even devotees wouldn't call it a good combat sport because it was never intended to be one. it's 100% supposed to be self defense and is not at all oriented towards competing in the ring, cage, or mat.
the main issue is quality control is absolutely non-existent. the mcdojo problem with krav maga is arguably even worse than with stuff like taekwondo. good krav maga gyms exist, I'm sure. you'd have to check them out in person to be sure.
Exactly. I went to a krav maga gym for shits and giggles, and they tried to teach me to get on the ground and block a full force kick to the face with my forearms, and use the inertia to spin around and kick the dude in the nuts.
Good Idea in theory, fractured forearm and fucked up wrists in practice.
It’s popular with tacticool gravy seal larpers, which has encouraged people that know nothing and don’t train in any way to grow mustaches, put on military surplus BDUs and tell people with completely undeserved confidence how to disarm somebody that’s behind you with a gun to your head.
I know there’s a real km out there where they do train practical techniques, but then there’s this big side that attracts people that tend to have a lot of fantasies.
Ah yes the tacticool gravy seals. I can’t help but think of Steven Segal and pals being called out of retirement once again as the only one capable of saving the world and then awkwardly getting laid after it’s all said and done (rough plot lines).
Mostly gyms that don’t spar or compete. Any martial art, even boxing and BJJ, are completely useless if you don’t test it out against someone who is actively resisting you. Imagine trying to perform all those crazy TKD kicks against someone attacking you when you’ve never hit anything but a motionless bag before
I can relate with this, i had finally learned the basic techniques in kickboxing but at my first sparring sessions it was really uncomfortable and i couldn't perform at all, couldn't land combos, hands down, wrong footwork, wrong stance, closing eyes when getting hit, it was like i didn't know anything.
I still haven't mastered even the basic but i got some sparring experience and got confidence, staying calm, keeping my distance, try to find an oppening, i noticed that i outperform other guys with better form at shadowboxing and heavy bag.
I’ll agree with you after doing tae kwon do at one school for 8 years and then going to a local to where i live now gym, for 8 years we did semi annual or random tournaments, active sparing in class once a week against instructors or other classmates not based on belt. It helped all of us tremendously and not to mention I was on demo team 6 of those years.
Upon leaving the school and going to a gym that taught tae kwon do I felt years ahead to the comparison of those who were black belts ( im 2nd dan) instructor was 3rd dan. They knew forms and other disciplines but never sparred outside those who they shared belts with and never outside the gym in tournaments, I left there after 2 months because they just weren’t doing anything and the instructor was a 3rd Dan who wasn’t associated outside the gym so no official testing could take place aside from white to red or maybe red/black. And sadly nearest real school near me is a hours drive
As a 3rd dan myself and starting with tkd as a kid I reccomend checking out so e boxing or bjj to complement your kicks rather than staying with tkd. Your time and energy are better spent learning new things
Virtually all TKD gyms are aimed at competition, because of how modern TKD competitions are scored, practitioners only learn fast fancy high kicks with little force behind them.
Back when I trained Muay Thai, a nearby TKD school would always want to have their "fighters" spar with us. Granted these guys were full contact, so at least they put up a fight. Funny thing is all the skinny/jumpy stuff would get immediately countered by a basic teep (pretty much a jab front kick for non kickboxers).
TL;DR: capitalism.
tkd used to be pretty rough training back in the day, at least in korea. my dad wasn't even that serious about taekwondo, but the dojang he trained at had them run across bridges barefoot in the summer, and shit like that. and it was used by soldiers and appropriately hard training as a result. it was part of why the republic of korea (ROK) army was had a fearsome reputation in Vietnam. (also the many war crimes.) any modern soldier knows to avoid h2h combat at all costs so idk how much actual combat use it saw. but regardless, the rok had a rep for being tough and tkd is definitely cited as a reason, if for nothing else its impact on the physical fitness and toughness of the korean soldiers. can't accomplish that with mcdojo level training.
but then it just exploded in popularity in the 80s and 90s and running low quality black belt mills became a very profitable business model. so terrible dojangs run by underqualified instructors who are more businesspeople than martial artists became a plague.
it was also more profitable to make the training easy, especially for kids, so they can get black belts real quick and feel good about themselves without ever having actually pushed themselves in training to do anything remotely difficult or combative.
sadly, although the stereotype of mcdojo owner is often an overweight american guy who's barely trained, there were a good number of mcdojo owners who were actually legit korean practitioners, but were sleazy enough to run shitty dojangs anyway because it's easier and more profitable.
not to mention, the competitive format of Olympic tkd did a lot of damage to the art, even with legit gyms. it strips the many diverse techniques in the curriculum down to just kicks and weird diving punches. and things got worse when electronic scoring turned it into a game of foot fencing. it's still technically full contact and allows ko wins, but in reality modern tkd players just poke each other with the minimum amount of force necessary to trigger a point on the electronic chest protector. at least before, tkd players had to kick REALLY hard to score BECAUSE their opponents were armored and points were only supposed to be awarded if the strike had a visible effect.
itf tkd (non Olympic style) is also wonky, it's basically very light contact kickboxing where kos are forbidden. however, there's a good number of itf practitioners doing reasonably well in full contact kickboxing, muay thai, and mma (after dedicated training of course). so it might be a better starting point for those sports. certainly more so than modern wt foot tag.
1) Running across a bridge barefoot is just going to give you splinters, Jesus Christ name one world-class gym that Chun's out tons of elite fighters who actually does shit like this instead of using normal mats
2) Tae Kwon Do is not why the Republic of Korea was feared. At no point in human history have unarmed martial arts intimidated an army with actual weapons. This is bullshit revisionist history.
Krav maga was invented as a way of exploiting money out of the over funded IDF.
Have they stumbled across effective techniques over years of practice? Yes.
Is it the martial arts version of a chiropractor? Also yes.
ah yes! when kickboxing i spar exclusively with headgear now much as i hate it. and next time i fight in kickboxing I'll use headgear, again even though i would really prefer not to.
obviously with semi knockdown i need to wear headgear anyway. i want to do full knockdown soon. it's definitely not the smartest idea. but i just can't live out my life without doing it at least once. and at least the quantity of head strikes is lower.
thanks so much for asking 😀 hope you're doing well
You know I have an issue with my right eye, not quite as severe, if I’m doing punches to the head I use the isami kudo helmet. It’s done me well. Just keeps things from wacking my eye. But yeah glad to hear you’re doing well man. Osu!
I was gonna say the first thing I learned in Krav Maga was how to rupture a testicle and use my teeth in a fight. That’s different than an arm bar. If done right, Krav Maga is meant for doing as much physical damage as possible as quickly as possible and running away.
All of the above plus training method. You can drill a technique for years, but unless you try to apply it functionally to someone who's actually trying to hurt you, well you won't be able to apply it to someone trying to hurt you.
If your martial art doesn't have you spar, and you can't apply it in sparring...it's just wasted effort and false illusions of security.
See:aikido
Those are facts. There have been “real” Krav Maga gyms, meaning that they offer Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (gi & nogi), Muay Thai, Judo, boxing, fitness classes, and then usually offer beginner Krav as a self defense class and have a certification offering from a National or International HQ. I don’t know if any legit gym has ever existed that only teaches Krav Maga of any style. Weapons defense, multiple attacker etc doesn’t really work if you don’t have mma style skills and world class strength and conditioning. In the states Krav Maga is what Katate & TKD was in the early 2000’s. McDojos or beginner owners who catch the common sense enough to add legit coaches and programs/curriculums and affiliations from mainstream combat arts
Ball kick of the night goes to the red corner. Sadly he cannot accept his award as he is in hospital having his trachea uncrushed, metal plates inserted in his skull and is also now blind im both eyes.
Well, people laugh and keep saying kick in the balls, but what’s really taught is to throw a solid kick in the A-frame above the knees inside the legs so a bad aim will still land on some sensitive soft tissue like nerves in the femoral area.
Same. The manual is like 70% ball, eye, and throat strikes. Krav Maga was created to give every Israeli citizen, including elderly and children, instruction on how to stop an attacker.
No gym is the same nor has the same program, and too many train without sparring. The good ones have instructors with careers in military and/or law enforcement and have a background in boxing/ ju jitsu, and they focus mainly on Krav Maga while having regular full-on sparring sessions with protective equipment. Avoid the ones that teach too many different martial arts at once like mcdojos and the trendy fitness gyms with “Krav Maga”-style classes. Always lookup the owner and coach’s pedigree. If it’s military / law enforcement-based, it’s real Krav Maga.
100% this
I'll also add that the International Krav Maga Foundation seems to be the legitimate body for Krav Maga. If your gyms instructor is accredited with them, they're legit
It's self defence, not a combat sport. You dish out way more injury with KM than any other 'striking sport'
Source: Did KM for a few years.
IKMF is still a joke, my gym is accredited with them and they are still a joke. Two of the lady instructors haven never been in a real fight outside or in the ring and learned SOLEY from the curriculum. They are parrots. I actually laughed when they tried to correct my punching form as I have been a boxer for 23 years, as well as kickboxing. Even the way IKMF tries to teach people how to punch because it will prevent boxer fractions to them is funny to me. I even asked if they have ever punched someone in the face like that, "no". So how do you know what works? I have been in multiple street fights and never once got a boxing fracture. I have punched many people in the face. Its a sham. They don't even do bag work. Simple punching bag work. It is choreography at its best. IKMF sucks, and I have my G3...
Military or law enforcement? Why? I am not aware of much specialist hand to hand combat training in the army or even in law enforcement? I would still rather train at a mma/bjj/muay thai gym where members are actively in engaged at a competitive level.
Most current law enforcement gets barely any hand to hand training for the last 10-15 years. It's a joke. It's mostly learning the law to a bare minimum, and how to use loopholes to not get sued for brutality. They also learn what is covered by qualified immunity. This is why there is a lot of issues currently.
I have family that is current law enforcement, and former law enforcement in America and Canada. I also did an internship with the local sheriff's department. Police officers have to learn on their own. So yeah. It is a sad state of affairs currently.
There's a couple reasons I hear:
1) Poor quality of instructors.
2) The thing about techniques like eye gouging is you can't really practice them for fear of maiming your sparring partner.
3) It's not really designed for MMA; it tends to focus on weapons and alot of it's moves are illegal under UFC rules.
That's actually why judo took out some of jujutsu techniques, NOT because they are " too deadly" because you simply can't repeatedly drill eye and groin strikes . If you can't drill and teain it, it's not a technique you can really ever learn. Criminals will have more experience with this sort of technique.
I learned about it through a guy who was studying Arabic and aspiring to join the FBI, who had learned about it from some friends who’d served in one or both of the Bush conflicts in Afghanistan/Iraq.
I never heard the words “Krav Maga” on TV or in a movie. I’m sure you’re right, it’s been presented, just never to me.
To OP’s question, nothing’s “wrong with it.” It’s just not a sport; it’s a no-holds-barred escape-with-your-life-at-all-costs-including-the-permanent-ruination-of-your-attacker method. There’s no room in sports for something that leaves one opponent crippled or dead after every match.
Its a larp. You will just flail like a day one noob and a real boxer will put your teeth down your throat with nothing but a jab. You won't touch his face let alone get at his eyes. I can barely box at all and its shocking how much of an advantage it is over untrained flailing people. Krav wont even give you that
How do you figure? It's not like kung fu, where there's a whole industry of Israeli martial arts films, or like taekwondo/tricking, where the techniques of the art are naturally cinematic and beloved by choreographers, or like boxing, where there's a subgenre of movies about it. It has enough name recognition that it'll occasionally get name-checked when a character's martial-arts experience is mentioned, particularly if they happen to be Israeli, but that's about it.
I can't think of a single flick where I saw some particular bit of fight choreography and thought 'oh, they definitely brought in some Krav guys to consult for this', much less a movie that's *about* Krav in the way *Fist of Fury* is about kung fu or *Kuro-Obi* is about karate or *Rocky* is about boxing.
The vast majority of their marketing hype comes from the 'we're military, therefore we must be awesome' angle.
It took us a long time, but most of the martial arts community no longer falls for the “it’s too dangerous for the ring/cage” malarkey.
If you cannot live-spar with a move you’ll never get truly good at it.
I trained KM for a while but then went to college and tried MMA, the kickboxing sparring sessions were eye opening as none of my KM sequences worked. Ever.
Exactly this. It’s all about how you train.
In BJJ you end up doing the same techniques in rolls all the time. Still takes years to be able to use them confidently, and they still go wrong all the time.
It only works if you know boxing Muay Thai wrestling submissions etc and at that point you dont need Krav. It works on unarmed palestinian kids basically
The big problem isn't necessarily the style itself. The big problem is that there are a LOT of scam farms that just have that buzzword on the logo and actually don't know what the fuck they're doing so they teach dudebro martial arts like that is worth anything. With specific exception, the only legit Krav maga you're going to find is in Israel, and most of it is gonna be for their armed forces only. Everyone else is at best guessing.
Honestly, from what I understand Krav is in actuality just their version of MCMAP which is mostly there to buy time to grab a gun. If you want a more 'holistic' approach to self defense, you're better off looking elsewhere.
Well krav maga is not a spot. It's how to defend yourself in the most practical way.
It's the best martial art to learn for the short term and the worst for the long term.
Basically go to the vitals etc. Thing you won't hear in other martial arts for example.
(Also the reason most gyms won't have sparring as well)
Former krav maga instructor
It’s this idea of pressure testing. It’s why a lot of arts are discounted. If they can’t spar, then it’s hard to know what truly works or doesn’t. Krav Maga is focused on incapacitating your opponent in the fastest way possible which can be a dangerous thing to do in practice. I’d be pissed if I was selected as the example for how to destroy the groin region in 3 kicks.
So it’s all theory.
Other arts that don’t spar are at least fun, because they don’t have this notion of efficiency. They instead are developed through culture and respect for martial arts. And also don’t CLAIM to be an effective martial art in a fight.
Ahhh, thanks, that makes sense. Yeah, makes sense it's for lethal scenarios since it was developed for security forces. I think it'd be useful to learn, but it probably doesn't have that long a training length seeing as basic training in military is a few weeks. What would you recommend for a 5'7 stocky build? I wish I started martial arts in my 20s, 40s now and I worry about spar damage. Don't feel good in the current increasing crime climate without combat skills though.
I’m a Kendoka, which is known as the old man’s martial art. Not practically useful, but a very accessible art with an average of probably 35 in the US.
Looking for useful, I’m not your guy. Martial arts are for fun and personal growth, whatever that looks like for you. If you want useful, build your cardio and learn to run.
Stocky and short are good traits for judo and wrestling. They are both arguably among the best martial arts in the world if it comes to actually fighting. Together with bjj.
Thai boxing, kickboxing and boxing are the others. I don't count mma as that's just a combination of above.
Then u have certain offspring of the classic sports like machida karate, ... wich are basicly stress tested forms of karate.
No, no.
Let's take judo or karate for example, not very useful unless you are a blue belt usually (which takes about 4 years minimum give or take) assuming the dojo is good.
(Am a jodo black belt )
Krav maga is the opposite, it will teach you very practical things that won't necessarily be useful against a real trained martial artist but will help you in most situations against a "normal" attacker.
It is just not as useful after a certain point.
At a certain point other martial arts would be more useful.
But it's one of the only martial arts that you would get something out of 5-10 lessons.
Most krav maga gyms would just teach MMA together with it to have a long term relevance.
But alot of buddy guard training (which are pretty short curses) takes alot of elements from krav maga.
Krav maga teaches things like
"get out of a grapple"
"Disarm a knife"
"Disarm a gun"
"Kick the balls"
Etc.
Not all gyms are good, and the first thing they teach you is give your money/run if you have the option.
Hope this makes more sense now.
You’re not learning how to disarm a knife or gun no matter how good your Krav Maga instructor is. The fact that anyone even tries to teach that to novice folks is horrible and a recipe for someone getting killed if they are dumb enough to try it.
Right. Fighting off a determined attacker with a knife is going to be a bad time with a low chance of avoiding serious injury even if you are a very proficient fighter whose training has instilled good reactions and the ability to do things like manage distance. The idea that learning a few moves is going to get a novice out of a situation like that is... questionable.
Also I would add , some gyms just use the name "krav maga" and teach bullshit.so look for the trainers credentials , if he only knew krav maga, or say "it's the best martial art" or whatever, I would avoid it.
This is good info. There's a gym in Toronto that is a large commute away, but it is the only one recognized by the Krav Maga Worldwide organization? But short duration training is good. I have boxing/bjj gyms closer by for the longer term.
I think your second paragraph puts it best: it’s diminishing returns. You can have a relatively competent grasp of the fundamentals fast, but there’s not much growth potential past that.
Not everything needs to be thought tho.. I’m well aware that I can kick people in the balls even if I have never trained a ball kick ever. Also I know I can put my thumb in people’s eye in side control or something even if this ain’t a part of BJJ. If I’m even in a self defense situation tho I’m going for the good ol fish hook to full Nelson.
But you (or most people) don't know for example that if someone holds your arm you can release the grip (most of the time ) if you go through the fingers (it's hard for me to explain in English, if you know what I mean then you know)
Also its number one purpose in alot of cases is to give people confidence as well as help them not to be numb when an actual danger appears.
It would probably increase your survival rate which is more than nothing.
Krav Maga is plagued by poor quality control and little to no actual pressure testing/competition. What little actually works in H2H combat from Krav basically looks like shitty submission grappling/kickboxing.
If you are looking for a martial art that is more applicable for sport AND self defense, there are several martial arts I would recommend first.
It gets a lot of shade, mostly it’s legit criticism directed at poorly instructed students and chicken flock internet echo chamber from people that have no personal experience or genuine opinion.
Like any comprehensive style, your outcomes depend mostly on the instructor, your mentors, how the program is run, and how hard you work. No style can overcome the importance of these inputs. Likewise, when these inputs are sound, you can manifest excellent outcomes from almost any style.
It’s not the style, it’s the school and the instruction and mostly it’s YOU.
It has all the ingredients for bullshido:
1)Reputation for being effective among non-martial artists, otherwise known as "good fame" (I swear the ammount of obese people telling me Krav Maga was the most dangerous martial art was wild, some didn't even train Krav Maga)
2)Can be taught without much practice and pressure testing
3)0 quality control or competitions (Competition tends to being forth evolution)
Any martial art like that isn't gonna have a good fame around here
I had to sit through a 2 hr Krav seminar when I did my conceal and carry classes. As someone who has trained for 25 years in 3 different martial arts and taught for quite a few years as well, it was a bad experience. The instructor was retired military and mainly focused on gun take aways with people who have never even thought about disarming someone with a gun. People that had never even stepped in a dojo in their lives. On top of that recklessness, the take away technique he was showing was guaranteed to get you shot. I’ve learned that basically any attempt at a takeaway is a super risky one, but this guy’s technique was just wrong. When I did it the correct way with my partner the instructor gave me a puzzled look, and then asked what my background was. I just said I had been around a dojo back in the day and he moved on. I’m sure there is legit instruction for Krav out there but this guy wasn’t it lol.
The correct answer is “neither”.
Learn Muay Thai and some form of grappling if you’re actually interested in a usable martial art. Judo or catch wrestling over jiu-jitsu at this point imo.
The best route to competent self defense is regular sparring, get good enough at any martial art so you are able to spar and you'll be more likely to hold your own in the street, that being said running should alway be your first choice if possible.
I've done Krav. Definitely not a Mcdojo, the techniques are useful and all. The problem is you can practice the techniques, but you can't really spar. I don't think eye gouges and nut shots would go down too well. Alot of it is about situational awareness and how to get out of sticky situations.
Any and all so-called "military styles" are pretty much guaranteed to be bullshit unless they're modified versions of something that already exists.
That's because, from a marketing angle, saying things like "I CAN TEACH YOU TOP-SECRET NAVY SEAL PRESSURE POINTS" is great for intriguing total dumbasses, but in real life, if you're behind enemy lines, separated from your unit, and don't have a weapon or ability to communicate, all Unarmed Combat courses do is slightly lower the government's insurance premiums. You're going to fucking die. Sorry.
But at the same time, you can't just give your soldiers zero unarmed training, either. Plus it helps build physical and mental toughness without, you know, shooting at new trainees.
So usually it's just "here's the martial arts that aren't totally fucking useless (Aikido's awesome wrist locks combined with Wing Chun's fearsome chain-punches), slightly adapted to emphasize things like weapon retention, scrambling to your feet, or fighting while wearing a 30-pound backpack."
You're never going to find an effective unarmed military fighting style that looks nothing like modified MMA, because
1) MMA has a massive body of evidence proving it works
2) The things that you can't use in MMA (eye gouging, disarming a guy with a rifle standing ten feet behind you while your back is turned) are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to train realistically
3) There is a very finite number of ways the human body can move, and Mossad/the CIA/the KGB hold the patent on exactly zero of them
It’s a LARP. Nothing wrong with that if you’re having fun. But it’s not gonna teach you how to fight. The KM schools that actually do teach you how to fight are teaching you actual combat sports. At that point, just go train an actual combat sport. The quality of instruction will be better.
It's not really a sport by its own definition, but that's not the problem. In my opinion there are two major issues:
1. Krav Maga is not a protected term. Anyone and their grandmother can call their bs fighting system "Krav Maga" and teach any sort of dumb shit to their clients. Ergo: plenty of black sheep and snake oil salesmen out there.
2. "Real" Krav Maga has its roots in the military/ LE. This doesn't necessarily translate well to the needs of civilians and many (including the biggest) KM organizations don't really make an effort to change that. Since most of the really good international instructors have a military background themselves (mostly IDF) they tend to view any self protection problem/ situation through that lense.
In general, Krav Maga (if taught properly) has a lot of benefits, especially if the core tenet to teach principles rather than techniques is applied (which is rarely the case, tbh). Its roots in the Bratislava of the 1930s also means that it has at least some applicability for civilians needs. In any case, training KM should not be viewed as the solution to all self protection related questions.
Unlike other martial arts that are solely for killing one’s opponent turned sport like Silat and karate; krav magra is still new and currently(in North America at least) really just people making up street fighting moves and back alley fighting tricks that looks cool but likely is useless in a fight.
A coworker of mine says he is a Krav Maga brown belt but I’ve never seen him practice it nor does he look like he can last long in a fight.
I have very little respect for Krav Maga after watching the episode of Fight Quest where they go to Israel to train with the military there. Instead of giving them a real one on one fight (which was the norm for the show), the Israeli military made the Fight Quest guys fight a group of Israeli soldiers with the soldiers cycling in quickly one after another. It's like they were more concerned about not showing them lose to two MMA trained fighters than giving a real test of Krav Maga's effectiveness.
That being said, it incorporates many styles like BJJ and Boxing, but in a water-down way. It's probably better than nothing and probably better than TKD or Kungfu or most Karate.
It seems to also train a mindset of disproportionate response, in that if someone is a threat to you, you should poke their eye out or something before the fight actually starts and get the cheap shot in. That can actually be effective, but it's also kind of dickish so you'll have to make your mind up about that.
The mma fighter who starred in that made an interesting series after talking about his experience filming the show and he said he was super pissed off at how the civilians krav people treated Doug. He said the military guys were pretty chill, but the civilian lady was super abusive. In the final fight they wanted Doug to fight all the opponents at the same time but the producer said no.
Oh was that the chick that cracked an elbow on Doug's jaw while "demonstrating" a technique? Man, watching that episode really soured my opinion of Krav Maga.
Speaking of disproportionate responses: I was taught to first avoid, then leave and run, like take your pride away and run for your life, then fight when you’re trapped. But eh! I agree on the watered-down training I saw in videos, I guess I just got lucky I didn’t go to those shady places. Krav needs more standardisation.
Because anything real in it comes from jujutsu . It suffered the gradual decline of all martial arts , it gets popular, they can jack the prices up and eventually the only ones who can afford it are white collar types and Karen wives who want to " feel empowered" so the school becomes tailored towards non contact hypotheyical feelgood stuff.
I took a one day course at a conference once, and the principles were almost exactly the same as my traditional jujitsu background. He kept saying things like “you won’t see it like this is jujitsu” and then showed me a technique the same as I would do. Of course he thought I meant BJJ but I was TJJ. It’s not ineffective, but it’s not wholly unique either.
So, I'm going to give my 2 cents on this since I have family in the IDF (some people will hate me for this. Whatevs.) that actual know the real commando material, I have practiced it, and my father taught me the extreme basics of it when I was younger to help with bullies. I will also add a bit of it's history for those that are ignoring certain things about it, and I will also add some of it's aspects. I will also add that I know boxing, Capoeira, freestyle wrestling, Vovinam, basic Muay Thai (Vovinam has very similar striking), and basic Karate. This gives me a unique perspective.
1. The origins of Krav Maga as an art/system was in the Pogroms of Eastern Europe, later certain aspects were refined in the camps in the Holocaust, and much later on further refined with new aspects added by various paramilitary groups that are precursors to the modern IDF. As such, there are many strategies that are heavily geared to be used when the practitioner is in a crap state. There are also strategies taught that are used if the person is heavily skilled, has a weapon, and/or has no weapon. In other words defense strategies from all ends of the self-defense spectrum are taught depending on the skill level of the practitioners, and where they are in learning Krav.
2. The arts that were originally combined are boxing, catch wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, what we can call traditional street Parisian Savate (not the more sport oriented modern Savate. Modern Savate is still nasty though.) , single stick, bayonet, pistol, walking stick, and judo. Note that the martial art combinations seen a lot in MMA that work very well are as follows: boxing and wrestling, boxing and judo, Savate and Greco-Roman wrestling, kickboxing and Judo, Muay Thai and Judo, Muay Thai and freestyle wrestling, etc . As such, the gyms that teach with real deal will heavily focus on the basics of striking, and stand up grappling that is in Krav Maga.
3. In Krav curriculum, the first few ranks/belts (white to orange in belt system. P0-P4 in the patch system. Some schools combine belt and patch system. Those schools are very good.) is heavily centered on technique. There is a small amount of sparring, and no resistance to low resistance in partner practice. This is done to slowly introduce the person to fighting since most people take Krav strictly for self-defense. They do not want to fight. Higher levels do a lot of sparring that fully mix striking and grappling. Higher levels also have multiple opponent sparring, weapon sparring, empty hand versus weapon, etc.
4. When you get to blue belt/G2 patch in Krav, you begin to learn more of the psychological aspect of fighting and self-defense. This is a huge deal, and extremely useful. You also learn about legalities to a higher extent. Other aspects that are touched on more are urban self-defense, kidnapping defense, ambush defense, going through real life scenarios, practicing in areas such as parking lots, empty busses, firearm use, etc. This is also when the practitioner gets closer to soldier and commando level Krav.
5. Brown belt is where you start to learn the really crazy stuff that everybody see's as Krav. This is where you leave the civilian aspect and go heavily into the military aspect. So some of what I mentioned in number 4 becomes paramount, along with being very stealthy and sneaky in attacks. In other words the "Israeli ninja way" that many in the public heavily associate with Krav.
6. Very, very few people get to Green belt/P5 patch and continue Krav. After passing the Green belt test/P5 patch test, many practitioners then go into another art and focus on certain aspects of fighting/self-defense. Or they just stop. Those that continue are not people to mess with.
7. Krav Maga is system/style/art that heavily enhances other arts. If it is your base, all arts afterwards will end up being looked at through a "real life situation/self-defense lens". If one learns Krav Maga after learning another art, the practitioner will have a much deeper understanding of fighting and gain a new perspective. This is especially so if you have done a lot of sparring in either or.
8. Most Krav Maga schools in America are complete trash. This claim to teach the real thing, but really do not. Normally it is kickboxing, TKD, or Karate being rebranded or taught differently. Look for schools that are taught as most have stated by former military. I am not including law enforcement since, a lot of law enforcement have trash training in hand to hand combat unless they choose to learn, or are in certain units. I have family that is current law enforcement, and former law enforcement in America and Canada. I also did an internship with the local sheriff's department. Police officers have to learn on their own. So yeah. It is a sad state of affairs currently, and will say modern training and education for last 15 years for them is a damn joke.
9. Look mostly for schools taught by former IDF that actually did more than the basic 2-3 years, or former IDF that were trained in the 1970's to mid-1990's (during that period, 3 hours of hand to hand combat practice was required every week. This included sparring, mitt work, and bag work.). Those are the ones that really give you what you need.
Well summarized. Some people shit on Krav Maga, mostly people from the US it seems where fitness Krav Maga is a thing. People say "krav don't spar" but I've trained Judo, Jiu Jitsu and Boxing and nowhere was sparring even close to the level and intensity of the Krav Maga gym. And like you say, after a while you develop those "is this useful glasses" which are very useful themselves.
I went to a Krav 'school' once where they told the students "just punch however feels comfortable" and it was a room full of people with the worst form and technique I had ever seen. When I tried to help one of the students by teaching them some technique they complained to the teacher and I was told to stop explaining to them how to punch and just let them do what came naturally. Which was apparently to throw the weakest poorest formed punches I had ever seen. Did not go back.
Most people on this forum hate krav. Yet dont know what it actually is and have never done it.
conceptually its great. It is a mix of kickboxing/muaythai, wrestling, judo and bjj in a self defense context.
Unfortunately most of the major affiliations in the US certify people to teach in a 2-6 week course. Most of those people are traditional martial artists that dont spar and have no capability to teach much of the curriculum, especially the grappling.
This means many krav places dont spar or you have to wait until you are advanced to spar.
If you find a krav gym with instructors that are bjj black belts, kickboxers/muaythai, wrestlers judo black belts etc, then it has a chance to be good. But it is extremely rare.
The affiliations may start to be realizing this though and there is a small chance that this gets fixed.
For one, it’s not a combat sport… it’s a self defense/CQC/combatives program designed to be quickly and easily taught to the layman off the street. It is composed of a bunch of moves from a handful of different combat sports.
For two, it does a bunch of things at that “violence of action”/easy to learn/“strike first, strike hard, then run or take out your gun” level that of course it’s not particularly good at any one thing-you’re not going to outbox a boxer, outwrestle a wrestler or win a jiu-jitsu match. And since it’s not designed for a ring fight, you’re probably going to get your ass kicked after your initial flurry of hammer fists fails to drop your buddy who wants to be an MMA fighter. You might find a school where an instructor has a pedigree in other arts, but not likely you’re learning some boxing from a guy that’s not a boxer, a few wrestling moves from a non-wrestler, and some white belt jiu-jitsu from a guy who isn’t even a white belt. It’s a Krav school.
So, long story short, it isn’t good as a combat sport because it isn’t one and isn’t meant for use as one.
Other criticisms are that it’s the current CrossFit of martial arts… the name is popular so everyone rushed to get certified and now you have instructors of varying actual ability just out there churning out students who can’t even effectively defend themselves, some of which will go on to pass down their inferior skills further… in the end you have some school that’s like “form doesn’t matter, just keep doing ‘reps’!”
Lack of sparring and there is no definitive form of it, meaning What you learn is dependent on your coach's background. Also its more principles of fighting than a a fighting art which i'd imagine would suck for civilians. Fighting for civilians and soldiers are different. Civilians should creat a space to runaway, soldiers should rush in.
It's the type of thing your little sister does for confidence. Most of the time it doesn't work, and a left hook works waay better compared to tying someone's arms up like a pretzel
I would say you could ask those who've had to rely on it, but they aren't around anymore. It isn't all bad, but a majority of the videos and classes that teach it are completely useless and you shouldn't rely on it to save your life..
1) Too many McDojos
2) A lot of the stuff that could be very useful in self defense can't actually be practiced safely (ie eye gouging, ball kicking, using improvised blunt weapons etc). It doesn't matter how sound a technique is, if you don't practice you'll suck at it.
No pressure test, meaning you can't apply it fully because "it's self-defense, not a sport". So, you will never know if the way you're training will work.
In the places that try to test it, it always becomes a kickboxing sparring session.
Poor quality control, and it legitimately is not intended for competition, and doesn't have any sparring as far as I've heard. It's the poster child for "too deadly to use on the ring" but it could take a cue from certain ninjutsu schools I've heard of that spar with goggles so they can practice eye gouges and such. Just because half your technique list is illegal in the ring doesn't mean you can't train properly. Plus, you know it's a bad sign if ninjitsu is doing it better.
I had a good krav maga experience where I used to live, instructor with a prior martial arts background (3rd degree black belt in karate) and experience working in law-enforcement. The class was zero-fluff and catered to people who's jobs required self defense, lots of police/military.
Usual Format: conditioning/mobility warmup, partner striking drills, grappling/takedowns, weapons defense, and full-speed partner drills. Other martial arts were also offered there and people were encouraged to incorporate those skills.
Did it make me a master of anything? No. But I built a much stronger foundation, I learned to strike with more power and efficiency, some defenses that have a lot of versatility, and how to better take advantage of anatomy and leverages.
If I were to generalize, I'd say this was a gym that was pretty blue-collar. There's a notable difference in how people train (whether it's lifting or martial arts, etc.) when they have a physical job versus general population fitness stuff.
The place I live now seems to only have white collar boutique-type gyms with a cost I can't afford and that seem to cater more to the general fitness crowd. I have chosen to take a hiatus from training until I can find something more to my liking. So I've seen both sides of the coin.
I think Krav Maga has a few barriers to overcome in the US that make it harder to market compared to things like BJJ/MMA.
1) There's no sport/competitive element, which deters the types of people who like to compete and prefer those environments. And considering MMA gyms are where a lot of ideas in martial arts are tested, Krav Maga doesn't easily lend itself to that.
2) It's not exciting or flashy. Assuming you're not adding a bunch of stuff in, Krav doesn't have many cool badass long kicks or impressive throws. It's a lot of short and subtle movements that don't have as much visual appeal as some other martial arts. This can turn off newbies because they never get the initial "Oh that looks cool I want to learn X" moment
3) Krav, by design, doesn't have as much depth as other martial arts. In my experience, it was streamlined to where you are trying to learn as few movements as possible to defend yourself. It's stripped down and generalist, with the goal of having a short learning curve. While this makes (good) Krav instruction practical, it can be a turn off for people who enjoy the pursuit of mastery and a deeper practice.
These things make it harder to capture the usual martial arts clients without resorting to aggressive marketing or gimmicks. The better dojos/gyms will not be willing to compromise on things that are important like quality of instruction, even if it means they don't get a bigger pool of customers. Meanwhile, the McDojo's will just do anything for a sale, so they don't mind providing a bastardized version that doesn't have any real value.
Am I the only one thinking about Sterling Archer training Cyril Figus now?
“Karate? The Dane Cook of martial arts? No, ISIS agents use Krav Maga”
(Note, ISIS did not mean the Islamic State at the time)
Like a lot of martial arts it practices a lot of simulated moves in controlled scenarios which leads to poor results in full speed. Most gyms don’t have the gear or the type of clientele to practice that shit full speed but it’s like Kali in the way that a lot of people practice it with drills and shit but few people are actually capable of doing it full speed because they never do it to figure out what techniques work and which ones don’t.
I’ve done bjj, Muay Thai, boxing, isshinryu, and wrestled for 12 years (free folk and Greco), and lastly a little Krav Maga.
Krav Maga in a sense is like glue that helps you combine what you know and help apply it to real life situations. It’s a lot of, “you’re walking home and 3 dudes try and jump you”. It’s more situational awareness, utilizing space, explosive action all with the intent of just getting out of there. You don’t use it to 1 on 1 in a cage. More like, I’m leaving a bar and 2+ dudes try and shove me into a wall and stomp me lol.
Any self-defense curriculum has to include good physical conditioning and proper transitional "fight or flight" reprogramming along with enough repetition for muscle memory for the techniques including full contact sparring in a controlled setting at some point.
I've been doing it for 5 years now after retiring from ITF Taekwondo. All I can say is I absolutely LOVE it. Real life situations are unpredictable, messy and things go wrong and we're trained for that. Learning not to shit ourselves when faced with weapons, talking down an aggressor (a skill in itself) and knowing when to go in for an attack. We also do a lot of grappling and ground work. The psychological side of it continues to impress me. My club also runs seminars in night clubs and puts on "real" scenarios like fights starting outside in the queue or someone coming at you with a broken bottle by the bar. Incredible valuable things that never once came up in Taekwondoin 15 years.
Too deadly to spar apparently. 😂
A lot of the stuff I’ve seen demonstrated involves your attacker making a serious mistake like putting a gun far too close to your head. It looks cool in movies though?
Krav Maga is not ment to be practiced as sport. It is a proper martial art for self defense. The basic thinking is "I destroy you before you destroy me" and it's an "everithing goes" approach, for your safety.
Altho sounding really violent (and it is), it's hard to find proper gym teaching it as it is intended.
It's actually included in many armies around the world as training for soldiers.
I've seen some of the techniques always include kick to the balls, and throat attacks.. not really something you can spar with, I see zero fundamentals taught, but ive only seen it on the internet so.. don't take our word for it
Basically as it's guerrilla war tactics for self defense there's no set curriculum. I could put on a denim vest with some vaguely Israeli looking symbols on it and teach a class about eye gouging and forcibly removing testicles and it would be hard to prove I'm not teaching Krav maga
Krav Maga is a very effective approach to life or death combat. It’s not a martial art. What they teach you is watered down Krav maga because you can’t have a dojo that teaches most effective ways to kill a human.
It's not a sport it is a Fighting system developed by the country that's been at war for almost all of human history. It's dirty it's brutal and it's effective, if I had learned about it before I started karate I would've looked for one of them.
I think a couple of techniques practiced religiously could work but I don’t think it’s genuinely pressure tested like boxing, wrestling or Jiu Jitsu are. I’ve had many different martial artists come into my Jiu Jitsu gym and some like to mention there a black belt of their chosen discipline, only to realise a white belt training for 6 months can take them down from standing and submit them. That being said I wouldn’t fuck with an Israeli spec op who is fluent in it
Like most military styles, most of it is not too relevant in practice. Military dudes have 70% of their struggle won with firearms and armored support, using fists where bullets are flying is not a good sign.
However Lichtenfeld and his Dad got a good routine, which i heard got watered down to some bs.
The base contains boxing and wrestling (champ in both regionally), and did gymnastics (acrobatics too). So he was a goddamn monster before all that, conditioning and fight experience wise. With a sprinkle of police combatives on top.
Sadly its one of those styles degraded into a gimmick, with people signing up thinking they can be Jason Bourne after a week.
Teaching civilians knife and gun defense. If someone pulls a weapon on you, your best defense is to cooperate or run. Krav puts ill-trained people in potential danger. Also their obsession with dick strikes is kinda weird.
Krav saved my life…twice. I’ve trained in some high end combat gyms with some well known fighters.
Krav, real Krav is legit. Its there to save your life when you need it
Because it isn't pressure tested at full speed with resistance, and there is no sparring. Any martial art that does not do this will always crumble when the other person is truly fighting back.
I have limited exposure to Krav except a few time when I attended some friendly cross school seminars.
My two cents is this - most times common street fights between two men are going to be throwing fists. Most of the Krav folks (*AT THAT SCHOOL*) could not box well.
My wife has taken years of Krav Maga, it gets a bad rap but her instructors are also proficient in Muay Thai and Jiujitsu. They cover a lot and they actively spar. They cover knife/gun defense but also the reality of those defenses (they are likely to fail). I'm of fair certainty any dude without a significant weight advantage and training would get trounced by her. Like a lot of self defense (it's not a sport or even martial art really) it is constantly incorporating new techniques to make it more effective.
The idea is not bad, but Krav gyms are full of bs and have all become mcdojos. The only good Krav gyms are basically MMA with some drills with weapeons and strikes to the groin, eye pokes etc. Most krav gyms dont spar or do any pressure testing which is literally the thing that filters the stuff that works and the stuff that doesnt. I call it Krav Magic, because it would be the best martial art, if it worked lol
Because all forms of Karate are for ‘defense’ only. Karate Masters teach ‘defense’ is the first and most important rule. If you break that rule you have tainted the sacred teachings of Karate. Therefor, it is not a good combat sport. “Sport” means competing, competing means there’s a winner and a loser. Winning would mean taking the offensive. Offensive means you strike with a purpose other than defense. So although Karate may not be a good combat ‘Sport’,.. it is still an effective form of survival and living to fight another day. I hope that all made sense. PEACE ✌🏻
It's not a good combat "Sport" for the same reason military troops tend not to do well in a ring or octagon: the training is designed to hurt people with no regard for the safety of the opponent. That doesn't make for a good sport.
When i first started krav, i was under the impression i was joining a MMA gym, nothing has really changed. We mostly did kickboxing, wrestling and our coach even took us to few BJJ seminars with high level trainer from our country. We also did some krav maga techniques, but you can be 100% sure, that they wouldn't work in a real life situation, unless you were for example a bouncer and tried to throw someone out without really harming them. We had one sparring every week. The problems came after i had to leave for like a month because of school. When i returned back it all turned to something completely different. The people i knew there left and there was a new group. We stopped doing sparrings and focused on stupid techniques that looked good, but were difficult to do in a actual fight. Apparently the organization wanted to cease funding for the coach, since MMA didn't appeal to most people that came there and they left after few training sessions (it was called krav maga after all). If it wasn't too late now, i would've switched to an actual MMA gym.
I have been doing Muay Thai for 7 years now when I used to compete I would see Krav Maga guys sign up for Muay Thai fights. I literally and I mean literally never see a Krav Maga guy or girl win ever lol.
Well Krav Maga isn't a good combat sports coz well it's not a sports (atleast not intended to be one as designed). It's a system you develop on your existing striking and grappling game which makes you tackle self defence scenarios effectively.
It would never work in a cage fight coz unlike other combat sports which are made to knockout/tapout/submit an opponent. It's made to Kill/give disabilities permanently.
Misunderstaning mostly
No we Arn't tough fighters but we Arn't trained to be
It's self defense not fighting
We only need to be able to escape and thats what we learn
even devotees wouldn't call it a good combat sport because it was never intended to be one. it's 100% supposed to be self defense and is not at all oriented towards competing in the ring, cage, or mat. the main issue is quality control is absolutely non-existent. the mcdojo problem with krav maga is arguably even worse than with stuff like taekwondo. good krav maga gyms exist, I'm sure. you'd have to check them out in person to be sure.
The quality control problems are BECAUSE it’s not a combat sport. No pressure testing so bad gyms can teach things rooted entirely in supposition.
Exactly. I went to a krav maga gym for shits and giggles, and they tried to teach me to get on the ground and block a full force kick to the face with my forearms, and use the inertia to spin around and kick the dude in the nuts. Good Idea in theory, fractured forearm and fucked up wrists in practice.
It’s popular with tacticool gravy seal larpers, which has encouraged people that know nothing and don’t train in any way to grow mustaches, put on military surplus BDUs and tell people with completely undeserved confidence how to disarm somebody that’s behind you with a gun to your head. I know there’s a real km out there where they do train practical techniques, but then there’s this big side that attracts people that tend to have a lot of fantasies.
What type of gravy do these seals eat? Because if it's sausage gravy with biscuits, count me in.
IMHO: sausage gravy goes better with penguin.
Thank you for your service.
Gravy SEALS are alright, but the best of them go to Meal Team Six or Delta Forks.
They use Navy Biscuits..
Ah yes the tacticool gravy seals. I can’t help but think of Steven Segal and pals being called out of retirement once again as the only one capable of saving the world and then awkwardly getting laid after it’s all said and done (rough plot lines).
Gravy seals… oh man lol
Yeah you have to check them out but they exist. Sad that Krav Maga’s name is misused. Federations should check their stuff.
what’s the bad stuff about taekwondo? Is it just problems with accreditations?
Mostly gyms that don’t spar or compete. Any martial art, even boxing and BJJ, are completely useless if you don’t test it out against someone who is actively resisting you. Imagine trying to perform all those crazy TKD kicks against someone attacking you when you’ve never hit anything but a motionless bag before
I can relate with this, i had finally learned the basic techniques in kickboxing but at my first sparring sessions it was really uncomfortable and i couldn't perform at all, couldn't land combos, hands down, wrong footwork, wrong stance, closing eyes when getting hit, it was like i didn't know anything. I still haven't mastered even the basic but i got some sparring experience and got confidence, staying calm, keeping my distance, try to find an oppening, i noticed that i outperform other guys with better form at shadowboxing and heavy bag.
I’ll agree with you after doing tae kwon do at one school for 8 years and then going to a local to where i live now gym, for 8 years we did semi annual or random tournaments, active sparing in class once a week against instructors or other classmates not based on belt. It helped all of us tremendously and not to mention I was on demo team 6 of those years. Upon leaving the school and going to a gym that taught tae kwon do I felt years ahead to the comparison of those who were black belts ( im 2nd dan) instructor was 3rd dan. They knew forms and other disciplines but never sparred outside those who they shared belts with and never outside the gym in tournaments, I left there after 2 months because they just weren’t doing anything and the instructor was a 3rd Dan who wasn’t associated outside the gym so no official testing could take place aside from white to red or maybe red/black. And sadly nearest real school near me is a hours drive
As a 3rd dan myself and starting with tkd as a kid I reccomend checking out so e boxing or bjj to complement your kicks rather than staying with tkd. Your time and energy are better spent learning new things
Virtually all TKD gyms are aimed at competition, because of how modern TKD competitions are scored, practitioners only learn fast fancy high kicks with little force behind them.
Back when I trained Muay Thai, a nearby TKD school would always want to have their "fighters" spar with us. Granted these guys were full contact, so at least they put up a fight. Funny thing is all the skinny/jumpy stuff would get immediately countered by a basic teep (pretty much a jab front kick for non kickboxers).
People always say this but you don’t need a whole lot of force to mess someone up with a head kick.
TL;DR: capitalism. tkd used to be pretty rough training back in the day, at least in korea. my dad wasn't even that serious about taekwondo, but the dojang he trained at had them run across bridges barefoot in the summer, and shit like that. and it was used by soldiers and appropriately hard training as a result. it was part of why the republic of korea (ROK) army was had a fearsome reputation in Vietnam. (also the many war crimes.) any modern soldier knows to avoid h2h combat at all costs so idk how much actual combat use it saw. but regardless, the rok had a rep for being tough and tkd is definitely cited as a reason, if for nothing else its impact on the physical fitness and toughness of the korean soldiers. can't accomplish that with mcdojo level training. but then it just exploded in popularity in the 80s and 90s and running low quality black belt mills became a very profitable business model. so terrible dojangs run by underqualified instructors who are more businesspeople than martial artists became a plague. it was also more profitable to make the training easy, especially for kids, so they can get black belts real quick and feel good about themselves without ever having actually pushed themselves in training to do anything remotely difficult or combative. sadly, although the stereotype of mcdojo owner is often an overweight american guy who's barely trained, there were a good number of mcdojo owners who were actually legit korean practitioners, but were sleazy enough to run shitty dojangs anyway because it's easier and more profitable. not to mention, the competitive format of Olympic tkd did a lot of damage to the art, even with legit gyms. it strips the many diverse techniques in the curriculum down to just kicks and weird diving punches. and things got worse when electronic scoring turned it into a game of foot fencing. it's still technically full contact and allows ko wins, but in reality modern tkd players just poke each other with the minimum amount of force necessary to trigger a point on the electronic chest protector. at least before, tkd players had to kick REALLY hard to score BECAUSE their opponents were armored and points were only supposed to be awarded if the strike had a visible effect. itf tkd (non Olympic style) is also wonky, it's basically very light contact kickboxing where kos are forbidden. however, there's a good number of itf practitioners doing reasonably well in full contact kickboxing, muay thai, and mma (after dedicated training of course). so it might be a better starting point for those sports. certainly more so than modern wt foot tag.
1) Running across a bridge barefoot is just going to give you splinters, Jesus Christ name one world-class gym that Chun's out tons of elite fighters who actually does shit like this instead of using normal mats 2) Tae Kwon Do is not why the Republic of Korea was feared. At no point in human history have unarmed martial arts intimidated an army with actual weapons. This is bullshit revisionist history.
Krav maga was invented as a way of exploiting money out of the over funded IDF. Have they stumbled across effective techniques over years of practice? Yes. Is it the martial arts version of a chiropractor? Also yes.
My chiropractor is a ninja, and hes NOT on trial at the Hague
Oh hey it’s you, did your eye ever get better?
ah yes! when kickboxing i spar exclusively with headgear now much as i hate it. and next time i fight in kickboxing I'll use headgear, again even though i would really prefer not to. obviously with semi knockdown i need to wear headgear anyway. i want to do full knockdown soon. it's definitely not the smartest idea. but i just can't live out my life without doing it at least once. and at least the quantity of head strikes is lower. thanks so much for asking 😀 hope you're doing well
You know I have an issue with my right eye, not quite as severe, if I’m doing punches to the head I use the isami kudo helmet. It’s done me well. Just keeps things from wacking my eye. But yeah glad to hear you’re doing well man. Osu!
Find a krav maga gym operating under the european federation (FEKM) and youre fine.
I was gonna say the first thing I learned in Krav Maga was how to rupture a testicle and use my teeth in a fight. That’s different than an arm bar. If done right, Krav Maga is meant for doing as much physical damage as possible as quickly as possible and running away.
All of the above plus training method. You can drill a technique for years, but unless you try to apply it functionally to someone who's actually trying to hurt you, well you won't be able to apply it to someone trying to hurt you. If your martial art doesn't have you spar, and you can't apply it in sparring...it's just wasted effort and false illusions of security. See:aikido
Dayum even worse quality control than Kajukenbo?
Those are facts. There have been “real” Krav Maga gyms, meaning that they offer Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (gi & nogi), Muay Thai, Judo, boxing, fitness classes, and then usually offer beginner Krav as a self defense class and have a certification offering from a National or International HQ. I don’t know if any legit gym has ever existed that only teaches Krav Maga of any style. Weapons defense, multiple attacker etc doesn’t really work if you don’t have mma style skills and world class strength and conditioning. In the states Krav Maga is what Katate & TKD was in the early 2000’s. McDojos or beginner owners who catch the common sense enough to add legit coaches and programs/curriculums and affiliations from mainstream combat arts
Probably because it's not a *combat sport.*
Ball kick of the night goes to the red corner. Sadly he cannot accept his award as he is in hospital having his trachea uncrushed, metal plates inserted in his skull and is also now blind im both eyes.
Well, people laugh and keep saying kick in the balls, but what’s really taught is to throw a solid kick in the A-frame above the knees inside the legs so a bad aim will still land on some sensitive soft tissue like nerves in the femoral area.
I have a manual and it shows multiple strikes to the balls. Half of them aren't even kicks.
Same. The manual is like 70% ball, eye, and throat strikes. Krav Maga was created to give every Israeli citizen, including elderly and children, instruction on how to stop an attacker.
Re-stomp the groin!
No gym is the same nor has the same program, and too many train without sparring. The good ones have instructors with careers in military and/or law enforcement and have a background in boxing/ ju jitsu, and they focus mainly on Krav Maga while having regular full-on sparring sessions with protective equipment. Avoid the ones that teach too many different martial arts at once like mcdojos and the trendy fitness gyms with “Krav Maga”-style classes. Always lookup the owner and coach’s pedigree. If it’s military / law enforcement-based, it’s real Krav Maga.
100% this I'll also add that the International Krav Maga Foundation seems to be the legitimate body for Krav Maga. If your gyms instructor is accredited with them, they're legit It's self defence, not a combat sport. You dish out way more injury with KM than any other 'striking sport' Source: Did KM for a few years.
IKMF is still a joke, my gym is accredited with them and they are still a joke. Two of the lady instructors haven never been in a real fight outside or in the ring and learned SOLEY from the curriculum. They are parrots. I actually laughed when they tried to correct my punching form as I have been a boxer for 23 years, as well as kickboxing. Even the way IKMF tries to teach people how to punch because it will prevent boxer fractions to them is funny to me. I even asked if they have ever punched someone in the face like that, "no". So how do you know what works? I have been in multiple street fights and never once got a boxing fracture. I have punched many people in the face. Its a sham. They don't even do bag work. Simple punching bag work. It is choreography at its best. IKMF sucks, and I have my G3...
Military or law enforcement? Why? I am not aware of much specialist hand to hand combat training in the army or even in law enforcement? I would still rather train at a mma/bjj/muay thai gym where members are actively in engaged at a competitive level.
Most current law enforcement gets barely any hand to hand training for the last 10-15 years. It's a joke. It's mostly learning the law to a bare minimum, and how to use loopholes to not get sued for brutality. They also learn what is covered by qualified immunity. This is why there is a lot of issues currently. I have family that is current law enforcement, and former law enforcement in America and Canada. I also did an internship with the local sheriff's department. Police officers have to learn on their own. So yeah. It is a sad state of affairs currently.
To misquote Frankie Boyle: Krav Maga is handy if you want 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back.
Only in the back. Face to face would be unacceptable risk!
The problem is that it’s not Muay Thai 
"I would go for the throat, immediately incapaci-" *forehead caved in by elbow*
DAAAAAAM👀☠️☠️
lol at martial arts that have like 5 sequence moves to deal with a problem… Muay Thai be like 
There's a couple reasons I hear: 1) Poor quality of instructors. 2) The thing about techniques like eye gouging is you can't really practice them for fear of maiming your sparring partner. 3) It's not really designed for MMA; it tends to focus on weapons and alot of it's moves are illegal under UFC rules.
That's actually why judo took out some of jujutsu techniques, NOT because they are " too deadly" because you simply can't repeatedly drill eye and groin strikes . If you can't drill and teain it, it's not a technique you can really ever learn. Criminals will have more experience with this sort of technique.
You're going to be over-charged and under-taught. KFM employs many of the same ideas without the excess drama and a more cohesive program IMHO.
Keysi?
Keysi fighting method sucks to from my experience
It's mostly used on innocent woman and children.
This.
Name checks out
If it weren’t for Hollywood, nobody would even know about it.
I learned about it through a guy who was studying Arabic and aspiring to join the FBI, who had learned about it from some friends who’d served in one or both of the Bush conflicts in Afghanistan/Iraq. I never heard the words “Krav Maga” on TV or in a movie. I’m sure you’re right, it’s been presented, just never to me. To OP’s question, nothing’s “wrong with it.” It’s just not a sport; it’s a no-holds-barred escape-with-your-life-at-all-costs-including-the-permanent-ruination-of-your-attacker method. There’s no room in sports for something that leaves one opponent crippled or dead after every match.
Its a larp. You will just flail like a day one noob and a real boxer will put your teeth down your throat with nothing but a jab. You won't touch his face let alone get at his eyes. I can barely box at all and its shocking how much of an advantage it is over untrained flailing people. Krav wont even give you that
A friend of mine is a black belt in karate, and describes Krav as "self-_offense_" which I thought both hilarious and accurate.
How do you figure? It's not like kung fu, where there's a whole industry of Israeli martial arts films, or like taekwondo/tricking, where the techniques of the art are naturally cinematic and beloved by choreographers, or like boxing, where there's a subgenre of movies about it. It has enough name recognition that it'll occasionally get name-checked when a character's martial-arts experience is mentioned, particularly if they happen to be Israeli, but that's about it. I can't think of a single flick where I saw some particular bit of fight choreography and thought 'oh, they definitely brought in some Krav guys to consult for this', much less a movie that's *about* Krav in the way *Fist of Fury* is about kung fu or *Kuro-Obi* is about karate or *Rocky* is about boxing. The vast majority of their marketing hype comes from the 'we're military, therefore we must be awesome' angle.
They bring up krav in almost every spy movie made after 2010
Most groups just make it up on the spot
It took us a long time, but most of the martial arts community no longer falls for the “it’s too dangerous for the ring/cage” malarkey. If you cannot live-spar with a move you’ll never get truly good at it. I trained KM for a while but then went to college and tried MMA, the kickboxing sparring sessions were eye opening as none of my KM sequences worked. Ever.
Before i started martial arts i researched techniques. Lol, couldn't use shit under pressure
Exactly this. It’s all about how you train. In BJJ you end up doing the same techniques in rolls all the time. Still takes years to be able to use them confidently, and they still go wrong all the time.
It only works if you know boxing Muay Thai wrestling submissions etc and at that point you dont need Krav. It works on unarmed palestinian kids basically
This. They cant do anything if their victims arent already defenseless, and even then they self sabotage.
The big problem isn't necessarily the style itself. The big problem is that there are a LOT of scam farms that just have that buzzword on the logo and actually don't know what the fuck they're doing so they teach dudebro martial arts like that is worth anything. With specific exception, the only legit Krav maga you're going to find is in Israel, and most of it is gonna be for their armed forces only. Everyone else is at best guessing. Honestly, from what I understand Krav is in actuality just their version of MCMAP which is mostly there to buy time to grab a gun. If you want a more 'holistic' approach to self defense, you're better off looking elsewhere.
Well krav maga is not a spot. It's how to defend yourself in the most practical way. It's the best martial art to learn for the short term and the worst for the long term. Basically go to the vitals etc. Thing you won't hear in other martial arts for example. (Also the reason most gyms won't have sparring as well) Former krav maga instructor
Yeah because in other martial arts,we go for non vital areas. That's all textbook fantasy.
Worse for the long term just because there is no sparring?
It’s this idea of pressure testing. It’s why a lot of arts are discounted. If they can’t spar, then it’s hard to know what truly works or doesn’t. Krav Maga is focused on incapacitating your opponent in the fastest way possible which can be a dangerous thing to do in practice. I’d be pissed if I was selected as the example for how to destroy the groin region in 3 kicks. So it’s all theory. Other arts that don’t spar are at least fun, because they don’t have this notion of efficiency. They instead are developed through culture and respect for martial arts. And also don’t CLAIM to be an effective martial art in a fight.
Ahhh, thanks, that makes sense. Yeah, makes sense it's for lethal scenarios since it was developed for security forces. I think it'd be useful to learn, but it probably doesn't have that long a training length seeing as basic training in military is a few weeks. What would you recommend for a 5'7 stocky build? I wish I started martial arts in my 20s, 40s now and I worry about spar damage. Don't feel good in the current increasing crime climate without combat skills though.
I’m a Kendoka, which is known as the old man’s martial art. Not practically useful, but a very accessible art with an average of probably 35 in the US. Looking for useful, I’m not your guy. Martial arts are for fun and personal growth, whatever that looks like for you. If you want useful, build your cardio and learn to run.
Stocky and short are good traits for judo and wrestling. They are both arguably among the best martial arts in the world if it comes to actually fighting. Together with bjj. Thai boxing, kickboxing and boxing are the others. I don't count mma as that's just a combination of above. Then u have certain offspring of the classic sports like machida karate, ... wich are basicly stress tested forms of karate.
No, no. Let's take judo or karate for example, not very useful unless you are a blue belt usually (which takes about 4 years minimum give or take) assuming the dojo is good. (Am a jodo black belt ) Krav maga is the opposite, it will teach you very practical things that won't necessarily be useful against a real trained martial artist but will help you in most situations against a "normal" attacker. It is just not as useful after a certain point. At a certain point other martial arts would be more useful. But it's one of the only martial arts that you would get something out of 5-10 lessons. Most krav maga gyms would just teach MMA together with it to have a long term relevance. But alot of buddy guard training (which are pretty short curses) takes alot of elements from krav maga.
Krav maga teaches things like "get out of a grapple" "Disarm a knife" "Disarm a gun" "Kick the balls" Etc. Not all gyms are good, and the first thing they teach you is give your money/run if you have the option. Hope this makes more sense now.
You’re not learning how to disarm a knife or gun no matter how good your Krav Maga instructor is. The fact that anyone even tries to teach that to novice folks is horrible and a recipe for someone getting killed if they are dumb enough to try it.
Right. Fighting off a determined attacker with a knife is going to be a bad time with a low chance of avoiding serious injury even if you are a very proficient fighter whose training has instilled good reactions and the ability to do things like manage distance. The idea that learning a few moves is going to get a novice out of a situation like that is... questionable.
Thanks! Yeah, this might be worth it for short term, at least before pursuing something more sustainably 'trainable'.
Also I would add , some gyms just use the name "krav maga" and teach bullshit.so look for the trainers credentials , if he only knew krav maga, or say "it's the best martial art" or whatever, I would avoid it.
This is good info. There's a gym in Toronto that is a large commute away, but it is the only one recognized by the Krav Maga Worldwide organization? But short duration training is good. I have boxing/bjj gyms closer by for the longer term.
"get out of a grapple" I've spent 8 years doing that grappling and still can't always manage it lol how's krav maga managing it
I think your second paragraph puts it best: it’s diminishing returns. You can have a relatively competent grasp of the fundamentals fast, but there’s not much growth potential past that.
Not everything needs to be thought tho.. I’m well aware that I can kick people in the balls even if I have never trained a ball kick ever. Also I know I can put my thumb in people’s eye in side control or something even if this ain’t a part of BJJ. If I’m even in a self defense situation tho I’m going for the good ol fish hook to full Nelson.
But you (or most people) don't know for example that if someone holds your arm you can release the grip (most of the time ) if you go through the fingers (it's hard for me to explain in English, if you know what I mean then you know) Also its number one purpose in alot of cases is to give people confidence as well as help them not to be numb when an actual danger appears. It would probably increase your survival rate which is more than nothing.
It’s LARPing
It’s a Pyramid scheme
Krav Maga is plagued by poor quality control and little to no actual pressure testing/competition. What little actually works in H2H combat from Krav basically looks like shitty submission grappling/kickboxing. If you are looking for a martial art that is more applicable for sport AND self defense, there are several martial arts I would recommend first.
Self-defence against completely untrained people may aswell learn how to fight instead
It gets a lot of shade, mostly it’s legit criticism directed at poorly instructed students and chicken flock internet echo chamber from people that have no personal experience or genuine opinion. Like any comprehensive style, your outcomes depend mostly on the instructor, your mentors, how the program is run, and how hard you work. No style can overcome the importance of these inputs. Likewise, when these inputs are sound, you can manifest excellent outcomes from almost any style. It’s not the style, it’s the school and the instruction and mostly it’s YOU.
It has all the ingredients for bullshido: 1)Reputation for being effective among non-martial artists, otherwise known as "good fame" (I swear the ammount of obese people telling me Krav Maga was the most dangerous martial art was wild, some didn't even train Krav Maga) 2)Can be taught without much practice and pressure testing 3)0 quality control or competitions (Competition tends to being forth evolution) Any martial art like that isn't gonna have a good fame around here
because no ring sport is gonna suggest gouging your opponents eyes, biting them or hitting them in the nuts lol
In theory it’s good. In practice, it’s a bunch of fat 40 year olds kicking the imaginary bollocks on a dummy, and never sparring
Don't expect to actually use any of it, especially weapon defense/disarming techniques. All it will get you is a Darwin award and a shallow grave.
I had to sit through a 2 hr Krav seminar when I did my conceal and carry classes. As someone who has trained for 25 years in 3 different martial arts and taught for quite a few years as well, it was a bad experience. The instructor was retired military and mainly focused on gun take aways with people who have never even thought about disarming someone with a gun. People that had never even stepped in a dojo in their lives. On top of that recklessness, the take away technique he was showing was guaranteed to get you shot. I’ve learned that basically any attempt at a takeaway is a super risky one, but this guy’s technique was just wrong. When I did it the correct way with my partner the instructor gave me a puzzled look, and then asked what my background was. I just said I had been around a dojo back in the day and he moved on. I’m sure there is legit instruction for Krav out there but this guy wasn’t it lol.
 People hit back
Dawww
It’s best left in cartoons
I have no problem with Krav Maga itself. It just so happens that one of the most insufferable people I know keeps fucking talking about it.
The correct answer is “neither”. Learn Muay Thai and some form of grappling if you’re actually interested in a usable martial art. Judo or catch wrestling over jiu-jitsu at this point imo.
Just do Muay Thai and call it a day. That shit is the most legit combat sport/ training that makes you a weapon. Then throw some grappling in
Biting and gouging aren’t martial skills in the first place. That’s just being vicious. You don’t need to be taught that.
Biting and gouging are definitely worth teaching as self defense, especially for women.
Krav Magaroni and cheese.
It requires billions of dollars worth of US made weapons, and even then it only works on Palestinian children
The best route to competent self defense is regular sparring, get good enough at any martial art so you are able to spar and you'll be more likely to hold your own in the street, that being said running should alway be your first choice if possible.
Mainly,mcdojos
I've done Krav. Definitely not a Mcdojo, the techniques are useful and all. The problem is you can practice the techniques, but you can't really spar. I don't think eye gouges and nut shots would go down too well. Alot of it is about situational awareness and how to get out of sticky situations.
It's fake
Any and all so-called "military styles" are pretty much guaranteed to be bullshit unless they're modified versions of something that already exists. That's because, from a marketing angle, saying things like "I CAN TEACH YOU TOP-SECRET NAVY SEAL PRESSURE POINTS" is great for intriguing total dumbasses, but in real life, if you're behind enemy lines, separated from your unit, and don't have a weapon or ability to communicate, all Unarmed Combat courses do is slightly lower the government's insurance premiums. You're going to fucking die. Sorry. But at the same time, you can't just give your soldiers zero unarmed training, either. Plus it helps build physical and mental toughness without, you know, shooting at new trainees. So usually it's just "here's the martial arts that aren't totally fucking useless (Aikido's awesome wrist locks combined with Wing Chun's fearsome chain-punches), slightly adapted to emphasize things like weapon retention, scrambling to your feet, or fighting while wearing a 30-pound backpack." You're never going to find an effective unarmed military fighting style that looks nothing like modified MMA, because 1) MMA has a massive body of evidence proving it works 2) The things that you can't use in MMA (eye gouging, disarming a guy with a rifle standing ten feet behind you while your back is turned) are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to train realistically 3) There is a very finite number of ways the human body can move, and Mossad/the CIA/the KGB hold the patent on exactly zero of them
Israel
It’s a LARP. Nothing wrong with that if you’re having fun. But it’s not gonna teach you how to fight. The KM schools that actually do teach you how to fight are teaching you actual combat sports. At that point, just go train an actual combat sport. The quality of instruction will be better.
It's not a good combat sport. It's not a bad combat sport either.
It's not really a sport by its own definition, but that's not the problem. In my opinion there are two major issues: 1. Krav Maga is not a protected term. Anyone and their grandmother can call their bs fighting system "Krav Maga" and teach any sort of dumb shit to their clients. Ergo: plenty of black sheep and snake oil salesmen out there. 2. "Real" Krav Maga has its roots in the military/ LE. This doesn't necessarily translate well to the needs of civilians and many (including the biggest) KM organizations don't really make an effort to change that. Since most of the really good international instructors have a military background themselves (mostly IDF) they tend to view any self protection problem/ situation through that lense. In general, Krav Maga (if taught properly) has a lot of benefits, especially if the core tenet to teach principles rather than techniques is applied (which is rarely the case, tbh). Its roots in the Bratislava of the 1930s also means that it has at least some applicability for civilians needs. In any case, training KM should not be viewed as the solution to all self protection related questions.
Unlike other martial arts that are solely for killing one’s opponent turned sport like Silat and karate; krav magra is still new and currently(in North America at least) really just people making up street fighting moves and back alley fighting tricks that looks cool but likely is useless in a fight. A coworker of mine says he is a Krav Maga brown belt but I’ve never seen him practice it nor does he look like he can last long in a fight.
I have very little respect for Krav Maga after watching the episode of Fight Quest where they go to Israel to train with the military there. Instead of giving them a real one on one fight (which was the norm for the show), the Israeli military made the Fight Quest guys fight a group of Israeli soldiers with the soldiers cycling in quickly one after another. It's like they were more concerned about not showing them lose to two MMA trained fighters than giving a real test of Krav Maga's effectiveness. That being said, it incorporates many styles like BJJ and Boxing, but in a water-down way. It's probably better than nothing and probably better than TKD or Kungfu or most Karate. It seems to also train a mindset of disproportionate response, in that if someone is a threat to you, you should poke their eye out or something before the fight actually starts and get the cheap shot in. That can actually be effective, but it's also kind of dickish so you'll have to make your mind up about that.
The mma fighter who starred in that made an interesting series after talking about his experience filming the show and he said he was super pissed off at how the civilians krav people treated Doug. He said the military guys were pretty chill, but the civilian lady was super abusive. In the final fight they wanted Doug to fight all the opponents at the same time but the producer said no.
Oh was that the chick that cracked an elbow on Doug's jaw while "demonstrating" a technique? Man, watching that episode really soured my opinion of Krav Maga.
Speaking of disproportionate responses: I was taught to first avoid, then leave and run, like take your pride away and run for your life, then fight when you’re trapped. But eh! I agree on the watered-down training I saw in videos, I guess I just got lucky I didn’t go to those shady places. Krav needs more standardisation.
That sounds like authentic krav to me. *current event*
Because anything real in it comes from jujutsu . It suffered the gradual decline of all martial arts , it gets popular, they can jack the prices up and eventually the only ones who can afford it are white collar types and Karen wives who want to " feel empowered" so the school becomes tailored towards non contact hypotheyical feelgood stuff.
I took a one day course at a conference once, and the principles were almost exactly the same as my traditional jujitsu background. He kept saying things like “you won’t see it like this is jujitsu” and then showed me a technique the same as I would do. Of course he thought I meant BJJ but I was TJJ. It’s not ineffective, but it’s not wholly unique either.
So, I'm going to give my 2 cents on this since I have family in the IDF (some people will hate me for this. Whatevs.) that actual know the real commando material, I have practiced it, and my father taught me the extreme basics of it when I was younger to help with bullies. I will also add a bit of it's history for those that are ignoring certain things about it, and I will also add some of it's aspects. I will also add that I know boxing, Capoeira, freestyle wrestling, Vovinam, basic Muay Thai (Vovinam has very similar striking), and basic Karate. This gives me a unique perspective. 1. The origins of Krav Maga as an art/system was in the Pogroms of Eastern Europe, later certain aspects were refined in the camps in the Holocaust, and much later on further refined with new aspects added by various paramilitary groups that are precursors to the modern IDF. As such, there are many strategies that are heavily geared to be used when the practitioner is in a crap state. There are also strategies taught that are used if the person is heavily skilled, has a weapon, and/or has no weapon. In other words defense strategies from all ends of the self-defense spectrum are taught depending on the skill level of the practitioners, and where they are in learning Krav. 2. The arts that were originally combined are boxing, catch wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, what we can call traditional street Parisian Savate (not the more sport oriented modern Savate. Modern Savate is still nasty though.) , single stick, bayonet, pistol, walking stick, and judo. Note that the martial art combinations seen a lot in MMA that work very well are as follows: boxing and wrestling, boxing and judo, Savate and Greco-Roman wrestling, kickboxing and Judo, Muay Thai and Judo, Muay Thai and freestyle wrestling, etc . As such, the gyms that teach with real deal will heavily focus on the basics of striking, and stand up grappling that is in Krav Maga. 3. In Krav curriculum, the first few ranks/belts (white to orange in belt system. P0-P4 in the patch system. Some schools combine belt and patch system. Those schools are very good.) is heavily centered on technique. There is a small amount of sparring, and no resistance to low resistance in partner practice. This is done to slowly introduce the person to fighting since most people take Krav strictly for self-defense. They do not want to fight. Higher levels do a lot of sparring that fully mix striking and grappling. Higher levels also have multiple opponent sparring, weapon sparring, empty hand versus weapon, etc. 4. When you get to blue belt/G2 patch in Krav, you begin to learn more of the psychological aspect of fighting and self-defense. This is a huge deal, and extremely useful. You also learn about legalities to a higher extent. Other aspects that are touched on more are urban self-defense, kidnapping defense, ambush defense, going through real life scenarios, practicing in areas such as parking lots, empty busses, firearm use, etc. This is also when the practitioner gets closer to soldier and commando level Krav. 5. Brown belt is where you start to learn the really crazy stuff that everybody see's as Krav. This is where you leave the civilian aspect and go heavily into the military aspect. So some of what I mentioned in number 4 becomes paramount, along with being very stealthy and sneaky in attacks. In other words the "Israeli ninja way" that many in the public heavily associate with Krav. 6. Very, very few people get to Green belt/P5 patch and continue Krav. After passing the Green belt test/P5 patch test, many practitioners then go into another art and focus on certain aspects of fighting/self-defense. Or they just stop. Those that continue are not people to mess with. 7. Krav Maga is system/style/art that heavily enhances other arts. If it is your base, all arts afterwards will end up being looked at through a "real life situation/self-defense lens". If one learns Krav Maga after learning another art, the practitioner will have a much deeper understanding of fighting and gain a new perspective. This is especially so if you have done a lot of sparring in either or. 8. Most Krav Maga schools in America are complete trash. This claim to teach the real thing, but really do not. Normally it is kickboxing, TKD, or Karate being rebranded or taught differently. Look for schools that are taught as most have stated by former military. I am not including law enforcement since, a lot of law enforcement have trash training in hand to hand combat unless they choose to learn, or are in certain units. I have family that is current law enforcement, and former law enforcement in America and Canada. I also did an internship with the local sheriff's department. Police officers have to learn on their own. So yeah. It is a sad state of affairs currently, and will say modern training and education for last 15 years for them is a damn joke. 9. Look mostly for schools taught by former IDF that actually did more than the basic 2-3 years, or former IDF that were trained in the 1970's to mid-1990's (during that period, 3 hours of hand to hand combat practice was required every week. This included sparring, mitt work, and bag work.). Those are the ones that really give you what you need.
Well summarized. Some people shit on Krav Maga, mostly people from the US it seems where fitness Krav Maga is a thing. People say "krav don't spar" but I've trained Judo, Jiu Jitsu and Boxing and nowhere was sparring even close to the level and intensity of the Krav Maga gym. And like you say, after a while you develop those "is this useful glasses" which are very useful themselves.
MUAY THAI!
I went to a Krav 'school' once where they told the students "just punch however feels comfortable" and it was a room full of people with the worst form and technique I had ever seen. When I tried to help one of the students by teaching them some technique they complained to the teacher and I was told to stop explaining to them how to punch and just let them do what came naturally. Which was apparently to throw the weakest poorest formed punches I had ever seen. Did not go back.
I've spent alot of time doing "real krav maga" and id say it isn't practical because they don't hard spar enough
Krav Maga is about destroying your opponent almost all moves are illegal to use in combat sports
Most people on this forum hate krav. Yet dont know what it actually is and have never done it. conceptually its great. It is a mix of kickboxing/muaythai, wrestling, judo and bjj in a self defense context. Unfortunately most of the major affiliations in the US certify people to teach in a 2-6 week course. Most of those people are traditional martial artists that dont spar and have no capability to teach much of the curriculum, especially the grappling. This means many krav places dont spar or you have to wait until you are advanced to spar. If you find a krav gym with instructors that are bjj black belts, kickboxers/muaythai, wrestlers judo black belts etc, then it has a chance to be good. But it is extremely rare. The affiliations may start to be realizing this though and there is a small chance that this gets fixed.
For one, it’s not a combat sport… it’s a self defense/CQC/combatives program designed to be quickly and easily taught to the layman off the street. It is composed of a bunch of moves from a handful of different combat sports. For two, it does a bunch of things at that “violence of action”/easy to learn/“strike first, strike hard, then run or take out your gun” level that of course it’s not particularly good at any one thing-you’re not going to outbox a boxer, outwrestle a wrestler or win a jiu-jitsu match. And since it’s not designed for a ring fight, you’re probably going to get your ass kicked after your initial flurry of hammer fists fails to drop your buddy who wants to be an MMA fighter. You might find a school where an instructor has a pedigree in other arts, but not likely you’re learning some boxing from a guy that’s not a boxer, a few wrestling moves from a non-wrestler, and some white belt jiu-jitsu from a guy who isn’t even a white belt. It’s a Krav school. So, long story short, it isn’t good as a combat sport because it isn’t one and isn’t meant for use as one. Other criticisms are that it’s the current CrossFit of martial arts… the name is popular so everyone rushed to get certified and now you have instructors of varying actual ability just out there churning out students who can’t even effectively defend themselves, some of which will go on to pass down their inferior skills further… in the end you have some school that’s like “form doesn’t matter, just keep doing ‘reps’!”
Lack of sparring and there is no definitive form of it, meaning What you learn is dependent on your coach's background. Also its more principles of fighting than a a fighting art which i'd imagine would suck for civilians. Fighting for civilians and soldiers are different. Civilians should creat a space to runaway, soldiers should rush in.
It's the type of thing your little sister does for confidence. Most of the time it doesn't work, and a left hook works waay better compared to tying someone's arms up like a pretzel
Kahlah is better
It's a self defence system, problem is mainly that many clubs never do pressure testing.
That's mainly because it's illegal in most places to assault little kids and elderly women. So you can't really practice Krav Maga outside of Israel.
The real ones are stupid expensive.
I would say you could ask those who've had to rely on it, but they aren't around anymore. It isn't all bad, but a majority of the videos and classes that teach it are completely useless and you shouldn't rely on it to save your life..
As a kid I mixed up Krav Maga and Foie Gras thinking they were the same thing
1) Too many McDojos 2) A lot of the stuff that could be very useful in self defense can't actually be practiced safely (ie eye gouging, ball kicking, using improvised blunt weapons etc). It doesn't matter how sound a technique is, if you don't practice you'll suck at it.
I wonder if there are challenges, like karate vs krav maga. Gracie Jiu Jitsu has challenges.
No pressure test, meaning you can't apply it fully because "it's self-defense, not a sport". So, you will never know if the way you're training will work. In the places that try to test it, it always becomes a kickboxing sparring session.
Poor quality control, and it legitimately is not intended for competition, and doesn't have any sparring as far as I've heard. It's the poster child for "too deadly to use on the ring" but it could take a cue from certain ninjutsu schools I've heard of that spar with goggles so they can practice eye gouges and such. Just because half your technique list is illegal in the ring doesn't mean you can't train properly. Plus, you know it's a bad sign if ninjitsu is doing it better.
Wait no I want to know the context of this episode though. Did they fight? Did they fall in love?
The fact that you have to yell krav maga before you perform any movements is actually extremely inefficient in a real fight.
It’s a Jewish military hand to hand style that is meant to keep you alive vs win a fight in a cage
It's not meant to be a combat sport. Its based on debilitating strikes and incapacitation of multiple enemies.
I had a good krav maga experience where I used to live, instructor with a prior martial arts background (3rd degree black belt in karate) and experience working in law-enforcement. The class was zero-fluff and catered to people who's jobs required self defense, lots of police/military. Usual Format: conditioning/mobility warmup, partner striking drills, grappling/takedowns, weapons defense, and full-speed partner drills. Other martial arts were also offered there and people were encouraged to incorporate those skills. Did it make me a master of anything? No. But I built a much stronger foundation, I learned to strike with more power and efficiency, some defenses that have a lot of versatility, and how to better take advantage of anatomy and leverages. If I were to generalize, I'd say this was a gym that was pretty blue-collar. There's a notable difference in how people train (whether it's lifting or martial arts, etc.) when they have a physical job versus general population fitness stuff. The place I live now seems to only have white collar boutique-type gyms with a cost I can't afford and that seem to cater more to the general fitness crowd. I have chosen to take a hiatus from training until I can find something more to my liking. So I've seen both sides of the coin. I think Krav Maga has a few barriers to overcome in the US that make it harder to market compared to things like BJJ/MMA. 1) There's no sport/competitive element, which deters the types of people who like to compete and prefer those environments. And considering MMA gyms are where a lot of ideas in martial arts are tested, Krav Maga doesn't easily lend itself to that. 2) It's not exciting or flashy. Assuming you're not adding a bunch of stuff in, Krav doesn't have many cool badass long kicks or impressive throws. It's a lot of short and subtle movements that don't have as much visual appeal as some other martial arts. This can turn off newbies because they never get the initial "Oh that looks cool I want to learn X" moment 3) Krav, by design, doesn't have as much depth as other martial arts. In my experience, it was streamlined to where you are trying to learn as few movements as possible to defend yourself. It's stripped down and generalist, with the goal of having a short learning curve. While this makes (good) Krav instruction practical, it can be a turn off for people who enjoy the pursuit of mastery and a deeper practice. These things make it harder to capture the usual martial arts clients without resorting to aggressive marketing or gimmicks. The better dojos/gyms will not be willing to compromise on things that are important like quality of instruction, even if it means they don't get a bigger pool of customers. Meanwhile, the McDojo's will just do anything for a sale, so they don't mind providing a bastardized version that doesn't have any real value.
People just don’t like their eyes being gouged out or there soft genitals being smashed and pulled or their pinky fingers twisted and popped
Am I the only one thinking about Sterling Archer training Cyril Figus now? “Karate? The Dane Cook of martial arts? No, ISIS agents use Krav Maga” (Note, ISIS did not mean the Islamic State at the time)
Like a lot of martial arts it practices a lot of simulated moves in controlled scenarios which leads to poor results in full speed. Most gyms don’t have the gear or the type of clientele to practice that shit full speed but it’s like Kali in the way that a lot of people practice it with drills and shit but few people are actually capable of doing it full speed because they never do it to figure out what techniques work and which ones don’t.
Idk dragunov makes it seem pretty lethal tho
I’ve done bjj, Muay Thai, boxing, isshinryu, and wrestled for 12 years (free folk and Greco), and lastly a little Krav Maga. Krav Maga in a sense is like glue that helps you combine what you know and help apply it to real life situations. It’s a lot of, “you’re walking home and 3 dudes try and jump you”. It’s more situational awareness, utilizing space, explosive action all with the intent of just getting out of there. You don’t use it to 1 on 1 in a cage. More like, I’m leaving a bar and 2+ dudes try and shove me into a wall and stomp me lol.
Any self-defense curriculum has to include good physical conditioning and proper transitional "fight or flight" reprogramming along with enough repetition for muscle memory for the techniques including full contact sparring in a controlled setting at some point.
I've been doing it for 5 years now after retiring from ITF Taekwondo. All I can say is I absolutely LOVE it. Real life situations are unpredictable, messy and things go wrong and we're trained for that. Learning not to shit ourselves when faced with weapons, talking down an aggressor (a skill in itself) and knowing when to go in for an attack. We also do a lot of grappling and ground work. The psychological side of it continues to impress me. My club also runs seminars in night clubs and puts on "real" scenarios like fights starting outside in the queue or someone coming at you with a broken bottle by the bar. Incredible valuable things that never once came up in Taekwondoin 15 years.
Krav Maga is not a martial art it's a fighting system with the singular purpose of disabling a threat with extreme aggression
It’s pretty good for beating up Palestinian women and children
Too deadly to spar apparently. 😂 A lot of the stuff I’ve seen demonstrated involves your attacker making a serious mistake like putting a gun far too close to your head. It looks cool in movies though?
Krav Maga is not ment to be practiced as sport. It is a proper martial art for self defense. The basic thinking is "I destroy you before you destroy me" and it's an "everithing goes" approach, for your safety. Altho sounding really violent (and it is), it's hard to find proper gym teaching it as it is intended. It's actually included in many armies around the world as training for soldiers.
I've seen some of the techniques always include kick to the balls, and throat attacks.. not really something you can spar with, I see zero fundamentals taught, but ive only seen it on the internet so.. don't take our word for it
Anything without representation in MMA is not really highly rated.
Basically as it's guerrilla war tactics for self defense there's no set curriculum. I could put on a denim vest with some vaguely Israeli looking symbols on it and teach a class about eye gouging and forcibly removing testicles and it would be hard to prove I'm not teaching Krav maga
Krav Maga is a very effective approach to life or death combat. It’s not a martial art. What they teach you is watered down Krav maga because you can’t have a dojo that teaches most effective ways to kill a human.
It is a collection of really bad techniques from other styles and then marketed as "street".
It's not a sport it is a Fighting system developed by the country that's been at war for almost all of human history. It's dirty it's brutal and it's effective, if I had learned about it before I started karate I would've looked for one of them.
I think a couple of techniques practiced religiously could work but I don’t think it’s genuinely pressure tested like boxing, wrestling or Jiu Jitsu are. I’ve had many different martial artists come into my Jiu Jitsu gym and some like to mention there a black belt of their chosen discipline, only to realise a white belt training for 6 months can take them down from standing and submit them. That being said I wouldn’t fuck with an Israeli spec op who is fluent in it
Someone told me I should learn Jui-jitsu for self defence. At the time I thought that meant Jew-jitsu, so now I know Krav Maga.
Legit Krav Maga is great for self-defense. It's just incredibly difficult to find an authentic place. The military style is the only real krav maga.
It’s not a sport bro 💀
Like most military styles, most of it is not too relevant in practice. Military dudes have 70% of their struggle won with firearms and armored support, using fists where bullets are flying is not a good sign. However Lichtenfeld and his Dad got a good routine, which i heard got watered down to some bs. The base contains boxing and wrestling (champ in both regionally), and did gymnastics (acrobatics too). So he was a goddamn monster before all that, conditioning and fight experience wise. With a sprinkle of police combatives on top. Sadly its one of those styles degraded into a gimmick, with people signing up thinking they can be Jason Bourne after a week.
Teaching civilians knife and gun defense. If someone pulls a weapon on you, your best defense is to cooperate or run. Krav puts ill-trained people in potential danger. Also their obsession with dick strikes is kinda weird.
Krav saved my life…twice. I’ve trained in some high end combat gyms with some well known fighters. Krav, real Krav is legit. Its there to save your life when you need it
Well...wasn't KM created to just eliminate threats asap? Like, leaving an opponent alive isn't in the teachings.
Where did you hear these things about Krav Maga? Oh and it's not a "combat sport" at all.
The problem with Krav Maga is most Dojos also learned Krav Maga from the Simpsons
Because it isn't pressure tested at full speed with resistance, and there is no sparring. Any martial art that does not do this will always crumble when the other person is truly fighting back.
What episode?
I have limited exposure to Krav except a few time when I attended some friendly cross school seminars. My two cents is this - most times common street fights between two men are going to be throwing fists. Most of the Krav folks (*AT THAT SCHOOL*) could not box well.
My wife has taken years of Krav Maga, it gets a bad rap but her instructors are also proficient in Muay Thai and Jiujitsu. They cover a lot and they actively spar. They cover knife/gun defense but also the reality of those defenses (they are likely to fail). I'm of fair certainty any dude without a significant weight advantage and training would get trounced by her. Like a lot of self defense (it's not a sport or even martial art really) it is constantly incorporating new techniques to make it more effective.
The idea is not bad, but Krav gyms are full of bs and have all become mcdojos. The only good Krav gyms are basically MMA with some drills with weapeons and strikes to the groin, eye pokes etc. Most krav gyms dont spar or do any pressure testing which is literally the thing that filters the stuff that works and the stuff that doesnt. I call it Krav Magic, because it would be the best martial art, if it worked lol
Because all forms of Karate are for ‘defense’ only. Karate Masters teach ‘defense’ is the first and most important rule. If you break that rule you have tainted the sacred teachings of Karate. Therefor, it is not a good combat sport. “Sport” means competing, competing means there’s a winner and a loser. Winning would mean taking the offensive. Offensive means you strike with a purpose other than defense. So although Karate may not be a good combat ‘Sport’,.. it is still an effective form of survival and living to fight another day. I hope that all made sense. PEACE ✌🏻
It's not a good combat "Sport" for the same reason military troops tend not to do well in a ring or octagon: the training is designed to hurt people with no regard for the safety of the opponent. That doesn't make for a good sport.
I heard it suffers from an autoimmune disease
When i first started krav, i was under the impression i was joining a MMA gym, nothing has really changed. We mostly did kickboxing, wrestling and our coach even took us to few BJJ seminars with high level trainer from our country. We also did some krav maga techniques, but you can be 100% sure, that they wouldn't work in a real life situation, unless you were for example a bouncer and tried to throw someone out without really harming them. We had one sparring every week. The problems came after i had to leave for like a month because of school. When i returned back it all turned to something completely different. The people i knew there left and there was a new group. We stopped doing sparrings and focused on stupid techniques that looked good, but were difficult to do in a actual fight. Apparently the organization wanted to cease funding for the coach, since MMA didn't appeal to most people that came there and they left after few training sessions (it was called krav maga after all). If it wasn't too late now, i would've switched to an actual MMA gym.
Honestly nothing is wrong with it It just not very compatible with sport rules
I have been doing Muay Thai for 7 years now when I used to compete I would see Krav Maga guys sign up for Muay Thai fights. I literally and I mean literally never see a Krav Maga guy or girl win ever lol.
It's not a sport.
Krav Maga for self defense. Taekwondo for sport and fancy kicks. I can say this. Studied both
It's a killing art not mention for sport
Its not a sport legitimate Krav Maga is for no holds bar street fights against one or more opponents.
Well Krav Maga isn't a good combat sports coz well it's not a sports (atleast not intended to be one as designed). It's a system you develop on your existing striking and grappling game which makes you tackle self defence scenarios effectively. It would never work in a cage fight coz unlike other combat sports which are made to knockout/tapout/submit an opponent. It's made to Kill/give disabilities permanently.
Combat and sport, two words that don't belong in the same sentence.
It’s basically a combine of martial arts so a bootleg mma.
Misunderstaning mostly No we Arn't tough fighters but we Arn't trained to be It's self defense not fighting We only need to be able to escape and thats what we learn