Krav Maga is probably the fastest growing fighting style of the millenium. In less than a century, it has become on the most popular fighting sport in the world. It is important to never neglect your Krav Maga training to always be ready in case a situation occurs.
Self-defense vs reality
Some may wonder if realistic self-defense training is even possible at all and not a contradiction in itself. We cannot blame them for that since there are countless self-defense schools that claims to offer the most efficient self-defense training. But most of them fail to address this.
Your training takes place in a non-threatening environment where there’s no hostility and no intimidation. You know your training partners and the instructors. You know what you’re doing, what you have to do and what’s coming. Your training partner will never attack with the same determination as an aggressor on the street. That’s why it can only ever be a rough approximation to a real self-defense situation.
But it’s not because you cannot recreate the real conditions of a street aggression that you cannot prepare for it. In order to simulate real violence and the stress that comes with it, many drills can be done. Legitimate self-defense schools can be very creative to prepare people for violence. Here’s what you can do :
- Practice exercises that put you in a lot of stress. For instance, close your eyes, spin around for a few seconds and when you opened your eyes someone attacks you with a knife. This is a stress drill that makes you work on your reflexes and the first response of our body.
- Sparring is esssential to prepare for real violence. In this exercice you will discover what it’s like to be under a lot of pressure and to receive hits. This is also a good moment to practice your combos and improve your technique. When you will get better at this, ask your partner to increase the intensity. The goal is not to hurt yourself, otherwise you will be useless if anything happens to you for real. Sparring against multiple opponents is a great exercise to work on your self-control and cardio because this is really oppressive. And it’s also a situation very likely to happen in the street.
Krav Maga training philosophy
I was raised to never throw the first punch, but you can bet I will throw the last one.
The first move a Krav Maga instructor should teach to every students is fleeing. There is no such thing as pride or cowardice. The reason to be of this sport is to teach how to survice. Therefore, fleeing is often the best way to save yourself from trouble. You never know against whom you are, he may be a boxing champion or an advanced street fighter. But in some situations you cannot and in these cases you have no choice but to fight. But if you do so the most important thing you have to keep in mind is that it is you or him. When you attack, you never stop before being out of danger. And by that I don’t mean being a crazy man kicking everyone and everything until he is out of breath. No, I mean fighting, Krav Maga style, until you opponent is not a threat anymore with a real intention to hurt.
We are what we repeatly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. Aristotle
To be prepared for real situations, it is important to take your Krav Maga training seriously. Sometimes, we feel to lazy to go to the Krav Maga class but in these times remember why you’re doing this. Even if you considered as a Krav Maga expert, you need to train again and again, repeating all the techniques and movements until its rooted in your own body reflexes. Because, when the day comes where you’re under threat, you probably won’t have the time to think about you have to do nor the self-control to think clearly. That’s why repetition is so important. We need to practice until our body is able to answer a threat even before our mind realize what is happening.
You must be so good that you don’t need to kill. Imi Lichtenfeld
It is also important to be in a good shape.