Krav Maga is a style of self-defence and martial art which is 100% focussed on self-defence. There are no competitions, no patterns or katas, and no marching up and down the room doing traditional basics. When Krav Maga is taught well, by an experienced instructor, it is extremely effective in a street fight. What do I mean by ‘taught well’? A few years ago, no one had heard of Krav Maga, and while most people still can’t work out how to say it, just about everyone has heard of it. Unfortunately, its explosion in popularity has come along with some cowboy instructors, the kind who do a weekend course and are Krav Maga ‘instructors’ come Monday. How much can that person teach you about effective self-defence in a street fight?… probably not much. The good news is, there are also some really great instructors out there like our Head Instructor Master Gav (thirty years martial arts experience which includes obtaining his 7th Dan Black Belt in Krav Maga in Israel, 6th Dan Black Belt in Koga Ryu Ninjitsu, 6th Dan Black Belt in Genai Ryu Ninjitsu, 2nd Dan in Taekwondo, 2nd Dan in Judo, black belt in BJJ and black sash in Muay Thai. In addition to this Gav has taught, and still teaches military and police personnel around the world including special forces units, and consults government and enterprise on security and risk management having his PhD in this field). If you want to learn street effective self-defence, common sense tells you, that someone with the depth of knowledge and real world experience of Master Gav, is going to be able to teach it you. If you’re lucky enough to be in Brisbane, come and learn from Master Gav, if not, look for a similarly experienced instructor in your area.
Another interesting take away from Master Gav is, despite having his black belt in many many martial arts, what he teaches most commonly for self-defence, is Krav Maga. The reason is simple, while it still takes time to learn, it works, it teaches real world practical self-defence, and as someone who worked as the President of South Africa’s personal body guard, he knows what real world self-defence means from hard experience in a country that still has many of the most dangerous and violent streets in the world.
Krav Maga was developed to teach Israeli soldiers effective self-defence skills as quickly as possible, and unlike soldiers in many countries, they live in one of the most tumultuous areas of the world, so having effective skills is genuinely a matter of life and death. To develop this system of self-defence, the army trainers looked at martial arts from around the world, including, Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, Karate and more, selecting the best and most effective techniques from them, then testing them under combat conditions to refine and develop a system that is now know as Krav Maga. If it’s good enough for them, it’s going to be good enough in a real street fight for you too. That’s also the reason Krav Maga is popular with security guards, police and military forces around the world.
In a street fight, there are no rules or referees, an attacker can do literally anything. That means you need the skills to be able to defend yourself against kicks and punches, but also grabs, grappling, wrestling, ground fighting, weapons, and multiple attackers. Because well taught Krav Maga is so comprehensive in what it teaches, it makes it very effective in a street fight situation, where anything can happen (it’s also why you really need an instructor with a huge depth of experience and knowledge – you don’t learn to defend effectively against all of those scenarios overnight).
Another key part of ‘street effective self-defence’, is learning how to avoid problems in the first place, to diffuse problems and calm the situation down, so everyone walks away safely. This too is an integral part of Krav Maga teaching, as is learning how to deal with the stress of a street fight or street self-defence situation, including the adrenal response and how to control it and use it to your advantage.
If you’re not sure if Krav Maga is right for you and fits with your learning goals and personal preferences, give us a call and come and try a class 🙂
Our professional martial arts trainers create a safe, fun and friendly atmosphere where you will learn practical self-protection techniques you can use in real situations. We offer classes for everyone from beginners through to advanced.
As well as teaching self-defence and martial arts techniques that prevent personal harm, BTC’s Krav Maga classes help with these valuable health and wellbeing benefits:
- A fun and social group training environment
- Improved general fitness and stamina
- All-over body toning
- Improved flexibility
- Stress release
- Better focus by combining physical and mental challenges
- Improved general confidence
