About Krav Maga

Krav Maga Books By Gershon Ben Keren

Krav Maga Yashir Head Instructor

The History, Evolution & Development of Krav Maga

Although Krav Maga (meaning “Contact Combat”) is perhaps the best known of the Israeli Martial Arts, it isn’t the only fighting system created and developed in Israel, nor was it the first. The first system of self-defense and fighting was a system known as KAPAP, an acronym that stands for Krav Panim a Panim, which means “Fighting Face to Face” in Hebrew. KAPAP was a conceptual framework that incorporated techniques from Judo, traditional Ju-Jitusu, Boxing and Wrestling etc. It also had a fairly comprehensive stick/baton fighting syllabus, that was based off of the truncheon/baton used by British law-enforcement. Many members of the HAGANAH (the underground Jewish defense force) served in the Palestinian Police Force that was run by the British, who had been granted the mandate for Palestine by the United Nations. This meant they were exposed to British methods of policing, including that of point shooting, an instinctive way of targeting a firearm that doesn’t rely on using the sights, developed by two British police officers working in Shanghai: William, E. Fairbairn and Eric, A. Sykes.

When the state of Israel was declared on May 15th, 1948, the IDF (Israel Defense Force) was formed. Members were largely drawn from the HAGANAH, and KAPAP was still taught as the method of close, hand-to-hand fighting. A KAPAP instructor, called Imi Lichtenfeld (who had fled his native Bratislava in 1940 to escape the rising of Nazism in Slovakia, eventually reaching Palestine in 1942), became the IDF’s Chief Instructor for Physical Fitness and hand-to-hand combat. Over the next 20-years in this role he began to gradually change the KAPAP syllabus, though it wasn’t till quite a few years later that he began to refer to the “new” syllabus as Krav Maga, and for many years the terms Krav Maga and KAPAP were used interchangeably.

The goal of Imi’s training was to take an inexperienced soldier and get them combat ready in the shortest possible time. To do this he relied upon the use of instinctive movements. During his time dealing with fascist street gangs that had targeted him and his Jewish friends in the 1930’s he had seen trained and experienced martial artists fail to put into practice the techniques they had learnt and were proficient at in a training environment. He would witness an experienced boxer flinch like an untrained person when attacked. Rather than trying to get an individual fit into a system’s way/approach to fighting, Imi took these natural instinctive and reflexive responses and built his system of self-defense around them. His idea behind Krav Maga was to acknowledge and work with the way the body naturally responds when attacked rather than teaching somebody to fight against them. He also looked at how certain body movements against one attack or threat could be re-used against others, so that the number of movements a person had to learn could be minimized. This allowed for an individual when practicing one defense to be practicing other defenses at the same time; meaning that they were getting more repetitions in that would improve efficiency.

In 1964 Imi left the IDF (his top student Eli Avikzar took over the position – later renaming what he taught as Krav Magen, meaning “Combat Shield” in Hebrew), and began adapting and teaching the Krav Maga he had designed in the military, making it suitable for civilian use e.g., a principle of military Krav Maga is that when attack or threat is non-life-threatening, such as a wrist or clothing grab (unlike a choke or strangulation which is life-threatening), rather than attempting to deal with the attack/grab, the individual being grabbed/attacked, should attack the attacker, with punches, strikes and kicks etc., to interrupt and stop whatever their next attack is going to be. Whilst in the military context might not be so important it is in civilian settings e.g., what if the person grabbing you is a colleague/co-worker in a work-setting? To deal with these different contexts, other techniques and solutions were developed e.g., how to break away from a wrist or clothing grab and evaluate what should be done from this position etc.

Hisardut

Dennis Hanover a South African martial artist who moved to Israel in 1960, developed a system combining Karate, Judo and Ju-Jitsu, that is known as Hisardut (meaning “Survival” in Hebrew). In many ways this was the first Mixed Martial Art, in that it utilized kicking and striking from Karate, with throwing, grappling and groundwork from Judo, along with the locks and controls of Ju-Jitsu (which originally formed a solid basis for weapon defenses). This system is taught to many of the elite units in the IDF. Krav Maga Yashir Head Instructor, Gershon Ben Keren, passed the Hisardut Instructor test and was awarded a 3rd Degree Black Belt in the system. Some of the elements and training methods of Hisardut are taught at our school (located just 20 minutes from Somerville, Massachusetts).

Krav Maga Yashir

In 2011, Gershon Ben Keren started to refer to the Krav Maga that he taught as Krav Maga Yashir system (meaning “Direct Contact Combat” in Hebrew). This was largely to differentiate the Krav Maga that is taught in Israel, from the Krav Maga programs that many martial arts schools were setting up to supplement their other programs e.g., Tae-Kwon-Do, Karate, Kenpo etc., and didn’t have a complete Krav Maga syllabus, that encompassed ground fighting and ground survival, complete gun, and knife defenses etc. In Israel, Krav Maga is taught as a full system and doesn’t require the training of other martial arts such as BJJ and Muay Thai. If you are looking for a complete and authentic Krav Maga program and would like to experience how effective Krav Maga is, you can attend one of our beginners Krav Maga classes by clicking the button below.

Beginner Classes