What is Krav Maga?

Krav Maga is a comprehensive self-defence, combat and fighting system. It focuses on real-world defensive tactics, equipping you with the physical and mental skills that will keep you safe from today’s conflicts. Krav Maga is an effective, dynamic self-defence system that’s designed to protect you when faced with real-world threats.

Based on one simple philosophy:

"It is better to know and not need than to need at not know" - unknown.

We’d all prefer to live in a society completely free from violence. We hope never to find ourselves in a threatening situation.

But the truth is, in our community we face more potential threats than ever before. Gangs, drug-induced violence and out of control youth are sadly all daily realities on our streets.

While it’s important to maintain perspective and not over-exaggerate the threat level, you never know when or where danger will strike. Krav Maga asks the question “If it did, would you know what to do?”

Are you confident to take action, either to run or to fight? Have you considered the possibility you’d freeze, not able to do anything? Krav Maga is all about preparing your mind and body to deal with situations that threaten your safety and those of your loved ones. No matter the likelihood, it is an essential life-skill we all need.

Learn battle-tested skills and knowledge NOW

(not when you get a black belt).

Unlike other martial arts, Krav Maga is designed to be practical and adaptive.

Unconstrained by tradition or rank, Krav Maga wastes no time in teaching you to understand the anatomy of violence and how to use its techniques and tactics to avoid, deal with and escape danger.

Krav Maga uses modern and constantly evolving methodologies to ensure you’re able to meet changing threat profiles. It's suitable for people of any age, shape, size,fitness level, or previous experience.

While good technique and self-mastery is important, with Krav Maga practitioners are not judged on how clean they can perform a movement, but by how effectively they can use it and adapt it to the reality they are training for.

The Core Krav maga principles:

– Awareness and prevention are the best defence.
This may seem too obvious to mention, but being aware of your environment and the people around you really is the best defence. Krav Maga always empahsises this principle. Developing your awareness is just as important as learning how to strike or get out of an attack. Just because you learn it, doesn’t mean we want you to have to use it.

– Direct and efficient techniques.

Krav Maga aims to keeps techniques as simple as possible to the situation. If a technique has too many complicated movements, it’s likely to increase your chances of sustaining damage. When your safety or that of your loved ones is threatened, a swift kick or an onslaught of overwhelming strikes will prove to be the most effective tactic under stress.

– Use your environment.

If you pay attention to the objects around you in your immediate environment, almost anything can be used to help you defend yourself and create opportunities to escape conflict. Krav Maga teaches you to recognise and effectively use everyday objects (categorising them as shield-type, stick-type, sharp-type, blunt-type, and throwing-type objects).

– Always assume there is a weapon or more opponents

The techniques and strategies taught in Krav Maga take into account that a weapon may be involved in conflict. Unless the attacker makes it clear, it is very easy to sneak a knife into an altercation. It is also very easy to think you are dealing with one person and completely miss the signs of multiple attackers until it is too late.

– Limit injury.

Sure, the idea of being able to do a back-flip and kick someone in the face may fulfil all your superhero fantasies, but in reality there’s no time to waste on round-about moves- especially if they’ll increase your chances of sustaining damage. When your safety or that of your loved ones is threatened, a swift kick or an onslaught of overwhelming strikes will prove to be the most effective tactic under stress.

– Aim for vital targets.

Keeping inline with Krav Maga’s direct approach, where you aim a counter attack is important. Krav Maga teaches you to aim for soft tissue areas of the body (any area that can’t be strengthed or that is particularly sensitive). These include the nose, eyes, groin, solar plexus, and throat – all targeted as an appropriate response the the violence you are facing.

– Use your natural ‘tools’ & strengths to overcome adversity

You already have everything you need to prepare yourself for any threatening situation. Krav Maga teaches how to use your natural tools (your arms, legs, hand, feet even your head) to gain the advantage.

As a powerful and highly-effective combat system, Krav Maga hones your instinctive reflexes to ensure you can fight off and decisively neutralise any danger.

– Go from defensive to offensive a.s.a.p

Mentality and attitude is just as important as any physical skill. When you’re faced with a threat, there’s no use wasting time being defensive and not fighting back. With every defensive technique you learn, you’ll be trained to immediately switch to an offensive state that will create opportunities for escape.

how it all started: a brief history

Developed by Imre Lichtenfeld in the 1930s, the system was designed to protect his local community from increasingly violent fascist gangs in his home of Czechoslovakia.

As an amateur boxer and wrestler, Lichtenfeld brought together a group of young men and trained them to fight. However, he quickly realised that the sporting skills he had acquired (mainly boxing and wrestling) were no match for the fascist thugs with their street-fighting techniques.

Fighting for your life in the streets requires a different mindset and different techniques to the boxing ring. He began adapting his boxing knowledge by placing a strong emphasis on quickly disabling and neutralising a threat.

After time in various amry divisions Imi moved to Israel in the 1940s and was appointed Chief Instructor at the Israeli Defence Force School of Combat Fitness. The skills he had developed in Czechoslovakia and the army were adapted for the Israeli military, becoming the foundation of Krav Maga.

The military required a system that would be simple, efficient and effective that could be applied in any number of lethal situations. Most importantly, Imi had to be able to train new recruits within a matter of weeks as the country was facing war.

Krav Maga is more than just a combination of the best elements of other fighting systems. Over the years, Krav Maga developed its own unique skill-set that is tailored to meet modern threats.

His revolutionary system emphasised continuous motion, simultaneous defence and attack, and targeting the assailant’s soft tissue and pressure points.

He called his self-defence system “Krav Maga,” meaning “contact-combat” in Hebrew, and it’s purpose was so that “one may walk in peace.”