The Dark Side of the Moon by Moshe Katz

 

Welcome to the Dark Side of the moon.

Relaxing in my less than comfortable seat the old Pink Floyd song enters my mind. Perhaps it was the Tequila and Sangria this morning at the airport in Mexico.

Krav Maga, Martial, Arts, many styles, many systems, many teachers, many people trying to make big business out of self-defense. Many people fighting for a bigger piece of the Krav Maga/self-defense pie, many shady motivations.

Welcome my son to the machine, welcome to the Dark Side of the Moon.

Dark alley, late at night, suspicious figures lurking in the dark, what will work for you now?

We are no longer in Kansas, we are no longer in dojo land with bows and respect, welcome the Dark Side my friends, here it gets ugly.

I have heard the stories; rapes, muggings, hold ups, knife attacks, from Mexico, New York, South Africa, Puerto Rico. Violence rules, pacifists die. I have seen the scars, physical and emotional.

Welcome to the Dark Side of the Moon.

I take a sip of my US Airways coffee and think.

Just now in Mexico, in Morelia, Cristian showed me his scar. He was attacked by a man with a knife, he had been training for many years in Krav Maga, with the "other guys". He holds many high ranks. He performed a technique perfectly; the attacker did exactly what I always demonstrate in class as the reason not to do this old style Krav Maga technique. The scar proves the story. Welcome to the Dark Side.

Business meetings, conference rooms, market strategy, new uniforms. Automated billing, Google ads, local billboards, changing market fads.  But real self-defense is hard to find, Welcome to the Dark Side of the Moon.

Not all Self-defense has value.

Old Man Charlie Nelson said it best, in so few words, so many years ago. Small black and white advertisement in Black Belt magazine, 1980's, a knife to a man's throat, and the caption, "Do you know how to get out of this situation?"

Welcome to the Dark Side.

At IKI Krav Maga we live in the Dark Side, we embrace it and thrive in it. We understand Reality. We incorporate our history; millennium of persecution, inquisitions and Holocaust. We understand pain. We understand that violence cannot be ignored. We learn lessons of survival and lessons of heroism, all this is part of our training at IKI.

And we learn from the world, from the Gypsy attacks in Slovakia, the Stitching attacks in South Africa, the hold-ups in Rincon, and knife attacks in Mexico. We learn and we apply.

We find solutions for the Dark Side.

At IKI we welcome the Dark Side, it is our reality.

The images of our history never leave me; Warsaw Ghetto, a mother holding her dead baby as she walks the streets of the ghetto, half dazed, half crazed. The Dark Side of the moon.

We do not live in the Comfort Zone.

In the Old City of Jerusalem I walk with our Tour and Train group through the Armenian Quarter. You cannot go more than a few steps without seeing the posters: Remember! Remember the Armenian Holocaust. The Dark Side of the moon. Some wounds never heal, some pain is never in the past.

A knife comes out of nowhere, the pain is instant, a man is down. Three men are walking from their prayers at the Western Wall, our only relic from the Holy Temple, Beth HaKiqdash, as they walk the narrow streets of Jerusalem a man comes at them with a knife. Within minutes one man lays dead on the ground.  The Dark Side of the Moon.

In Milan, Italy I meet a woman from Holland. She is a teacher by profession. She tells me that she teaches at the school where our martyr Anne Frank studied. (May God avenge her innocent young blood). This young woman asks me what I do for a living. I show her some videos. She is stunned. She does not understand why I need to address such issues. Puzzled she says to me, "But who would do such a thing?"

Who? She teaches at the school of Anne Frank and he said learns nothing. Who?
Who indeed. She lives in a Fools Paradise, a world of sunshine. A world of denial.
But we live in the Dark Side of the Moon.

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.

A father and son are walking together. The vision is recorded by a gentile viewing them from just outside the Ghetto. Both Father and son are clearly identifiable as Orthodox Hasidic Jews. The year...early 1940's, the Dark Side.


A Nazi officer orders the father and son to be separated as the father is surely to be taken away. The boy is removed from his dear father, his papa. But he keeps escaping the Nazi officer and running back to his father.  He wants to hold his papa's hand.

Finally the Nazi gives up. He has had enough of this game. He points his rifle and kills both father and son on the spot. Uniting them forever in heaven.

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine. Welcome to the Dark Side of the Moon.

by Moshe Katz, IKI Krav Maga Instructor, Israel