My experiences with krav maga so far - Part 1
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 had one goal for the past three years. Get thin enough to attend a Krav Maga class. A little background first:
In the beginning of 2008 (and, of course, before that date) I was an extremely fat, 47 year old 5′ 9″ guy, profoundly out of shape, and, quite frankly, might have died from the complications of obesity. But I digress…. I started researching, and came up my own scientific method of calorie control. It has worked fabulously, and I continue to lose weight, slowly but surely.
Now I’m here, in March ‘09, at 230 pounds, and well enough to achieve my goal of the past 3 years, of learning Krav Maga!
Friday, I audited one Krav Maga class in Manhattan. Let me tell you all, this is the REAL deal people.! And you know what else? The trainer, an immediately obvious, dedicated, extremely experienced & down to earth woman, was absolutely awesome! She went through some of the basics, and, I met some very nice people as well. She (the trainer), “jump started” each class, getting everyone started by showing the class what to do, once in fast motion, and quite a few times in slow-mo. Then, relying one the OTHER instructers in the class (yep! The people there, all had a few years of Krav under their “belts” already) she stepped up the practicing to real-world situations of surviving knife and gun attacks.
Saturday, I took my first live (ie; as a participant paid class), and, though very overwhelmed by the cardio workout (AFTER the class) of well over an hour, outdoors, I knew that Krav Maga, and the trainer, was for me!!
My intuitive, gut feelings of the past couple of years, about Krav Maga was spot on. It was awesome. It far and away, a million times more EFFICIENT than other “martial arts” at teaching people how to stop attacks, both armed and unarmed, IMMEDIATELY. And that’s really what we want, right? We wanna survive, as uninjured as possible, and, ideally, with no injuries, right?
So that’s my experience. It was challenging, it was hard, but wow, it was a lot of fun, and I knew more than when I went in. What more can one ask for?
Wo! Hold it right there, will ya guy? If I would have caught your statement about CKM about being a SCAM, I would not have posted my first comment! I responded to you blog reading only the first few lines, then, I skipped down to the need. I made a mistake. And here’s my rebuttal to your blog on CKM.
SCAM? nonsense! The class I took was CKM. SCAM? Not possible. It was inexpensive, in fact, so affordable ANYONE with even a minium wage job salary can afford it, which, I think, nullifies your reasons for saying CKM was a scam, since your claim of being a scame was based solely on an econmic reason..the instructor was super skilled, dedicated to AUTHENTIC CKM/KM training, incredibly competant, caring & awesome, dedicated and real, and, the bang for the buck was, quite honestly, OVERWHELMING. and, if you would have actually dug a little deeper, you would have seen that CKM was featured on Weaponolgy on the Military Channel on cable TV, with Moni Azik, being the featured (and one of the founding) trainers from Israel. All trainers must ultimately answer to Moni. And, CKM has been THOROUGLY established for longer then you’ve probably been alive. So! On that note….
Though the physical media (DVD, tape, etc) might, or might not be, overpriced (I doubt that too), that is absolutely no reflection on the veracity and authenticity of CKM! I find your analysis of the authenticity of the school of CKM INFINATELY shallow, and totally and completely non-factual.
I would respectfully like you to RETRACT or EDIT your blog concerning “ckm being a scam”.
Hi Marshall,
The reason I state that CKM is a scam is that Moni has no provable connection to Imi nor does he have any qualification as a krav maga instructor. Being on TV does not make something true as I hope you are aware. If you want more information then please check out this site http://www.somersetkravmaga.co.uk/commando.html which has information both from sources in the IDF and former high level members of CKM.
I’m sure that the instructor you had may have been great, and the techniques in CKM could be alright seeing as Moni is accomblished at judo and jiujitsu by all accounts. That’s fine, but it’s not krav maga and it’s nothing to do with the IDF. That is why I say it’s a scam. Let me know if you want to discuss this further.