The Other fighting sport

Some people just ask alot of questions about Krav Maga so I thought I would post some here for you:

Is there a Tournament Competition and a Belt System for Krav Maga like Karate?
There are no Tournaments or competitions for Krav Maga like there is for other martial arts. Having no competitions in this system makes for a non-competitive school environment and creates an atmosphere of camaraderie. Krav Maga does have a color belt system of advancement in expertise. Each belt level carries with it various techniques that must be performed in a testing environment. One may or may not desire to even test for a belt.

Why is Krav Maga suddenly so popular?
We have all heard of Karate and Tae Kwon Do even though Krav Maga has been around for about fifty years it had always been reserved for special military, police and protection units. Krav Maga was designed for civilian as well as the police and military. It is only now beginning to reach mass popularity in the United States after being taught to civilians here for about 15 years. The extensive media coverage it has received lately is partially due to movies like Enough, Terminator 3, Tomb Raider2 and Daredevil with celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Shannon Elizabeth, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Garner training. Now more than ever. people want to feel safe and Krav Maga is one of the most efficient ways to protect yourself and your loved ones.

What does the Krav Maga logo mean?
The Krav Maga logo consists of the letters K and M written in Hebrew, artfully combined. An open circle surrounds the letters because the system is open to improvement, by adding, eliminating or changing techniques, exercises, and training methods when a better approach is found. Imi Litchenfeld, the Grand Master of Krav Maga, said of the logo’s open circle “Good things can continue to flow to the system and flawed exercises can flow out.”

Will I Lose weight taking Krav Maga?
No question about it! Losing weight is definitely a side benefit of Krav Maga. Classes always include warm-up and workout. However, it’s more accurate to say you will lose fat. If you’re not overweight by much, your weight reading on the scale may not change significantly. That’s because with Krav Maga, you’ll be losing body fat and gaining lean muscle, which weighs more than fat. You will lose inches and notice the difference in the way your clothes fit on your new, shapelier, toned body.

Who is using Krav Maga?
Krav Maga has recently been taught to U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including but not limited to the following:

Alabama State Police
Beverly Hills Police Department
Burbank Police Department
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms
California Highway Patrol
Drug Enforcement Administration Arrest & Control Unit
El Segundo Police Department
Federal Bureau of Investigations
Florida State Highway Patrol
Illinois State Police
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
Los Angeles Police Department Academy
NYPD
Ohio State Police
Pennsylvania State Police
Santa Monica Police Department
Texas Department of Public Safety
U.S. Coast Guard - Port Security Unit
U.S. Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement
U.S. Department of State
U.S. Immigration Service
U.S. Treasury Department

How is Krav Maga different from a traditional Martial Art?
Krav Maga is not a traditional martial art. NO katas. NO rituals. NO nonsense. Based on simple principles and instinctive movements this reality-based system is designed to teach real self-defense in the shortest possible time. You’ll learn to defend against common chokes and grabs from all angles, punches and kicks, and weapons such as guns, knives and sticks. Just as important Krav Maga will teach you to function under stress, shock and adrenaline rush of a sudden, violent encounter. Tested on the battlefield and in today’s streets, Krav Maga’s practical approach to self-defense will make you safer and more secure. And believe it or not, you’ll have so much fun working out; you won’t be able to wait for your next class!

What is KRAV MAGA
Krav Maga (pronounced “Krahv Magah” and means “Contact Combat” in Hebrew) is the official self-defense and fighting system used by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Israeli Police and Security Services, and numerous U.S. law enforcement agencies. Since 1964, Krav Maga has also been taught to civilians and law enforcement in countries all over the world. This unique training method has been recognized as the most efficient self-defense system for real life situations, emphasizing practical defenses against real attacks. It has been taught to hundreds of law-enforcement agencies and thousands of civilians.

Krav Maga is a simple, effective, self-defense and fitness system emphasizing instinctive movements, practical techniques and realistic training scenarios. It is based on a persons natural reactions, is quick to learn and easy to retain. You can become proficient in months rather than years.

The Krav Maga system incorporates fitness and self-defense like no other system. Krav Maga’s top rated fitness classes compliment training by toning muscle and dramatically improving strength and stamina. Krav Maga’s self-defense classes are a total-body work out that combines kicking, punching, street fighting, ground fighting, and defenses against weapons, getting students into prime physical shape. The total-body workout benefits of the Krav Maga self-defense and fitness system have been featured in publications such as Shape, Mens Fitness, 7X7 Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN KGO channel 7 and the Today Show.

These Questions were courtesy of Krav Maga of San Fransisco

HISTORY

Krav Maga (Hebrew קרב מגע: “contact combat”) is a self-defense and military hand to hand combat system developed in Israel. It came to prominence following its adoption by various Israeli Security Forces and is now used by military and law enforcement personnel, as well as civilians, around the world. The version of Krav Maga taught in civilian martial arts classes is more often a simplified version that emphasizes personal self-defense, and is likely to exclude the killing techniques taught to the military, or the holds and come-alongs taught to police forces; there are legal proscriptions in some countries which govern and constrain the teaching of hazardous or life-threatening techniques to civilians.

Imi Lichtenfeld

The beginning of the system that would become Krav Maga in Israel was developed in Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the 1930s by Imi Lichtenfeld, also known as Imi Sde-Or. (Sde-Or - “Light Field” - is a calque of his surname into Hebrew.) He first taught his fighting system in Bratislava in order to help protect the Jewish community from Nazi militias. Upon arriving in the British Mandate of Palestine prior to the establishment of the Jewish state, Imi began teaching hand-to-hand combat to the Haganah, the Jewish underground army. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Imi became the Chief Instructor of Physical Fitness and Krav Maga at the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) School of Combat Fitness. He served in the IDF for about 20 years, during which time he continued to develop and refine his hand-to-hand combat method. He died in January 1998 in Netanya, Israel.

Expansion outside Israel

Prior to 1980, all experts in Krav Maga lived in Israel. That year marks the beginning of contact between Israeli Krav Maga experts and interested students in the United States. In 1981, a group of six Krav Maga instructors traveled to the US to offer demonstrations of the system, primarily at local Jewish Community Centers. This, in turn, led to demonstrations at the New York Field Office of the FBI and the FBI’s Main Training Center. The result was a visit by 22 people from the US to Israel in the summer of 1981 to attend a basic Krav Maga instructor course. The graduates from this course returned to the US and began to establish training facilities in their local areas. Additional students traveled to Israel in 1984 and again in 1986 to themselves become instructors. At the same time, instructors from Israel continued to visit the US. Law Enforcement training in the US began in 1985.

After the death of the founder

After Imi’s death, a number of different schools and associations developed around the world. Although there is an ongoing debate as to who may claim to be Imi’s legitimate successor(s) and whether the term “Krav Maga” refers to a specific martial art or is simply a generic term (much like Boxing), it is generally accepted that there are four mainstream Krav Maga umbrella organizations:

• The Israeli Krav Maga Association (IKMA)
• The International Krav Maga Federation (IKMF)
• The Krav Maga Association of America (KMAA)
• Krav Maga Incorporated (KMI)

Basic principles

In Krav Maga, there are no hard-and-fast rules. It is not a sport, and there are no competitions. All the techniques focus on maximum efficiency in real-life conditions. Krav Maga generally assumes a no quarter situation; the attacks and defenses are intended to inflict the most pain possible on the opponent. Groin strikes, headbutts, and other efficient and potentially brutal attacks are emphasized.

The guiding principles for those performing Krav Maga techniques are:

• neutralize the threat
• avoid injury
• go from defending to attacking as quickly as possible
• use the body’s natural reflexes
• strike at any vulnerable point
• use any tool or object nearby

The basic idea is to first deal with the immediate threat (being choked, for example), prevent the attacker from re-attacking, and then neutralize the attacker, proceeding through all steps in a straightforward manner, despite the rush of adrenaline that occurs in such an attack. The emphasis is put on taking the initiative from the attacker as soon as possible.

Although Krav Maga shares many techniques with other martial arts, such as Boxing, Savate and Muay Thai (for the punches, kicks, elbows and knees) or Ju-Jitsu, Judo and Wrestling (for the grappling and disarming techniques), the training is often quite different. It stresses fighting under worst-case conditions (for example, against several opponents, when protecting someone else, with one arm unusable, when dizzy, or against armed opponents).

Training in Krav Maga is an aerobic workout, and relies heavily on pads. Students take turns holding pads and doing combatives against the pads. This is important because it allows the student to practice the technique at full strength, and the student holding the pad learns a little of what it feels like to get hit. It can be almost as taxing to hold a pad as to practice against one. Some schools incorporate “Strike and Fight,” which consists of full-contact sparring intended to familiarize the student with the stresses of a violent situation.

Training may employ a speaker system blasting loud music, stroboscope and/or fog machine meant to train the student to ignore peripheral distractions and focus on causing as much damage as possible. Training might also contain ways to deal with situations which could end in fights. Physical and verbal methods to avoid violence whenever possible are taught.

A typical Krav Maga session in a civilian school is about an hour long and mixes aerobic training with self-defense teaching. As levels increase, the instructors focus a little less on aerobic training and slightly more on combatives. First, the instructor will run a very intense drill to get the class’s heart rates up. Then, after stretching, the instructor will teach two or three self-defense techniques. In the beginning the techniques will either be combatives (punches, hammer-fists, elbows, knees and roundhouse kicks, for example) or grappling (breaking out of chokes or wrist-grabs, getting out from under an opponent while on one’s back). After that, the class usually moves to a drill that combines the techniques just taught with an aerobic technique. Finally, there is the final drill intended to burn out the students. Depending on the class - and on the instructor’s mood - this drill may be at the very beginning or at the end of the class.

Levels

Within the International Krav Maga Federation, the following system is used:

The present grading system for (Civilian) Krav Maga is divided into four major categories. The first three are Practitioner, Graduate and Expert. Each of these is further divided to 5 levels, each with a specific curriculum and requirements. Grading tests to pass from one rank to the next contain technical, theoretical and tactical subjects covering self-defense and fighting skills. The highest category of grades are the Master levels of which there are three. Anyone wishing to test for any Expert level must generally do this in Israel as it requires a minimum of two members of the Grading Committee (Eyal Yanilov or any of the other Expert Level 5 members of the Israeli Global Instructor Team) to be present at the grading.

Examples of rank patches which are worn on the training pants uniform, upper left thigh are shown below. The black bars on the rank patches denote the level. Three black bars on the Graduate patch denote Graduate level 3 etc.

Aside from the civilian system, the IKMF has Military, Law Enforcement, Security and VIP/Close Personal Protection syllabi. Each syllabus has its own grading criteria and is generally only taught to people with employment in the relevant fields. Instead of Practitioner and Graduate levels, the Military and Law Enforcement Systems have Fighter, Warrior and Operator levels, whereas the Close Personal Protection Syllabus grades are Bronze Shield, Silver Shield, Gold Shield and Platinum Shield.
Within the Krav Maga Association of America, there are five levels prior to Black Belt.

• Level 1 (Yellow Belt): Key concepts for surviving physical confrontations: instinctive response, simple, aggressive counters, basic combatives (punches, kicks, elbows and knees), defenses against chokes

• Level 2 (Orange Belt): Additional combatives and wider array of self-defense scenarios; increased intensity

• Level 3 (Green Belt): Additional combatives and more difficult self-defense scenarios (such as escaping from chokes or headlocks on the ground); greater number of surprise attacks; increased frequency and intensity of sparring

• Level 4 (Blue Belt): Advanced punch and kick combinations and defenses against these attacks; gun, knife and stick weapon defenses; advanced ground fighting; more regular sparring

• Level 5 (Brown Belt): Greater stress and tension are introduced; multiple attacker scenarios (both with and without weapons) and sparring against multiple opponents

• Black Belt training consists mostly of specialized military and security applications of Krav Maga, such as defense against a hand grenade or long rifle, third-party protection, sentry removal, and so forth.

In 1964, Grandmaster Imi Lichtenfeld finished his military service and adapted Krav Maga to civilian frameworks. In Israel, the style is introduced to elementary and high school students on the national curriculum, and is taught at the Wingate Institute, one of the world’s leading physical fitness centers. It is taught to men, women, and children under the auspices of the Israeli Ministry of Sport and Education.

Krav Maga is the official system of hand-to-hand combat and self-defense employed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Security Forces, the Israeli Police and Military Police and its Special Operations and Anti-Terrorist Units. The IDF including their Special Forces Units, Israeli Police, and Internal Security Branches currently uses this style on a day-to-day basis.

Krav Maga is taught to all ages and abilities, at community centers, schools, and clubs throughout the world. Krav Maga is taught to Sky Marshals, commercial airline crews. It is also taught in the United States, Canada, Brazil, United Kingdom, Ireland, Croatia, France, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, Italy, Poland, Japan, Thailand, Australia, Hungary, Serbia, Denmark, New Zealand and India.

In the United states, personnel from various Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement agencies and Military units around the world have received training in Krav Maga, including: the Federal Bureau of Investigation, AFOSI Anti-terrorism Specialty Team, United States Marine Corps, United States Marshals Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration Arrest and Control Unit, U.S. Treasury Department, Immigration and Naturalization Service, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, several divisions of the U.S. Coast Guard, and police and sheriff’s offices in New York, Illinois, Texas, Alabama, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, California, and Maryland. In addition to the Special Operations Forces of Israel (i.e. Sayeret Matkal, YAMAM, etc.), several special units from other countries have adopted this system for their hand-to-hand combat. These units include GIGN, FBI HRT, and SWAT, among others.

• Archaeologist Emma Fielding trains Krav Maga with an instructor named Nolan in Dana Cameron’s novel, More Bitter than Death New York, Avon Books, 225.
• Sam Fisher of Tom Clancy’s video game franchise Splinter Cell is a practitioner of Krav Maga. This is stated in all 3 of the Splinter Cell books.
• In preparation for her role of the T-X in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines actress Kristanna Loken is reported in the Special Edition DVD commentary to have trained in Krav Maga.
• The character Sydney Bristow of the TV series Alias is a practitioner of Krav Maga.
• Paris Geller and Doyle McMaster of Gilmore Girls practice Krav Maga.
• Jennifer Lopez’s character Slim in the movie Enough learned Krav Maga.
• Oliver Platt’s character Russell Tupper can be seen practicing Krav Maga in the TV series Huff.
• Tony Almeida in the television show 24 was a certified Krav Maga instructor.
• A squad of units in the Heroscape game are called Krav Maga Agents, presumably using a futuristic form of the system.
• An ex-girlfriend of Ted’s in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother learned Krav Maga.
• Megan Reeves of the TV series Numb3rs is a Krav Maga instructor at the Y.
• Sarah Silverman takes Krav Maga with Ari Gold’s wife in the TV series Entourage.
• Clarice Starling is seen practicing something along the lines of Krav Maga in The Silence of the Lambs.
• Wolverine and Shadowcat of the X-Men are trained in Krav Maga, among many other martial arts techniques.
• Ziva David, of the TV series NCIS, practices what is assumed to be (given that she is a Mossad officer) Krav Maga.
• In the Law & Order episode “Public Service Homicide”, a TV producer hires a Krav Maga instructor to train a rape victim so that she can defend herself while confronting her rapist on air.
• Tania Raymonde’s character Cynthia performs Krav Maga on Malcolm in
• Malcolm in the Middle on the playground of their school.

courtesy of WIKIPEDIA

Etymology

The generic name in Hebrew is usually translated as “close combat.” The word maga (מגע) means “contact”. The word krav (קרב) means “fight” or “battle.” In Classical Hebrew Krav means “close”. According to this the traslation would be “close contact”. A more modern translation like “contact combat,” though, can be misconstrued as something like “kickboxing” or “full contact karate.” English-speakers often shorten the term to Krav.

As a historical note, the original name of Krav Maga was Kapap (sounds like “ka-PAPP”) which was an acronym for Krav Panim el Panim, face-to-face combat.

courtesy of WIKIPEDIA

Latter,

Nick

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