Krav nuitriders, Bumping with stupidity in threads from 2003.

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.

Did you really just bump this thread with this:

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.

The dreaded dishonorable “nut shot” is taught in a high number of arts. You have no clue what you are talking about. The dates are underneath your name to the left. Please pay attention.

as for instructors getting 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.
Many of the things in this post have been disputed. You can’t speak for all of Krav then say yes, there is some bad Krav. As many of the more recent Krav threads point out, it has gone down that slippery slope.

I feel for and understand everything you’ve stated about KM. A couple years ago I had my own stint of KM. I’m now one of the biggest critics of KM. Much of what your saying I felt as well with regards to tradtional MAs. There were also a number of 40 somethings such as yourself that had very similar attitudes in my class. But they are a very different breed from the 40 yr olds traditional martial artists who’ve been practicing for some time. I find the older TMA dudes especially from something such as JJ are stoic very dangerous dudes. Compared to the KM guys as living in a fantasy world thinking their Norris.

I also feel that KM, mostly KMWorldwide really limits the potential of the practioner. They stress use what works, but moves are really limited. The whole system of KMW is lliterally completely laid out in their book. You’ll notice they don’t get into certain basic techniques until much later.

We just had an KM dude join our MMA gym with the same attitude and was immediatly humbled by the lack of development he even had in basic boxing.

Not only is striking the nuts taught and encouraged in many arts it even named. Example Monkey Steals Peach in various wushu schools and Kingeri (lit Golden Kick) in karate are direct attacks to the jewels. Nothing special of eye opening about it. If it was to you you probably didn’t train worth crap.

I learned KM from aircraft mechanics in the Israeli Air Force that I met while there for a few months at Dov Hoz airport in Tel Aviv (What a great party town!). What a beating I took!

It was nothing like what I currently see here in the states. I don’t have a belt or rating. I found it like the street fighting I did as a kid, but on steroids. Alot of it I already knew from other things and arts I had been involved with so it came easy to me. I really loved it!

I have no association with any of the governing bodies of KM and claim none. I teach it to my kids here in school and to women as self defense. I just tell them where I learned it, but I am not a “instructor” or anything. I also teach some Aiki Jujitsu stuff along with boxing, and a few other things. I do have a belting system for the kids (Mostly for me to know what they know and of course to show them progress)) and certificates for them. Some kids really get it, some don’t, but they all get something out of it. No, I don’t charge them anything and I pay for thier belts.

I also teach them that fighting is only if you cannot de-escalate, difuse, or escape. It isn’t for screwing around with your freinds or for proving how bad you are, you go looking for “Billy Badass” he will find you and show you how little you know. Walking or running away is a perfect solution to almost all situations, getting killed or seriously injured is not.

IMO KM in it’s original form is a great fighting system, but as it is now, following the BJJ and TKD business models, it is more about money, and I just am not good with that. I mean I could go get rated as an instructor, for somewhere around $7000 I think, but it isn’t really worth the hassle or cash to get a paper that say’s I can fight when I already know I can, and have turned out some really fierce kids in my time teaching(17 years now, man time flies).

I am not saying the Civillian version isn’t good, it is, but very drawn out, and very expensive.
A shame really, it could be very, very popular with the everyday guy and gal if not for those drawbacks.

I guess for a noob I am long winded!

Have a great day
Sargeslide

http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4283

[QUOTE=Gezere;2530003]Not only is striking the nuts taught and encouraged in many arts it even named. Example Monkey Steals Peach in various wushu schools and Kingeri (lit Golden Kick) in karate are direct attacks to the jewels. Nothing special of eye opening about it. If it was to you you probably didn’t train worth crap.[/QUOTE]
There’s also the Shaolin “Organ seeking kick”, which is my favorite technique name.

[QUOTE=Sargeslide;2643336]I learned KM from aircraft mechanics in the Israeli Air Force that I met while there for a few months at Dov Hoz airport in Tel Aviv (What a great party town!). What a beating I took![/QUOTE]

What?
I don’t know if you got beat up by some mechanics, maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, that’s not the point.

IAF mechanics are taught a very very basic version of h2h combat, it’s called KM, because that’s a generic term for h2h fighting in the IDF. Maybe these guys happened to be pro fighters along with being mechanics, maybe they were just better than you.

But trust me about this, the IDF does not teach any special h2h KM voodo martial art. It’s mostly aggression, and use of your weapon as a blunt object, some specific units are taught arresting techniques, but nothing particularly special.
What most people are sold on, is just the apparent mysticism of the IDF’s Jew-jitsu.

If you’re interested I’ve explained this in great detail in the past:
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=101223&p=2463609#post2463609

Oh, and yes, TA is a great party town.

[QUOTE=Permalost;2643415]There’s also the Shaolin “Organ seeking kick”, which is my favorite technique name.[/QUOTE]

How is training to smash my foot into THIS going to help me when I am attacked by four body builders on PCP and all my sport training keeps me from using groin shots?

[QUOTE=Vince Tortelli;2643605]

How is training to smash my foot into THIS going to help me when I am attacked by four body builders on PCP and all my sport training keeps me from using groin shots?[/QUOTE]
The name is not to be taken literally. Your kick is going to make them seek an organ, which means seek the nearest church and pray that they’re going to survive the encounter with you.