Recently in Self Defence Category

It's been two weeks since my Krav Maga induction class, but I had my first full training session last night. It was fun!

It was strange to be a beginner again. After more than five years at the same Karate club, moving from the right-hand side of the dojo all the way to the left and being a junior instructor most of the time, I found myself knowing nothing and noone. It wasn't as daunting as I expected, and it really helped that the students were nice.

What also helped was that I've been doing Body Combat classes for maybe six months, and my cardio has vastly improved. The K-M class was quite a workout, we hardly stopped for 90 minutes. Without extra training I would have struggled.

It didn't help that I got paired with another beginner, a very pretty but quite fragile lady (I didn't even ask names, except for the instructor - I always forget them anyway). I've done years of training and I know you have to make attacks realistic otherwise it doesn't work. She hasn't, and didn't. So I spent a fair bit of my first lesson trying to get her to attack properly, which wasn't ideal. She was getting it right by the end, though.

I love the way all K-M's defences are oriented around speed and reflexes. It feels like it's designed to work, rather than to look pretty. I can't say I'm as impressed with the types of counterattack we were doing, but it was after all my first lesson...

A good beginning.

Krav Maga (Wikipedia link) is a practical martial artself defence style. Go read for yourself what it's about - I've done a 90-minute induction so I haven't anything intelligent to say about the style itself.

The induction was fun, and informative. Our instructor, Nick, took a group of about 12 people  through some basics. I imagine everyone has bruised forearms, there was a lot of blocking going on, and clearly some people had no idea how to block or punch when they started.

As noted elsewhere, I do think I know how to block and punch. My Karate experience won't help much here, though - this is a very different affair to the 'traditional' martial arts. Nick told us they don't like being referred to as a 'martial art' at all, as there's no 'artistry' element; it's all practical technique.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the 'not a martial art' stance. I suppose I can see it from several points of view. I've done martial arts, and to be sure there's a lot of stuff that's for show, or for the beauty of it. Often the practical element is submerged, sometimes very deeply, in the formalisms of, say, a Kata. However, I've done a little Ninjitsu as well, and like Krav Maga that style also makes no attempt to be beautiful. Practitioners of Ninjitsu don't hesitate to call themselves martial artists though, and I'm with them there - there's a harsh beauty in the effectiveness of any good fighting technique.

However one categorises it, K-M is a brutally effective system. The emphasis on practicality against modern threats gives it an edge that I've not seen elsewhere. I hope to never be in a knife fight, let alone come up against someone with a gun. I have already been attacked with (and seriously hurt by) a bottle, and K-M teaches specifically how to deal with that type of threat.

An example: In Karate I know how to block, powerfully and quickly. My blocks would be ineffective against someone trying to break a bottle on my head, because if I block hard they'll just release it, and it might hit me anyway. You see, in Karate, you keep your back straight.

In K-M, they teach you to duck.

Now I know there's more to it than the block. You get off line; you pick your block carefully; you do this, you do that. It's too complicated to actually work! You want one thing to do, and one thing only. Then there's less chance of the hesitation (while you choose from your panoply of options) getting you injured or killed.

I don't claim any originality here; the 'simple is best' approach is well-known, I first read about it in Loren Christensen's 'Speed Training' (Amazon UK link) a long time ago, but I'm sure it's elsewhere too.

This is a lot of opinon based on one induction. Fact is, I've done a fair bit of reading up on K-M beforehand, and that the induction was completely consistent with the books is rather reassuring. My first impressions are very positive indeed, and I can't wait to get to a lesson proper.