What is Krav Maga self defense?

Well with the growing popularity of using various self-defense techniques as a way of sport and recreation and keeping one self-fit and healthy, the boundary between combat skills and exercise is keep getting very thin. To answer this question first let us get to know something about krav maga.

The name in Hebrew can be translated as "contact combat". The root word krav means "combat" and maga means "contact". Mainly developed for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), it basically consists of a wide combination of techniques sourced from akido, judo, boxing and wrestling, along with realistic fight training. It basically focuses on real life threating situations and self-defense with a combination of brutal counter attacks. Invented by the Hungarian-Israeli martial artist Imi Lichtenfeld, who made use of his training as a boxer and wrestler as a means of defending the Jewish quarter against fascist groups in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in the mid-to-late 1930s.In the late 1940s, following his migration to Israel, he began to provide lessons on combat training to what was to become the IDF, subsequently going on to develop the system that became known as Krav Maga. It has since been refined for civilian, police and military applications.

Krav Maga has a philosophy emphasizing threat neutralization, simultaneous defensive and offensive maneuvers and aggression. Krav Maga has been used mainly by the Israel Defense Forces' special units and reconnaissance brigades and recently by regular infantry brigades. Closely related variations have been developed and adopted by Israeli law enforcement and intelligence organizations. There are several organizations teaching variations of Krav Maga internationally such as the British SAS and the US Marine Corps.

The basic rules of krav maga are quiet simple, "Do everything in your power". The concepts used in krav maga are:

Aim to your opponent’s weak points.

Quick and powerful responses.

Speed and technique are important than strength.

Acquire skills for real-life-situations.

Repetition is crucial.

Simplicity.

Minimal fighting.

Stay on your feet.

Though a very fun to learn, for many krav maga is still not considered a sport rather a very violent way of beating people, a prove is, krav maga has still no Olympic slot where various other fighting sports are included. But the fact is quit not true. It can be very entertaining and fun to learn if it can be taught by the right person. And it can also be a great way for exercise, a way of reducing fat and stay fit and healthy. But the times are changing. People are starting to see krav maga as a sport and a healthy way of doing exercise. Also competition of krav maga as a sport are being held in a lot of countries by the local authorities or by goverment body related to one countries sport. The prominent among these competition is the one held by the Israel Defense Force. Israel Defense Force has had an annual Krav Maga competition since May 2013.Some Krav Maga organizations do not support a competition component, taking the stance that Krav Maga is not a sport. So-called "fighting" sports tend to operate under principles of using safe techniques, doing minimal harm, and consequently wearing down opponents and using other tactics supported by the "rules" of safe competition. In its role as self-defense and as a hand to hand combat system, Krav Maga operates under a completely different set of principles in which techniques may indeed cause significant damage and fights are to be ended as quickly as possible when the conflict cannot be avoided. Krav Maga organizations that involve competition are usually founded and named specifically to focus on using Krav Maga based techniques specifically under a set of sporting principles.

We hope that very soon we will see krav maga not only as violent beating technique, but as a great and efficient self-defense technique and a healthy recreate sport.