Krav Maga

I’m still training but haven’t been blogging much! Didn’t go for the last grading as didn’t feel ready, I’d prefer to pass 100% then maybe scrape through. I’ll be updating this blog much more reguarly shortly.

The financial times had a nice article about krav maga on saturday which you can find here - krav maga, the art of israeli self defence it was written by one of the students from the Institute of Krav maga

So last month I got back from New York and managed to make it to class a few times but not as much as I’d have liked. This month I’m going to be going at least twice a week in preparation for the next grading where I’ll be going for P3. I’ve covered most of the material on the syllabus which includes techniques such as releases from bear hugs, more chokes on the ground and so on. One area I haven’t covered yet is the use of sticks for attacking and defending which should be fun. I understand from research that use of small sticks was an integral part of ‘kapap’ training which predates krav maga in the Israeli systems. I’ve also got myself a proper bench and weights for at home as I’m frankly sick of the gym so February is going to be a great month for me! I’ve also ordered some boxing gloves and a mouth guard from the new krav maga shop that the Institute have opened. This means I can start doing more sparring at class which will be cool.

In the next couple of posts I’m going to put up a lot of the video podcasts that have been issued in the past in case you haven’t seen them and talk through some of the issues in them.

So it’s aaaages since I’ve posted here. I’ve been very busy recently actually working in New York since early October. I passed my P2 grading just before coming here which was great. While I’ve been in New York I haven’t managed to carry on my training in krav maga. Unfortunately the only IKMF instructor I could find was only teaching p1 syllabus. I checked out a class with the krav maga federation but didn’t join up. The krav maga techniques were all pretty much the same as those which I’d learnt (my only criticism was there didn’t seem to be as much moving off the line and scanning as I’ve been trained to) but they wanted me to start in the beginning class, as I’m only here for 3 months I didn’t really fancy it so I’ve just been going to the gym a lot. We’ve got a gym in the apartment complex which has been an absolute lifesave as needless to say I’ve been eating and drinking a fair amount. I can’t wait to get back to the UK and start working on the p3 syllabus material!

I’m going to post up plenty more here shortly so watch this space!

Since the grading I’ve been going twice a week more or less every week and preparing for P2. However with the grading being in a while in the future lessons haven’t been exclusively focuses on individual syllabuses which is always good as you get to mix up the techniques and learn more advanced techniques.

To sum up what I’ve got out of it all so far:

• I’ve learnt to protect myself from numerous common attacks. I’ll do a post later listing the techniques I now know.
• I’ve learnt about avoiding and spotting trouble before it gets violent
• I’ve suffered pain!

…The induction was nowhere near as bad as I thought. The warmup was pretty intense but also good fun and then the normal students were separated off to do crazy looking stuff with knives and sticks while Matt talked the noobs through the basic principles of KM. I can’t remember exactly what we covered but it was stuff like inside and outside attacks and defences, moving off the line of attack etc. In all good fun a great introduction to the discipline.

Following that I started attending class once a week, usually going to the Wednesday Hammersmith class before eventually switching to Moorgate on Tuesdays as it’s easier to get to and back from. I found that once a week wasn’t really enough to I then moved onto doing two a week, and I now usually go on Monday/Tuesday and Thursday.

In February I successfully took a grading for ‘P1′ which is the first ‘Practitioner Level’ in the IKMF grading system. On the whole I didn’t find this too hard although the pre-grading seminar was very tough and I was knackered afterwards. It was good to see Eyal up close and get some training in with him before the grading itself.

I started studying krav maga in June of 2007. I’d heard of it before from a couple of friends but didn’t know much about it. A guy I knew through work mentioned he’d been doing it and really enjoyed it and I started thinking about checking it out. What eventually swayed my decision was reading the paper one day and reading about like five separate murders over the course of one weekend in South East London where I live. I’ve lived in South East London most of my life and some would say it’s not the safest place in the world although I haven’t experienced a huge amount of crime myself. Having said that I’ve often felt I’ve been quite lucky and so I eventually decided to find out a bit more about krav maga.

The interweb was of course my research tool of choice and I had a read on wikipedia and liking what I heard looked for some classes in my area. I had a good old Google around and found that there were quite a few different groups operating. many of these seemed to be teaching as style called ‘Commando Krav Maga’ which confused me. Again, I had a research into this and realised there was some controversy surrounding whether this was KM at all or an elaborate money making scheme. A quick look at the overpriced DVDs on the CKM website told me all I really needed to know. From then I checked out the British Academy of Krav Maga who had a good website and the Institute of Krav Maga who also looked good. In the end, not knowing much about the two I went with the Institute as they had more than one instructor and I liked what I read on the site. I booked my induction and quickly had an email from Jon giving me the time and the date to turn up on…

I’ve decided to start a blog to recount my experiences training in Krav Maga for anyone who may be interested. I’ll probably also toss in amusing videos, anecdotes and stories that catch my eye in the popular press that may or may not be related to KM.

Enjoy!