Krav Maga Blog - Feb 2013

Feelings are not the same as emotions. An emotional response is physiological, involving physical changes to the body’s natural state, such as a release of adrenaline (a cocktail of hormones) into the bloodstream. A feeling is the conscious interpretation of this state. Adrenaline will be released into our system, when our “fear” system identifies a threat that it believes requires a fight or flight response. Our interpretation of the threat, determines whether we become afraid or aggressive/angry. It is worth noting that our fear system can be educated, in fact many fears are learnt e.g. nobody has an inherent fear of...

There are predators (those who create violent situations), there are ordinary people who get caught up in the aggression, emotion and violence of a situation and then there are those who are simply habitually violent i.e. given the chance or excuse they’ll become violent. It doesn’t matter what their motivations are e.g. if they are addicted to the adrenaline high of violence, or use it as a means to establish their position of social dominance in a group or if they simply need to assert and convince themselves of who they believe they are; the toughest/hardest guy on the planet,...

I am always surprised at the way many instructors only present one outcome to dealing with violence: success. I understand the need to present a positive message etc however when this occurs at the expense of acknowledging reality I find this difficult to swallow. If you are in a knife fight, you are likely to be cut, if you deal with a gun threat you may be shot and there are few occurrences of violence that don’t see you get punched, kicked etc – especially if multiple assailants are involved. These are all the immediate potential “physical” consequences that need...

There is much that is misunderstood about Close/Executive Protection (Bodyguards) e.g. it is a far more involved job than standing in front of a car, with your arms behind your back, whilst wearing a pair of sunglasses. The principles and concepts that are used in Close Protection, whilst protecting third parties, translate well to personal/self-protection and can be used to help increase awareness and improve a person’s ability to predict, anticipate and avoid violence. In this week’s blog, I want to just illustrate and describe a few of the general ideas, which cross over well from this professional field into...