Suprise by Moshe Katz, Krav Maga Instructor, Israel



Surprise
by Moshe Katz, Krav Maga Instructor, Israel

Training with one of my mentors, Prof Arthur Cohen of New York. He taught me to think outside the box.


Bam!  Slam!


What just happened?!

What just happened is I hit you.

There was no warning, this is not usually how I start a blog, you got caught by surprise and now you are on the floor. In most cases if you are untrained and you are on the floor, it is all over for you. You will be kicked in the ribs and they will stomp on your head.

The result: serious injury,  possible brain damage, perhaps even death.

And you were not ready for this?

You see, most martial arts schools and even the vast majority or Krav Maga styles will NOT prepare you for this sort of attack.

The punch that knocked you down is the punch you did not see and not anticipate.  But what do you see at most commercial Krav Maga schools?

I will tell you what you see.

You see a lot of action, a lot of sweating, people wearing sports outfits, people wearing…not a whole lot, hitting the bag and making scary faces. No one is smiling.  They are hitting hard, they are looking tough, but… Are they necessarily preparing for the street? I don't think so.

Now consider a girl who is sitting and reading "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin De Becker or "A Woman's' Guide to Self Defense"  by Arthur Cohen, and I will say that this girl is doing Krav Maga and is in fact becoming better equipped to handle the street than those hot girls with the great abs and the invisible shorts.

Bam!

My God you just got knocked down again!

Get ready, study your environment, look around, for God's sake don't stand at the subway station late at night with your hands in your pockets.

In 1967 Israel realized that the Arab world was about to attack, Bam! Surprise attack from the air, "From the sky they battled.." (Book of Judges, chapter 5). The Israeli air force caught the Egyptians and Syrians off guard and destroyed their air force.

Krav Maga is not just physical, it is certainly not about who has more muscle. When you walk into an IKI seminar or IKI school you may happen to come in when we are doing serious hitting or serious full power knife attacks but you might also come in when we are calmly dissecting a gun situation and coming up with a new solution.

It is not about the sweat, it is about being prepared.

Ba….now this time you blocked it. You were expecting it (I hope), and the block, is actually, really in fact…quite simple.


By Moshe Katz - Israeli Krav International - Israel 

Comments

  1. Shaan Saar Krav MagaJanuary 26, 2022 at 6:19 AM

    I found decent information in your article. I am impressed with how nicely you described this subject, It is a gainful article for us. Thanks for share it.Florida Krav Maga

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Uncomfortable Situation

Image
  Funny pic (and movie) about a not so funny situation… In training as in Life, it’s better to treat people with dignity and respect. However… What does that look like in the moment? Being that I’m teaching a Women’s Assault Prevention and Response Workshop this weekend - it’s probably a good time to talk about… Uncomfortable Situations Let’s talk about training at the academy for a minute… We run open co-ed classes at the local academy. What does that mean? Men and women train together, but we don’t stop there. People of different skill levels, backgrounds, ethnicities, sexual orientations, careers, religious beliefs, political affiliations, ages, injuries, pre-existing conditions, life experience, training expectations etc. etc. train together! We ALL work together! Overall, I think it’s better this way. Of course sometimes there’s static, you know, conflicts, and misunderstanding. When something happens, most of the time it’s just that, a misunderstanding… Sometimes people ...
Read more

What'd You Say?!

Image
  You ever have a conversation with someone who really lifted your spirits? How about having a conversation with someone who’s a real downer?! We spend a lot of time talking to people. Matter of fact, talking is one of the most under rated and under trained aspects of protecting yourself. It’s much better if you can talk your way out of a bad situation, rather than having to resort to some form of physicality. This is why we spend so much time on sharing effective communication frameworks in the PeaceWalker course. But All of that Aside… When we think about communicating, we often just think about talking to other people. We forget how we talk to ourselves! You may have heard it called, “Self talk.” All day long we talk to ourselves. We carry on an inner dialogue in our heads that only we can hear. Unfortunately, this means it's very easy to be hard on ourselves. There's something about privacy which makes it easy to say the things you would never say out loud to another living...
Read more

Cracks in Your Foundation?!

Image
  Last night we had one of our weekly coaching calls for the PeaceWalker Evolution Course. What a great call! Rob and Jenn, a couple of the Level II - Momentum folks (people who graduated from Evolution last year and came back for the second Level.), were tasked to run the meeting as part of their training. I must say, they did a stand up job! The topic of discussion was building an Unshakable Foundation. WTH is that!? It’s basically the way you live. Your habits. What you do in your day to day life. How do you train your… Body  - Your physical health Mind  - What you’re filling your head with Mouth  - How you’re communicating Heart  - How you foster your relationships Why?! Without a solid foundation it’s difficult to remain balanced. When you are not balanced, it more difficult to stay calm, cool, and collected, (especially) under pressure. As I often say,  “You can’t hide crazy.” (It eventually comes out!) Regardless… You don’t have to be in the PeaceWal...
Read more