1 HISTORY OF KRAV MAGA AND THE KRAV MAGA INSTITUTE

The originator of Krav Maga (Hebrew for hand-to-hand combat), Imrich Lichtenfeld—“Imi” for short—was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1910, and grew up in Bratislava, Slovakia. With support from his father, who actively participated in wrestling and boxing competitions, Imi became a versatile athlete at a young age. At age 18, Imi won the Slovakian national wrestling championship as well as several boxing titles. Imi’s father, Samuel, was an exceptional athlete who, as a youngster, had joined a traveling circus and later operated a strength sports academy for wrestlers and weight lifters. Samuel was also the head of the municipal police department and routinely instructed the police officers in self-defense via conventionalized boxing and jiu-jitsu techniques. Even as a child, Imi participated in these training sessions and received additional instruction from his father in many areas of the sport. He participated in countless competitions and was considered one of Europe’s best wrestlers in his weight class.

In the mid-1930s, along with some like-minded individuals, he joined a protection force with the goal of protecting the Jewish residential neighborhood from anti-Semitic attacks. In the process, Imi became a resistance fighter and, due to his wresting and boxing experience, organized the self-defense efforts of the Jewish community. He participated in countless street fights in defense of the Jewish quarter against the fascist mob, and in doing so often had to fight for his life and that of his comrades.

As a leading figure, he became the sworn enemy of the anti-Semites and in 1940, Imi was forced to flee Bratislava on board of an old paddle wheeler. He subsequently served two years in a Czech legion under the command of the British forces in North Africa and the Middle East, before receiving an entry permit to Palestine. Once he arrived in Israel, he changed his name to Imi Sde-Or. With the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, Imi was named chief instructor for physical fitness and Krav Maga for the Israeli defense force (IDF). Because the state of Israel has been in a near constant state of war since its creation and the IDF not only drafts men but also women for military service, Imi’s first task was to develop a system of hand-to-hand combat that would be feasible for both genders, easy to learn and effective under stress without regular, intensive training. Since soldiers are sometimes sent into combat after only a six-month crash course, the assignment was to develop a close combat system that would mentally and physically prepare a 40-year-old homemaker as well as an 18-year-old physical education student for realistic combat via intuitive and easy-to-learn techniques.

Imi’s initial approach was to adapt all of the known combat techniques like, for instance, techniques from Muay Thai, boxing, Judo, and Jiu-Jitsu, to the natural human instincts and reactions.

Instead of telling the soldiers what to do, Imi began to explore the soldier trainees’ automatic reactions when under stress. Based on these instinctive reactions and his experience in street fighting he then developed the appropriate self-defense techniques. The focus was on training for an emergency. Imi served in the army for about 20 years, and worked primarily on developing and refining his self-defense and close combat methods. In doing so, Imi personally drilled the soldiers of Israel’s Special Forces unit and trained many of his students to become Krav Maga instructors.

Krav Maga continues to evolve today. The system must adapt to the demands and conditions of people’s modern daily life, and not the reverse.

It is important that all techniques follow the natural human behavior patterns and movements while under stress!

This is also the reason for the often incomprehensible speed of Krav Maga. Since all the techniques are linked to instinctive and natural movements, the reaction time is much faster than other self-defense methods.

In addition Imi always made sure that the Krav Maga students’ positive aggressiveness was sustained.

“Si vis pacem, para bellum.”

—Latin for: “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

After his active military service in the mid-1960s, Imi worked on adapting his system to the needs of police and civilians. He established two training centers, one in Tel Aviv and the other in his new hometown, Netanya. The first non-military Krav Maga course for trainers and instructors was held in the early 1970s. Since then, the methods devised by Imi and the techniques for uncompromising self-defense have been spreading around the world.

This important Krav Maga element is the result of street fighting in Bratislava and the insights of the soldiers of the state of Israel who are in a constant state of war. War is always bloody and brutal. The losing side must suffer the consequences. Thus Krav Maga produces a stand-your-ground mentality in the trainee via aggressive defense against violent attacks with the intention of neutralizing the attacker(s) as quickly as possible.

“…it was either hit or run; I found the hitting more satisfying… You automatically end the fight by putting an end to your opponent...”

—A statement supposedly made by Imi to his students in 1976.

In order to lend an appropriate structure to the increasing popularity of his self-defense system, Imi founded a nonprofit Krav Maga organization. The Israeli Krav Maga Association (IKMA) was created and in 1977, was officially recognized by the Israeli government. The members of the IKMA appointed Imi president for life. As he got older he increasingly withdrew from IKMA leadership, and high-ranking instructors left the organization to explore new avenues. Eli Avikzar, one of the first black belts in Imi’s system, established Krav Magen, and Haim Zut established the Krav Maga Federation. In December 1995, a number of high-ranking black belts and direct students of Imi’s—Avi Moyal, Gabi Noah, Eyal Yanilov, and Eli Ben-Ami—established the International Krav Maga Federation (IKMF) to popularize Krav Maga outside of Israel. Imi’s attitude toward this new direction was positive and he supported these startups because he thought it more important to provide people with methods of self-defense and self-protection rather than pursue personal goals.

Today, Eyal Yanilov left the IKMF, which is now run by Avi Moyal, and founded his own organization Krav Maga Global (KMG). Gabi Noah founded the International Krav Maga (IKM). These are the largest Krav Maga organizations in the world that teach Krav Maga internationally to public authorities, military units, security services, bodyguards, and of course civilians. The System Krav Maga is tested again and again for its suitability in the field. Particularly the findings and feedback gained from collaboration in a professional setting (e.g., police, military, security) make Krav Maga one of the most practical systems for conflict resolution. The IKMF directs the worldwide training and continued education of trainers with a team of Krav Maga experts, led by Tamir Gilad.

Imi Lichtenfeld personally oversaw the training, performance and progress of the top Krav Maga graduates until the end, and died in 1998, at the age of 87. Imi’s pragmatic approach and his experience had a major influence on his system and he worked on improving and optimizing Krav Maga, particularly for civilian use, until his death.

Since Imi’s death and with Krav Maga’s increasing popularity, former military instructors have established their own organizations, influenced by their martial arts background and with their own interpretation, techniques, and tactics that are more or less adapted to the needs of civilians. Hence countless groups and organizations have formed outside of Israel, often with little to no contact with Israeli instructors.

And that is one of the reasons why today a layperson’s search for a suitable Krav Maga school is somewhat opaque; everyone claims to have the only true or the only modern Krav Maga program, regardless of whether or not it is actually based on the basic principles of Krav Maga.

But the fact is that this momentum has greatly contributed to the worldwide spread of Krav Maga and even if the techniques differ, the instruction should always be the same, because Krav Maga self-defense must be effective under stress, intuitive, and easy to learn.

The Krav Maga system continues to evolve and thereby adapts to the most current and constantly increasing aggressions and resulting threats around the world. In contrast to other self-defense or combat sport systems, Krav Maga is not only characterized by elegance, aesthetics, and fairness, but by its easy-to-learn techniques. These techniques are practiced under stress and must be based on natural reflexes and behaviors, because no matter what happens, giving up is never an option.

In 2005, during his own ground fighting training session, Carsten Draheim became aware of a Krav Maga class with just a few people in a neighboring gym. At that time Krav Maga was not very well-known in Germany, but Carsten—who had been practicing kickboxing since age 13, and at that time had already been practicing the Jeet Kune Do self-defense system developed by Bruce Lee for several years in addition to the Brazilian ground fighting sport Luta Livre—was excited about the Krav Maga system’s simplicity and the fun manner in which it was taught to these students in class. After just a few months, he completely switched over to Krav Maga and practiced nearly every day....