Krav Maga Blog - May 2022

One of my earliest memories of violence occurred when I was five years old. My parents had forced my reluctant older sister to take me with her to play with a group of her friends, at a park, on a recreational/sports field not far from our house – this was the seventies when it was much more common for groups of young kids to be out in public spaces together, without an accompanying adult. Many people look back on these days wistfully, and man a bygone era, when it was safe to let kids roam freely etc., I don’t remember...

Striking rhythms often get overlooked in reality-based self-defense, as most real-life confrontations tend to be short affairs, where neither party has time to fall into one. However, understanding different striking rhythms, and when and where they can be used, can be extremely useful, and such knowledge and ability doesn’t have to be reserved for the ring or the cage. In this article I want to look at three different rhythms and how they can be utilized in real-life settings. In almost every confrontation, each party is looking to end the fight as quickly as possible – which is understandable. This is...

There is a danger that comes from focusing on headshots, which unfortunately many people do, prizing concussive strikes and punches above all others. By searching for the “elusive” knockout punch to end the fight, other opportunities that could equally finish the fight, such as liver, spleen and kidney shots may be missed. Also, by focusing almost exclusively on the head, people will often forget to defend these targets, usually whilst they can imagine the results of a concussive strike, they’ve never experienced a devastating body shot, and so fail to protect these areas and organs e.g., when they raise their...

It is widely acknowledged that women (and children), are more often victimized than men when it comes to war crimes (shelling of non-military targets, civilian executions, torture, and sexual violence etc.), and that the majority of perpetrators of these crimes are men. However, it would be a mistake to distill from this fact that men are naturally more violent, and less peace-loving etc. than women. One major reason for this is that in most armed conflicts, women remain at home, whilst men are sent to fight, creating a population that is potentially vulnerable to victimization by soldiers of the opposing...

In this article I want to look at two common misconceptions that some Krav Maga practitioners and instructors sometimes have. I am using two examples which hopefully can be used to illustrate other related misunderstandings, regarding the application of self-defense solutions. I am not calling out any particular instructors or associations (as rarely does this have any constructive purpose), but rather commenting on things that I have noticed over the years will crop up on social media, posts, and comments etc., by many different individuals and practitioners etc. For some practitioners and instructors these things may represent an elephant in...