What is in a name? Confusing the client about krav maga

Sorry to jump in at a random point, but the only down talk I have heard from Krav people is about other arts, especially the sport arts. I think real krav maga is probably really good. My problem is I went to a Krav class and it seemed to just be basic run of the mill Self defence training, no sparring or anything, with the Krav maga logo on it. Is this a problem for you guys Remi ? How many places claim to teach, but arent actually.

 

I know i been to long amongst Silat folks

@Robin, dont know wich school you visited but the school i attend has a sparring session every lesson, 1 vs 1, 2 vs 1 and 3 vs 1. Sometimes it's combined with the additional knife attack in between. I do know that schools from Krav Maga World Wide have a different syllabus (different order in wich they teach it) than ours they are teaching and drilling basics first before anyone sees some sparring, the Krav Maga Global were i train does this differently, sparring from the start.

The techniques are almost the same (maybe a little differences) but the teaching methods are differently

 

sparring and down talk

I second what Dylan has said.
We do light sparring at every class above white belt. And even ungraded students can come to the more senior classes if they want experience of sparring.
NB we do it more to practice the motor skills under a bit of stress than as a realistic enactment of SD as most assaults are over in a few seconds. But there is still a significant proportion that develop into an ongoing fight and we should prepare for that - sparring goes some way towards this

I have heard on these pages of Kravists denigrating combat sports. Not so in the FEKM where so many instructors have come from striking arts, MMA and also some grapplers.

At the risk of boring you all with my video links, here is the trailer to a seminar run by Frank Conejero (the seminar is past so I'm not advertising it).
Shown here because it includes footage of his competitive fights, which have been removed from his KM website.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMWHB-cjPKQ"]STAGE FRANCK CONEJERO - YouTube[/ame]

Anyone from KM talking down competitive sports needs to speak with him. He (among many other senior instructors) has done both.
He is now a police officer.
A bit off subject, but to my inexperienced eye he doesn't look like a technical fighter, but his KM is very technical and so are his combat seminars.

 

And to addition to Remi's video, Tommy Blom Expert 4 in KMG.

http://youtu.be/_uUuGoIFaS8

 

I came across something I think relates to this topic, It's not Krav Maga specifically but relates to marketing and advertising of martial arts.

http://www.lvkarate.com/

Found this site looking for "karate" in the las vegas area. I was interested to find that they teach Taekwondo and claim to be on of the original Kwans. Why then would they have the word Karate on their home page 94 times. I know the general public was all about Karate when the Karate Kid movies came out, but that was a long time ago... I feel they should be more respectful of their style, and the intelligence of the general public to know the term Tae Kwon Do. It is a Korean style, they should be proud of that and call it what It is (IMHO).

 

Unless I am mistaken though, isn't Taekwondo is arguably Korean karate (possibly Shotokan-esque, don't quote me) but with a bit of politics and a few different/extra moves and forms?

 

I'd be interested Remi, if you had any videos of high quality Krav Maga sparring from people who were solely educated in Krav Maga and didn't have a history in competitive martial arts.

 

sparring and KM

At the heart of this question, correct me if I am wrong, is whether KM would teach a person to fight who had not learned to fight in a sports environment. This is an interesting question and I will look around for an answer.

However, it risks confusing the issue.
The reason I have posted these links to high level sports competitors who also did KM was to answer charges on the one hand that I thought KM was better than sports combat, and on the other hand to illustrate that if high level combat athletes found KM interesting as a way of building on their core skills, then those of you who have a natural inclination towards sports combat would show it more respect.
Furthermore you might even allow that if they had found it interesting, it might well be of interest, in ways as yet undefined.
I have been trying to overcome the very poor impression that other styles calling themselves KM had clearly left among many of you.


But however a non-sports combat KM practitioner may spar, he is unlikely to ever be as competent in a sparring situation as someone who had trained predominantly for that scenario.
Furthermore, Imi Lichtenfeld was a boxer and a wrestler and while he devised KM in part as an answer to the limitations of sports combat in life and death situations (they were fighting fascist anti-semites), his own reflexes, and Richard Douieb's, Frank Conejero's, Gilles Hassine's, et al will always be a credit to their striking arts sports history.
And further furthermore, since these men are our instructors, would it not also follow that others who have not got a sports history but are competent fighters, would also owe their sparring skills to those who do?
As a middle-aged man without a combat sports history who nevertheless incorporates many combat-sports drills and exercises into his teaching, I find no shame in this link and debt to combat sports. I do however, believe that KM builds in a very considerable sense on those sports combat skills.

I will have a look around Youtube and get back to you, probably tomorrow.

 

OK. Here goes:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwApfzysEJo"]PKMA - Combat dur - Patrik Marek - YouTube[/ame] fighting for black belt grading. From the lack of sharp form, I would say that neither of these were competitive kick-boxers. Just to re-explain what you are looking at: While all target areas are allowed and punching and kicking are full contact, force is restrained when it comes to elbows and knees to the face, gouging and biting.
I would also say that neither of them would be a push-over for your average mugger.
Could they hold their own in the ring? Probably, with some more ring-specific training… The question is not strictly relevant to SD. They are not fighting to prove that they have SD skills – these have already been assessed at this stage of the exam. And there is no winner. They are showing composure under pressure, courage and respect.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LJyTfvnyWU&list=PL3D3672EB1BE06B44&index=10"]Krav Maga Lyon - Combat Dur - passage ceinture verte - Mehdi vs Pierre - YouTube[/ame] shows the full contact fight for a green belt grading. Neither are kick-boxers. Their instructor, Steve Schmitt, refereeing, was a karate competitor and also studied ninjitsu before finding his home in KM

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwwHGNxzL9I"]Krav maga ASKM combat dur passage de grade juin 2013 - YouTube[/ame] these are a couple of Gilles Hassine’s students, neither high kick-boxers, although he did compete (not him refereeing). One is fighting as part of is green belt grading the other, for the blue belt. The more skilful of the two looks as though he has done some savate, but he is nevertheless unable to demolish the other guy.

But we need to remember that there are many kinds of fighting. Sparring in this sort of situation approximates to someone stepping up to you in the car-park and saying, “Come on, then.”, unarmed, but thuggish. This is the situation that combat sports will prepare you best for, provided that you train to avoid dirty techniques – biting, groin shots, etc. Please do not tell me that you do not need to train for them. If you train for them it is obvious that you will be better prepared to deal with them.

Still, these scenarios are relatively uncommon compared with the punch from the side into the hinge of the jaw, the two on one at a bus-stop, stopping the fight that was starting between two women and their adult daughters in the queue at the supermarket (I live in Peckham), the idiot squaring up to the ticket inspector at point blank range (i.e. head-butting, elbows, knees.), bearing in mind that the ticket inspector cannot throw the first shot and be certain to keep his job.

Neither do I mean that KM is THE answer. I have had to defend myself against unruly teenagers and prevent them from fighting each other. There, I found that Wudang Tai Chi Chuan which I had been studying for years was more appropriate than KM. I have known police officers from the TSG (public order units) whose very rudimentary close combat and baton techniques were adequate and more appropriate than kicking people in the groin.

But if you are having to deal with gangs intent on setting your neighbourhood alight and raping your womenfolk (think the Nazi invasion of Bratislava, think Bosnia), if you are having to deal with the gang who has surrounded your son, and are intent on stealing his bike, and one of them may or may not have a knife spending time learning to slip the guard, to apply a scarf choke or an arm bar will be time wasted, no matter how useful they are in the ring, or in the car-park fight. We do these chokes and locks in KM, but only after the kick/punch/elbow/knee and scarper has been practiced to death.

No combat sport I know of will teach you to respond to a pistol in the ear and the instruction to “Get in that car.”, nor do they commonly teach to defend against a baton or a knife attack, nor to break up a drunken family bar fight (mother and son attacking father and son, again in South East London). Nevertheless, the application of force and spacial awareness that they do teach and practice, will give a real advantage in any of these situations.
Again, it is not either/or. They are complimentary.

This is what I intended to demonstrate with links to KMists who had been or were still combat athletes.

But I have digressed considerably from my initial intention in this thread, which was to draw attention to what was and what was not Krav Maga.

 

Thanks!

I'm not convinced. No one would say that doing boxercise would prepare you for an actual boxing bout, how will saying "Yeah, you can bite someone from here" or miming a bite at different times prepare you for actually biting someone? It's not just what you train, it's also how you train.

Respect to the guys in the video, dudes look like they can dish out some real punishment.

Yeah sorry, I don't think hanging out at the Krav Maga gym twice a week will prepare you for a Nazi invasion, but it seems like a moot point for a while now.

These seem like a question as to how to apply your skill, not skills that you develop in and of themselves. It seems like you'd be best served training combat sports for a few years, then taking a finishing course of some sort, rather than training consistently in Krav Maga for that whole time.

 

What's the most reputable org in your opinion?

 

training

Apologies for the capitals. They are not shouting. I just don't know how to intersperse the italics and regular script the way you do.

AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE, IN AN SD SITUATION GOOD MT OR WESTERN BOXING WILL DEFINITELY SERVE YOU BETTER THAN POOR KM.
IT DEPENDS ON THE COMBAT SPORTS SKILLS YOU LEARN AT THE KM, AND THE OTHER SKILLS THAT YOU WILL TRAIN. BUT AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE, GOOD MT OR WESTERN BOXING, WILL DEFINITELY SERVE YOU BETTER THAN POOR KM.
SOME SCHOOLS DO THE 'FINISHING COURSE' AT THE END OF EACH CLASS. SITUATIONAL TRAINING, PRESSURE TESTING, ETC. MY INSTRUCTORS HAVE IT ONCE PER WEEK, WHEN WHAT HAS BEEN COVERED IS APPLIED IN INFORMAL AND DYNAMIC SCENARIOS. OTHERS DO PERIODIC SEMINARS TO COVER THIS.
SURELY MORE TRAINING, AND CONTINUOUS PREPARATION IS BETTER THAN NONE, OR SOME IN THE UNCERTAIN FUTURE.

 

Repute

Technically:
Well Dylan might disagree, but I have developed huge respect for the FEKM, which is my organisation (- But he would say that, wouldn't he?)
Having said that, although it is by far the largest organisation in Europe, there are very few of us in Britain. SE London and Birmingham, so far.
I would say that the organisations headed by Eyal Yanilov and Darren Levine GKM and KMWW are better represented here and may teach proper KM. Very much depends on the instructor, and his or her background
I do know that the FEKM keeps a close eye on instructors, does not demand much from them, but ensures that they do not derail pedagogically or technically.

Haim Zut was Yanilov and Douieb's instructor - Zut was one of Imi's students. He is an old man now, but there are schools run by his students, and from the videos they also know the difference between decent KM and rubbish.

Politically, financially, etc. I do not know much about the other organisations. Again, the FEKM is friendly, professional, and not greedy. The others may be, as well.

 

demographic

It seems like you'd be best served training combat sports for a few years, then taking a finishing course of some sort, rather than training consistently in Krav Maga for that whole time.[/QUOTE]

Combat sports are great but not accessible to all. I nearly died when I went to a MT class, and I'm quite fit.
My 58 year old student who cannot do a straight kick above the groin, nor a turning kick above the knee would find it impossible, as would the fat girl who recently started.
Whatever the benefits of MMA and MT the classes I have attended are populated by a narrower demographic.
KM it is open to all, and the youngsters can still get a buzz and work up a sweat.
SD is for everyone who needs it.

 

I dont disagree with you Remi.

Basically what i experienced is that all Krav organisations teach the same syllabus, just in a different way.

What Remi said that the quality of lessons depends on the instructor giving them. I have 3 instructors that are all very driven and ethousiastic, we also have a pretty young group that are all in their 30's so the level of condition is the same so the lessons are pretty intens.

I know that Eyal is doing alot about quality control, through mandatory instructor camps and instructor training.

Just try some classes with different organisations and see whats the best fit for you, for me it was Krav Maga Global.

 

Well I have trained in the FEKM 'style' of Krav Maga for 4+ years now, and I like the principle at its heart that it MUST be open to all. The techniques MUST be as applicable to an overweight 40 year old woman as a superfit 20 year old man.

I think Richard Douieb answered the question 'Is Krav Maga a Martial Art?' in the following way (can't remember exactly so I'm paraphrasing) :

"At the beginning Krav Maga is about self defence only - that is its first and foremost aim. If you then choose to train longer and improve your fitness and technique then it can become a sport for you. If you then choose to apply yourself further to master the intricacies, then it can become a martial art for you."

Or words to that effect!

The other thing is that when you look at the physiology of 'real' combat - as in if you are mugged, or get into a confrontational situation or are protecting yourself, friends or family - then the facts of the matter are that as your adrenaline hits and your heartbeat spikes above 150 bpi, you lose all fine motor control and are left with gross motor control.

Now this doesn't mean that if you have many years of experience and training, you will not be able to use the techniques that you have learnt. These things eventually become part of your conditioned response - sparring and testing of situations under pressure all assist in this.

However, what I am talking about here is inexperienced and newly trained individuals. Anything that is even vaguely complicated will be straight out of the window under pressure. The basics of Krav are ALL gross motor skills - there are wrist locks, takedowns and so on, but it is stressed repeatedly that the FIRST motion is the most important and that is always a motion involving parts of the body that will be most assisted by the bodies response to adrenaline and stress.

What I found interesting was that I didn't really understand this until I did a BTEC self defence course a little while ago, which had modules in it that dealt with understanding the physiological response to attacks.

I guess what I am saying is that finding this out AFTER I had been training in Krav for a few years kind of reinforced my respect for it. Although the founders may not have had a degree in sports science, they understood that the techniques that were taught needed to be easy to learn and easy to replicate.

So - for my 2p it fulfils all the requirements of an effective system and is continually being improved.

You can however see the difference between 'proper' Krav and stuff that is using the name for financial gain !

 

Interestingly enough, we have a guy who is training with us and KMG at the same time and at roughly the same level. I had a look at the grade sheets and the levels of progression are very similar to FEKM in terms of what is taught and at what level.

You can see a difference in how his techniques are applied but that is more a stylistic difference than functional. He recently did his Green belt with us, after doing his KMG P3(?I think that's right) which is the first 'major' grade where the person being tested needs to take part in a 'hard fight' - its not a win or lose thing, just 4 minutes where you show your willingness to enter into a confrontation.

These are all on the South London Krav Maga site if you want to look (HERE)

I think he is probably getting the best of both worlds to be honest!

 

Combat sports are great but not accessible to all. I nearly died when I went to a MT class, and I'm quite fit.
My 58 year old student who cannot do a straight kick above the groin, nor a turning kick above the knee would find it impossible, as would the fat girl who recently started.
Whatever the benefits of MMA and MT the classes I have attended are populated by a narrower demographic.
KM it is open to all, and the youngsters can still get a buzz and work up a sweat.
SD is for everyone who needs it.[/QUOTE]

I train in a school that has a wide demographic. We teach kickboxing, BJJ, Kali and JKD. People who come kickboxing are between the ages of 16 and 65 easily. I am a fighter, so I don't believe "not everybody can do kickboxing" for an instant. I get as hard a training session as I want as it all comes down to personal ability, and nobody is pushed harder than they want to go. Please don't tell people sport martial arts aren't for anyone when really they are.

 

glad to be wrong

 

GOOD AND BAD KM BLACK BELT EXAMS

Since I have given up hope of UKMers stepping up and explaining why their discipline should bear the name they give it, I’d like to move on in my attempt to get MAPers to take Krav Maga a bit more seriously.
Inspired in part by another thread where some of you have posted videos of dreadful demos, some funny, others truly desperate, here is another perspective on krav maga.

1st:
A black belt krav maga exam at ATA in Texas. I have deliberately chosen something far from my home. Dylan seems to think that this is an American phenomenon, I am not so confident.
It does appear that the examiners have at some point walked past a krav maga school and that they did look through the open door as some of the techniques being shown bear some resemblance to krav maga techniques. But they are so poorly executed as to defy further description within MAP rules.
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klHhz5och8Y"]Jan. 10 2014 Frisco and Rockwall ATA Krav Maga blackbelt testing - YouTube[/ame]
Now note that the ATA seems to be a taekwondo organisation that knows what it is doing. I am not qualified to say otherwise on the strength of what I have viewed on Youtube and their website. TKDist MAPers might disagree.
What bothers me is that they are awarding KM black-belts.
If you skip to the graduation (time mark 15:55) it seems that all, or most, have passed. These people have payed money to believe that they are qualified in a real self-defence system.

2nd:
Now compare with an FEKM black belt grading:
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdecFsuPSa8"]KRAV MAGA FEKM-RD Examen 2014 ceinture noire. - YouTube[/ame]
You might want to skip through the spoken French bits, or I can translate sections on request. If you see things you don’t like, you might be right, but don’t jump to conclusions. There could be things I can explain.
Note that the pass rate is 35%. Why so low? It’s not that they give away brown belts, which is the previous grade, and, believe me, is no joke. It might be to do with the fact that the black belt exam assesses the entire syllabus from Yellow belt through to brown and that many people have not sufficiently revised their basics; or that this is the first grading that is examined centrally by senior grades rather than by local examiners. This is a way of ensuring that standards across the federation are consistent.

A black belt is something serious. Or it should be.