations? Are you more proficient at dealing with multiple attackers?  The point is that within each aspect of your training there is always room for improvement, and it is up to you strive to be better today than you were yesterday.

Let’s take another example: 360 defense against an overhead stab.  The technique and its execution have a number of fine points that can act as internal benchmarks for your progression.  In the beginning your goal may simply be to carry out the appropriate block, without worrying about the counterattack and other nuances.  Once that is mastered you can begin to focus on the finer details of the block, the hand position, weight distribution, etc.  Then comes the counterattack.  Is it simultaneous?  Is your elbow down?  Are you generating enough power and not compromising the defense?  Each of these points is a separate goal that can be reached at your own schedule.  Then come the follow up combatives.  Are they fluid?  Do they hit meaningful targets?  Did you scan after completion?  Now can you do just as well when blocking with the other hand?  What if we add multiple attackers, as well as the element of surprise and stress?  The bottom line is, each time you practice you should strive to improve each nuance of the technique.  Remember, a 360 defense executed by a Krav Maga practitioner with a year of training should look significantly better than that of a person with a week of training under his/her belt.

Set your training goals and stick to them.  Ask your instructors to help you realize these goals.  We are always more than happy to give you constructive feedback to help you reach a higher level of proficiency.

Good luck with your training!