UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Well, I'm pleased to announce I got my Krav Maga Practitioner Level 1 (P1) grading, it'll be 2 weeks ago now but I'm still smiling at the fact that I managed it. Its a form of self defence techniques developed by one of the founding members of the IDF and is not a martial art, as our instructors have said to us, this is not meant to look pretty, its meant to save your life. Serious bit over and done with, for the most part its good fun to learn and the instructors I have worked with so far have been patient and make sure that you're okay with what you're doing and make sure that you know what you're doing and why you are doing it.

Some snaps from the seminar held on the day before the grading

http://www.institute-kravmaga.co.uk/gal ... ?s=33&m=47

I'm in photos 33 and 34, 33 I'm the guy having someone's knee driven into my nuts (nice huh?), the second one I'm acting as the attacker trying stab my opponent with Eyal performing a third party defence. That means protecting your friend and knocking six bells of something out of the guy who just tried to stab your mate.


The only thing I'd say about doing something like KM with KC is it can be a little tough at times. I take my lenses out before I do my training and my vision is alright, left eye sees 6/15, right eye about 6/36, anyhow its not so bad that I can't see a punch coming, it just makes turning to the right to do a knife disarm a little difficult. Still the trick to that is to simply act scared and turn yourself the whole way around and then well, use what you know.

I'll leave the global chief instructor Eyal Yanilov, who oversaw our grading to give you a good explanation of what it is. I also got used as a demonstration target a couple of times by this man , probably one of the most dangerous on the planet. That'll teach me to sit close to him so I can clearly hear what he is saying, all I can say is I got a really good view of how the techniques were supposed to work .

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ1h0uVAGjg

Jez.

P.S. The bit about Jason Bourne is and I think I'm right in saying if you look at the techniques used in the film are all mostly Krav moves. I often find it the easiest way to explain to people what it is haha.

P.P.S If anyone fancies giving this a go check out

http://www.krav-maga-uk.com/index.php?pid=1

or give me a shout if you like.

Krav Maga; I'm impressed.

We have other users who are martial arts enthusiasts, but I think that you are the only one so far who specializes in the discipline developed to meet the particular needs of the Israeli Defence Forces

Andrew

To be honest, I'd never heard of Krav Maga until a mate of mine at uni put me onto it last year. He had quite an interesting stint being half Israeli when he did his tour of duty in the IDF, anyhow we were discussing something or other in the pub one day and we ended up chatting about Krav Maga and its merits and it sounded pretty good to me. Unfortunately not knowing how KC would affect me meant I didn't start training in it till September last year but I was a fairly fast learner haha

I'm only a P1 at the moment so don't be too impressed haha, I've got 4 more levels to go and then there are the graduate Krav Maga levels, but still I've learned a lot since I started doing it, probably more so because where I do my training in merry old Slough, we have all levels in our class, its not like some classes where it is specifically for P0-P1 or P2-P3 and so on we have a mix of all levels and this helps a lot in training as often the more experienced guys and girls can tell what you're doing wrong and set you straight.

It also means that you get to start learning techniques that you wouldn't perhaps start learning until you got into a P3 class where as in my first or second lesson I was already having to deal with people coming at me with rubber knives or foam bats and learning how to defend against them and disarm them if you got the chance, the best advice though was to distract them with a quick counter attack and then run, don't bother getting into a prolonged fight unless you really know what you're doing and even then think twice.

We also do the training as close to being in the real world as possible, for instance stood facing a wall, say an ATM and someone comes up and puts a knife in your back and shouts right in your ear "gimme your f***ing money now!" although it depends a lot upon the acting skills of your training partner, but it shocks you and makes you more prepared if it ever happens for real. I haven't yet done one but some training sessions have been done in the car park of the gym that the class is using to simulate a car-jacking and how to deal with that situation but so long as you remember the principles of KM you should be alright.

It is surprising though the confidence it gives you, I'm not saying that I wasn't confident in my ability to defend myself before I started learning KM but thats partly because at times I could look pretty menacing especially after my bi-monthly haircut, lol, it was fairly short more for economy and efficiency than any attempt to be scary . Still it just gives you that little bit of confidence that you know more than the person who may hold you up, like the others who do martial arts or who know other forms of self defence techniques it doesn't make you go and seek fights but it just leaves you feeling that if you got into one you'd have a good chance of coming out on top. Also with the sad state of affairs it seems in the world today and the British public not being allowed to carry concealed weapons for self defence its a good idea to learn something that really works in the real world. I am probably plugging this a bit it seems but it has so far been a good investment for me and anyone who is considering learning some sort of self defence technique should really consider Krav Maga.

Plus it also helps that the training uniform looks pretty sweet, whoops..... wasn't supposed to say that

Jez.

Jez

How are you getting on with your progression through the stages of Krav Maga?

I am still very impressed that you have taken this up.

All the best

Andrew

Andrew,

I'm still currently on P1, there was a second grading session in April after the February one but that is not enough time to go from P1 to P2, generally need to give it about 3-4 months before considering another grading to get all the techniques under your belt.

Some new things to learn in P2 which are good fun are things like releasing from bar chokes or releasing from a choke on the ground, especially once you have bridged your opponent (push your hips off the floor and twist with your shoulders) at which point you should roll with them and be crouching or nearly standing and if the opportunity is there, STOMP ! I think you can guess where .

In general though I would the say the biggest difference is it gets your mind working far faster. Recently when my brother and I had a day trip down to Brighton I didn't have to use my skills but the car park we were in was not a bad one but the stairwell looked like the sort of one you see in training examples of Krav Maga and I was walking down the stairs thinking if someone appears with a knife how do I deal with them?

As with all martial arts/defence techniques, they don't make you into a sort of super human fighting machine who if someone taps on the shoulder you'll break them in two, but it does leave you feeling far better prepared especially if as the situation above outlined occurs you know you have the advantage of height and a pair of size 11 boots, plus the speed is the major thing in Krav Maga, the speed of the attacks I practice now is staggering, that is definitely the biggest change now is that my attacks and defences flow far more quickly and smoothly than they did when I started.

On the whole though its still bloody good fun to learn, even if I do get a bit of a sharp whack every once in a while, it reminds you of reality and also if thats how it felt during training, imagine what the other guy will feel if you have to do it for real. Plus its nice walking away thinking you've learned something that may really come in handy one day.

Plus the syllabus is fairly easy to follow once as our instructor once put it, is converted from Hebrew to Israeli english and then to english englsih lol.

An example though is the release from a choke on the ground:

1) Pluck attackers hand with one hand, circular punch with the other
2) Bridge and roll to the side
3) Counter Attack

in general though whilst I'm still enjoying it and learning something new each time I go I'll stick with it. I even did one training session with my left eye covered, right is the really bad one (I don't train with my RGP's in for obvious reasons) to see how I got on, didn't do too badly as it turned out. Defending against a knife attack was a bit difficult but I just used an outside knife defence and a solid kick to the groin and then I was off. Hopefully though I'll never be in that situation in real life but if I am, well shoot, it'll be time to find out if I was actually paying attention lol.

Still like I say, Jason Bourne has nothing on me

Jez.

Should also perhaps define what an (1)outside defence is,

(1)it is where you do not essentially go within the arms of the person attacking you. How an an outside knife defence works is if the attacker has the knife in say their right hand, you will be in a (2)semi-passive stance, sort of saying or shouting things like" I don't want any trouble mate, just leave it alright, back off back off" and so on, with your hands raised you use your left arm to push their right arm towards their left shoulder in what is a sort of very strong slapping motion almost and turn your shoulders away from the weapon to the left. This is the outside knife defence, this is then coupled with a simultaneous counter attack which means that at the same time as you have slapped their arm into their shoulder your right arm should be coming through in a straight punch and your right leg should be heading straight for your attacker's balls.

Once you have done this you move off the line of attack by taking a step to the left and moving off and scan for any further threats. Otherwise call the police and explain the situation, wait for them to arrive and if you know how to, consider restraining the attacker but really once you've done your bit, leave it to the police to do their thing.

(2) Semi-passive stance is where your feet are a standard width apart but your hands are raised level with your shoulders, it looks like you're putting your hands up but really it puts your attacker at ease and allows you to react faster.

I hope that all makes sense, its difficult to put into words what takes probably less than a second to achieve, most of all though don't try this at home if you know what I mean, I practice this either by myself or against other people with protection on.

And thats the end of the lesson today Ladies and Gentlemen, hope you enjoyed it

Jez.

Jez

That all makes perfect sense to me.

In these days it is increasingly important to know that in the unlikely event of being attacked we can defend ourselves long enough to let the professionals (Police) to arrive and do their work. As I said above there are lots of people here who are skilled in various Japanese, chinese and even Indian schools of self-defense. Now we add Krav Maga to the list

Andrew

Good news & Bad news.

Good: I was back into my KM training tonight after 3 weeks out due to nasty something or other of a cold.

Bad: Session was being taken by one of the other instructors in the KM group I train with ( Tamas makes you work rather hard before you get a rest), effectively jumping in at the deep end with weights on not having built myself up to it at least for the first half hour, after that, lucozade kicked in and all was well.

Mind you though, we learned a very neat little trick for getting out of bearhugs tonight that involves only attacking one finger of your attacker, more likely to be used against a family member or someone you don't want to really hurt like a friend who's a bit drunk but still useful though.

Most importantly however, I survived

Jez.

survival is a good starting place!

Andrew

Finally had blood drawn yesterday, woohoo got my first war wound haha. The best part of it all though was that this happened at the end of the session in what was supposed to be the cool down period whilst slow-fighting, it was two against one in my instance and I dealt well with the first attacker well, but dropped my left hand and the second attacker attacked and opened up about a centimetre long gash just on or above my left eye brow.

Nothing bad, just split the skin really, no swelling or anything and no stitches, just sterry strips, yay!

Lesson to learn from last night, make sure to get off the line of attack in the process of a defence, still learn by your mistakes eh?

The most annoying thing about the whole affair was two fold, one I had to wait 2 and a bit hours for what ended up being in total no more than about a minute of total treatment time. Worse still was that the TV in the A&E waiting area was tuned to channel 4 last night, had to endure the opening ceremony of big brother

Still hasn't put me off though and I'll be back in the mix again next week.

Jez.