imi lichtenfeld is pretty universally recognized as the founder of krav maga, and it seems he was studying a variety of fighting styles and cherrypicking and combining their best moves certainly as early as the 1940’s – but to debate those details, while interesting, is to miss the point of krav. let me state first and foremost that i am not an instructor, have been studying only a year, and am making no claim to be a badass – i’m just presenting my perspective, as a lowly student with krav maga worldwide, in los angeles.
the head of kmw is a guy named Darren Levine, who trained with Lichtenfeld, and interestingly is an assistant district attorney in Los Angeles, who focuses on LEOs, and is an expert in use-of-force issues that officers might encounter, etc. so, it does cater a lot to the law enforcement community, and as such has a highly pragmatic nature.
my instructors emphasize pragmatics above all else, and that the essence of krav is to get home safe. it’s not about heroics, honor, tradition, bushido, etc. As a matter of fact, i would say it’s anti-tradition, in that it is highly adaptive. krav freely borrows/steals whatever it considers the best moves from other arts, keeping it all as simple as possible. the level one curriculum is basically this: fighting stance, the jab and cross from boxing (somewhat modified), a good strong kick to the balls, elbow and knee strikes from muay thai, a hammerfist, defenses against several different chokes, and fighting from your back when your opponent is still standing. I’m probably forgetting a few things, but basically it’s those few simple effective moves, borrowed/stolen from their various origins, and practiced ad nauseam in a context of aerobic exhaustion and pretty good conditioning (burpees, etc).
one thing i’ve found really eye-opening and unusual in the fight class i attend is that our instructor encourages us to punch and kick each other in the nuts, if your opponent is leaving himself open. a lot of martial arts, because they have too much ‘honor’ to throw a ‘cheap shot’ like a kick to the nuts, lose track of how open they leave themselves to a nut shot.
krav is definitely not for everyone. the notion is this: if someone were trying to kill you, or if you were trying to defend your family, what simple, no-bullshit moves would you like to have drilled to the point of instinct? it makes no claims to gracefulness, originality of moves, ancient mysticism, etc. it DOES claim to be a highly pragmatic, simple, instinctual fighting style that is designed for self-defense against bad people trying to hurt you.
how effective it actually IS will depend on the instructor, the student, the school. having been a diletante in several different martial arts, I feel like this school is the best instruction and the most well-rounded style i have personally experienced. but i make no claims to great martial arts expertise.
in other martial arts, i often had the annoying experience of being told that my moves, while good, were not appropriate to that art. a kung fu instructor (forgive me, it was the 80’s…) told me my kicks were very strong, but not pretty enough. that was my last day of kung fu. when i threw at oyama karate in nyc, the instructor told me it was a beautiful throw, but we don’t do that here. and it tae kwon do when i accidentally (honest!) kicked a guy in the thigh, i was told ‘we don’t kick to the legs here’. in none of those places did i mean to break the rules, i never meant any disrespect, but the fact is that i find it silly to go into a fight with a head jammed full of rules as to what highly effective moves i should avoid so as to show respect to tradition. in contrast, my krav instructors tell us that if it works, we should do it. I find that intelligent and refreshing.
my personal thought is that, at 43, i don’t particularly want to fight unless my family or my life is threatened. and if those things ARE threatened, i want to neutralize the threat as effectively as possible and get the hell out of there. that is the emphasis of my krav school (krav maga worldwide, at ventura blvd and sepulveda in los angeles).
i DO NOT have disrespect for traditional martial arts. they’re just not what i personally am looking for at this point.
as for instructors getting krav certs really quickly, it’s certainly possible that that has happened SOMEWHERE. but being an instructor in krav is a bit different: krav has different class levels, and i know there are some lower level instructors who have permission to teach a level one class (basically straight punches, elbows, knees, ball kicks, conditioning) but NOT a level two, three, 4 or 5 class. so krav readily admits that it has some people teaching level one who are not high level black belts, but are nonetheless good level one instructors. plus, they are always supervised by a much higher level instructor for the duration of the class, in my experience. more often they will assist the higher level instructor, which often entails helping him correct people’s form, or helping demonstrate.
again, i’m just one beginning student at one krav school, and i’m just talking from my own experience. i’m sure there’s a lot of bullshit ‘krav’ out there, especially as there’s money to be made – but the fact that there are bozos who run around pretending to be Navy SEALs in no way implies that Navy SEALs don’t exist. the real krav guys i know are not flashy, are not hugely muscled (more wiry), and don’t throw a lot of crazy spinning moves. they don’t look for fights in bars, and would probably be pretty difficult to provoke. but i would not want to be the guy who tried to jump them in the parking lot.