Have hands, will Krav

Make no mistake. Traditional martial arts techniques don’t prepare you for the real world. So what does? Krav Maga. It’s the Israeli form of hand-to-hand combat made famous by Hollywood actresses Jennifer Lopez and Angelina Jolie, and most recently by Matt Damon in The Bourne Ultimatum. When you see him tackling his attackers, both armed and unarmed, with lightning hand movements, it was Krav in action.

Now, you can, too.

The International Krav Maga Federation recently opened its Bangalore chapter. And already, it has 30 members on its rolls, more than half being techies. Not just that. The institution recently conducted a special workshop this February 24. “After reading about some road rage oriented attacks in the Bangalore papers, we decided to conduct a basic road rage workshop,” says instructor and centre in-charge Frank. “Since Krav Maga is trained in a real-life scenario inspired by real sudden violent attacks, we enacted basic violent attacks on both the bike riders and car drivers.”

The proponents offered the students, a close to real-life attacking session inside the confined space of a car or bike and see the effectiveness of Krav Maga for themselves. The training started at their Richmond Town centre for a couple of hours and later shift ed to a vacant spot on Old Madras Road for real-life training with a couple of cars and bikes.

The popularity of Krav Maga is such that it’s now being employed by many western special forces such as the Swedish and Polish army and the French GIGN. After 9/11, even a team from America’s Central Intelligence Agency went to Israel to learn it. The founder of Krav Maga was one Imi Lichtenfeld who taught self defence and combat techniques to jews so they could protect themselves from armed German Nazi soldiers. After Israel was formed, Imi became the chief instructor to the Israeli Defense Force. A good 20 years after his retirement, the International Krav Maga Federation was founded in 1996 with Imi’s consent and support, by a bunch of enthusiasts. Now, the federation has grown to be one of the largest, professional and well respected organisations in the world.

So how does it find a resonance to our lives? “Because it’s not martial arts, but more of street fighting, something you need in real life,” says advertising professional Abinanth Potri who has been training for the last two months. “In Karate, you practice a punch for some 16000 times to strengthen just the punch. In Krav Maga, you take the best parts of all the martial arts and use what is needed in a normal life situation. For example, you don’t need a flying kick or a boxing glove on the street. All you need is to sharpen your natural reflexes.”

Experts will tell you that Karate, Taekwondo, Ju Jitsu, Judo, kickboxing, Thai boxing are inferior to Krav Maga when it concerns real world self defence. But why? Because the other martial arts give you the reflexes to block the initial stab but you probably would not instinctively grab the knife like KM teaches you. “KM is instinctive, simple and easy to apply even in a really crowded place,” explains Frank. “Most importantly, it could well save you especially if the attacker is just some ordinary guy with a knife trying to stab you, and not a trained killer.”

Right now, it’s a male-centric domain, as the male-female ratio at the Bangalore centre is 10:1. “Krav Maga is great for both men and women. There is no gender or physical barrier to it, so it should catch on among women too,” he says. About the kind of people who are walking in, he said, “Out of the 30 who have enrolled so far, 16 are from IT-software / hardware / BPOs, 1 is from the defence forces, 6 are businessmen, 3 are corporate executives, 2 are from advertising and 1 is a medical student,” he says. “Though all these people either hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree, only four have some form of martial arts experience. The rest are new to any system of self defence or martial arts.”

Being conducted at The Doodle Den is another plus. It’s an activity store for children and adults to unwind in creatively satisfying ways. They can sprawl on the large open floor area to watch a movie on the Panchatantra tales, sharpen multiplication skills by watching a fun session on maths or read a Tenali Rama story. Adjacent to it is The Colour Factory where you can splatter, spray, paint or create your own thing. Adding Krav to the surroundings has only made it even better in this quiet, nostalgic neighbourhood boasting of understated elegance (read: Victorian bungalows).

Complementing the setting is the holistic way Krav approaches fine living, making it extremely practical and effective in the same breath. “Krav-Maga increases your flexibility, concentration and presence of mind, body language, muscular as well as cardiovascular stamina, mental endurance, confidence and healthy aggression,” says Vicky Kapoor, chief instructor at the International Krav-Maga Foundation (India) in Delhi. “Since physical fitness is closely interwoven into the system, the workout includes a number of cardiovascular and strength-building exercises, as well as stretching to increase flexibility. Emphasis is put on speed, endurance, strength, accuracy and coordination, especially for intensive Krav-Maga training.”

What that means is if you practise these KM skills, then your trained reflexes will save you and give you the edge over the attacker, because the last thing he would expect is a competent counter attack. “I find KM very easy to learn and effective at the same time,” says software engineer Pramoda Vyasarao, who has been training for the last three months. “It’s not like any other art that takes years together to just learn different postures on how to stand and how to kick. This is purely based on human reflex actions. On the first day itself, we were actually fighting, like what to do if someone tries to choke you.”

Clearly, Krav Maga does pack a mean punch. But does it make you crave for action? “Not at all,” says Potri. “In fact, you tend to respect life and humans a lot better because you see the kind of damage you inflict on the pads you practice with. You become more responsible and try and stay out of trouble most of the time.”

Got that? Practice KM with a winning attitude. And employ it only if you really need to.

Krav Maga Bangalore

C/o Doodle Den, No.3, Curley Street,

Richmond Town, Bangalore 560025. Tel: +91.80.41240090

Saturday: 8:30-11:00AM, 11:00-1:30PM & 5:30-8:00PM

Sunday 8:30AM-11AM

Contact: Frank on 9886769281 or visit SelfDefenseBangalore.com or KravMagaBangalore.com.

Fees per month: Rs 2800 + Rs 1000 Admission Fees (Non-Refundable)

Introduction Training: Rs 300 per hour (Adjusted to fees if you enrol)

(This piece appeared in Mint, the business newspaper of The Wallstreet Journal)