Liberate Yourself From Traditional Krav Maga

LIBERATE YOURSELF FROM TRADITIONAL KRAV MAGA!

There are several reasons why I chose to write this article and I will touch on those reasons throughout the course of this writing. I have stated this before and I feel it bears repeating once more. Bruce lee has had a tremendous impact on me personally and as a martial artist. I specifically chose this title because Bruce himself wrote an article titled, Liberate Yourself from Classical Karate which was first published in September 1971.

In this truly groundbreaking article Lee encouraged the reader to free his/her mind from their chosen style in order to seek their own expression. The article was not anti Karate. In fact it was anti style. That is to say, that it was anti- all styles, or the trappings of any given style, even his own. Bruce thought that the ultimate level for any martial artist to reach was to be “form - less”, to have “no-way” as a “way”, to have “no-style” as a style. Bruce was trying to share his vision with the martial arts world in an effort to help them liberate their own minds from their own styles.

So it is in this spirit that I write the following article about Krav Maga. The purpose of this article is not to attack any specific organization or for that matter any specific instructor, school or students. Quite frankly I am not concerned with whether or not you as the reader agree with me or not. I only hope that you read this article and then re-read the article in the hopes that you are able to find the courage to question your training. If we are not constantly trying to improve we are by default ceasing to grow into our greatest potential.

WHAT WOULD IMI SAY?
“It is conceivable that a long time ago a certain martial artist discovered some partial truth. During his lifetime, the man resisted the temptation to organize this partial truth, although this is a common tendency in a man's search for security and certainty in life. After his death, his students took "his" hypotheses, "his" postulates, "his" method and turned them into law. Impressive creeds were then invented, solemn reinforcing ceremonies prescribed, rigid philosophy and patterns formulated, and so on, until finally an institution was erected. So, what originated as one man's intuition of some sort of personal fluidity has been transformed into solidified, fixed knowledge, complete with organized classified responses presented in a logical order. In so doing, the well-meaning, loyal followers have not only made this knowledge a holy shrine, but also a tomb in which they have buried the founder's wisdom.”-Bruce Lee

I have had the honor of training with the very best instructors in the world. Some of these men learned Krav Maga directly from the founder, Imi. Many did not have the pleasure of learning from The Grandmaster. We all owe Imi a debt of gratitude because he had the courage to fight for those who could not do it for themselves and he also had the courage to share his knowledge with the rest of us. His system, Krav Maga, is a principle based system that has specific techniques that all of us have learned, practiced and taught thousands of times. While I firmly believe that Krav Maga is one of the most effective systems being taught today. I am not so blinded by my respect for the system and more importantly Imi, that I don’t see the holes in our system. Yes there are holes in the system. Some of these holes are unavoidable because of the unpredictability of combat. Remember, there are no guarantees that anything works 100% of the time. There are some holes however that are created by our training methods. I recently had a conversation with Jeremy Stafford, a dear friend, a warrior and a top notch Krav Maga Instructor! We were talking about training at combat speed vs. a knife attack. Both he and I agree that the only way to train against a knife wielding attacker is to do so at combat speed. If you are not training at combat speed against an attacker that is trying to stab you, you are not training. More on this later though.

The biggest issue that many top level instructors encounter in finding solutions for the holes in our system is that they are afraid to make changes to the system that Imi founded. I know because I have trained with these men. I have spoken to them at length about some of the issues with various techniques in the system. Some of them have openly acknowledged the problems but they are unwilling to address them because they know that their peers will be very critical of them should they make an addition or even more blasphemous, a subtraction of a technique that Imi wanted in the system. John Whitman , one of the world’s leading authority on Krav Maga and in my opinion the best teacher on the planet, is one of the men who will make such changes to the system because he sees what the others are afraid to admit. Simply, we have some things in our system that need to be changed because we have found that the techniques are too difficult to perform at combat speed for most practioners.

It takes a great deal of courage to take a look at ourselves and ask the tough questions. It is much easier to sit around a table with our peers and students and listen to them tell us how awesome we are. We can sit around and wait for change to come from above or we can “Be like water” and adapt to any given situation as needed. It is not disrespectful to improve the system through understanding and training methods that put each individual under the most duress possible. This is the only way to assign a value, a tangible measurement of our technical performance and the methodology behind our training approach.

As Bruce mentioned in the excerpt above, the system only represents the founder’s mindset or personal understanding at the time that the lesson was being taught, the curriculum was being developed or the book was being written. It is the followers who make his words dogma and thus creativity is smothered. So in our own training are we challenging our students to find their own truth? Are we afraid to step outside of our own training methodology because we know that Imi did not provide the answer to the questions that are guaranteed to come? Imi is not coming back anytime soon. We have to remember that Imi left us with the beginning, not the end of our growth. It is up to us as instructors not to provide absolute answers, no, we have to provide a light on the path for each student.

The YIN AND YANG OF THE CURRICULUM

I have trained with exceptionally talented instructors from various systems and the thing that separates the average system from the extraordinary systems is the quality of the curriculum. When the curriculum is put together in a structured manner that is supported by high level instruction, the student can expect to grow quickly and consistently. Additionally if we are to treat our schools as true places of learning, we must have a tangible way of discerning each student’s ability and giving the student attainable training goals followed by a realistic training schedule. Without a curriculum the student will be limited by the instructor’s lack of lesson plan and therefore the lack of measurement of each student’s growth. So from a practical standpoint, an instruction standpoint and a learning standpoint, a concise curriculum is extremely important.

By the same token a curriculum can also cripple a student’s growth, limit the student’s understanding and stifle and instructor’s ability to find answers for his students if the curriculum is valued more than the needs of the individual practioner. No system is more important than the individual training in the system. An instructor must be able to understand the curriculum so well that he sees its flaws and immediately seeks to correct the flaw in the technique or the way that it is presented. If the instructor is not doing this he is falling into the trap of blindly following the dogma of his instructor. His instructor either lacked the skill set or the courage to see a problem in our training and find an answer for the problem.


UNDERSTANDING COMBAT
I have included two quotes from the aforementioned article for this section. Read these carefully as I believe that most instructors, regardless of what style they teach, do not understand the concept of true combat.

“One cannot express himself fully when imprisoned by a confining style. Combat "as is" is total, and it includes all the "is" as well as "is not," without favorite lines or angles. Lacking boundaries, combat is always fresh, alive and constantly changing. Your particular style, your personal inclinations and your physical makeup are all 'parts' of combat, but they do not constitute the 'whole' of combat. Should your responses become dependent upon any single part, you will react in terms of what "should be" rather than to the reality of the ever-changing "what is." Remember that while the whole is evidenced in all its parts, an isolated part, efficient or not, does not constitute the whole.”-Bruce Lee 1971.

When a student first begins studying their chosen system they understand very little and are forced to mimic their instructor or another student. This is a normal occurrence but if unchecked it can cause the student to misunderstand their abilities and more importantly cause them to misunderstand the harsh realities of combat. The need for personal exploration must be stated often and early on in the students training. Without this critical understanding of learning vs. being systematized the students progress and therefore the instructors ability to grow is stifled.

“Prolonged repetitious drillings will certainly yield mechanical precision and security of that kind comes from any routine. However, it is exactly this kind of "selective" security or "crutch" which limits or blocks the total growth of a martial artist. In fact, quite a few practitioners develop such a liking for and dependence on their "crutch" that they can no longer walk without it. Thus, anyone special technique, however cleverly designed is actually a hindrance.”- Bruce Lee

If we are not careful we can become that which we despise the most. The patterns and training flaws of traditional systems are creeping their way into what we are doing and we must rectify this immediately. This is most evident in our striking. You can watch any Krav Maga student and see how they move and strike. You can see which strikes they favor and you will know who they train under. It is human nature for a team to take the personality and in many cases the physical traits of their leader. However this can also be a negative if the instructor is not adept at teaching reality. What good is it to teach a student how to throw a knee by repeatedly throwing knee after knee after knee during a self defense scenario? The instructor must be able to make a clear distinction for the student. The instructor must know the difference between on the mat training and street application.