I'm sure you've all heard this "Krav Maga, rated #1 Self-Defense system in the world". It's posted just about everywhere. But what's your opinion of Krav Maga? Is it truly the best system for Self-Defense or is it just like all the other Martial Art systems?
If you can find a gym which is accessible to you, which you will regularly attend and train at, which covers all aspects of self defence including the soft skills (deescalation, target hardening etc.) and the different ranges, that pressure tests what they do in realistic scenarios, and discusses self defence within the law, then yeah I'd say it'd be right up there. But then again, if you apply all those criteria to any martial art I'd say the same thing...
Only bonus would be the cool camo pants but no... Trained two types of krav and some good scenario work but found the technical side lacking. A lot of weekend instructor courses also further dilute the quality. Seen some good school but these are few and far between IMO outside of the Wingate Academy.
Were you "commando" under those camo pants? I observed a KM demo and some people were wearing "cargo pants" the first day, then following days, everyone was in "camies".
Krav is just another hybrid "super system" that fails to reliably and consistently produce quality practitioners. The krav founder trained boxing, judo, and a few other arts and now krav is somehow better and more "deadly" than the arts that went into creating it. krav seems to suffer from a severe case of "the deadlies", many of it's guys think it's too deadly to spar without killing your partners. The answer to every attack it to bite, knee stomp, throat punch, and groin kick your way to safety. Maybe that's good on a battlefield where lines are clearly defined but in reality you can't throat punch a guy that grand your girlfriends ass and you don't want to knee stomp your drunken friend for getting out of hand. A solid base in a striking or grappling art that regularly rolls or spars and draws upon knowledge from competing fighters is your best bet for self defense. Take a class to learn some situational awareness or read a book about deescalation. But you need a system that has you training with aggressive partners, this will prepare you for the reality of the "deadly streetz".
the problem with krav maga is that it seems noone can define exactly what it is, and even in my area there are two different Krav maga schools , supposedly offical, with ties to schools and teachers and units in Israel, but upon inspection, training methods, techniques, views etc are completely different. One was like your average Self defence class (rake the eyes, knee the groin, arm locks etc) with no sparring or anything, and the other just seemed to be a eclectic mix of kung fu and kickboxing with some sparring in there. So which is the "REAL" krav maga, or are either of them real? So what is the real krav maga and how do you tell the difference. Dont let the military links take you for a ride, Systema claims military links, and some of what I have seen in that is shocking.
Just remember, that pretty much all male Israeli's are IDF veterans, so a KM class being run by an IDF vet is nothing particularly special.
Yeah, on the whole it just seems to be kickboxing and defendu with the mix of each varying from school to school and an unhealthy fascination with groin shots.
I found myself doubting krav because of how I was taught it, which was mixed with KFM's blocks all around the head... felt surprisingly vulnerable
Keysi Fighting Method. Really not fan of the blocking style https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1NQelhmvqc
