BoxRec

Just wondering if anybody here has done it or are doing it. What exactly does the training involve and do people spar? Is it something people improve their fitness doing or is it merely teaching you about weak points of the body to strike to get out of a situation? There is a club around the corner from me and I'm considering taking their beginners class. TIA.

http://www.krav-maga.org.uk/

Don't know an awful lot about it, believe it was from israeli special forces training, looks like a composed version of street fighting , with chokes, headbutts etc, looks effective form of self defence

I dont really rate it as martial art. Been to a few workshops and they seem to assume your attacker will simple fall to the floor and surrender after you have applied your technique. Instructor got a bit eggy when i "fought back". Also its very much "force on force" IE suitable for a young athletic squaddie (baring in mind thats actually who it was invented for), but you couldnt teach it to a 7 stone women or an old man with arthritis and expect them to use it successfully. Not a bad workout tho, light sparring and lots of pad work..

But all classes are different, I may have just had a bad experience. For what its worth, a lot of people in the MA community feel it has been "exposed" now. If combatives are your kind of thing, check out the works of Carl Cestari, Lee Morrison, Richie Grannon, Sammy Franco, Paul Vunak etc.

Actually, Jeet Kune Do is prob a better option to explore imo.

Muay Thai and Ju Jitsu cover all the bases and train tough; anyone who's stuck at it will give most a run for their money imo.

palooka wrote:Muay Thai and Ju Jitsu cover all the bases and train tough; anyone who's stuck at it will give most a run for their money imo.

you got it right when u said train tough. Both those arts art fantastic to learn to be an "all rounder". Mind u, in a real fight the last thing I'd want to do is go to the ground. Surefire way to get ur head trampled on by 3 of your adversarys friends.

I would say its prob worth learning an art that deals with a stand up grappling range like Dumog, Wing Chun or Tai Chi. Most "real" fights involve a lot of pushing and "tussling".

Ive had some success smothering Muay Thai fighters, although they are great (and very very tough) fighters they are quite limited on the inside. Without gloves on, the thai clinch is quite easy to manipulate, and their knees/elbows can be quite predictable. U can unbalance them as they strike.

From what you have said you have at the very least very decent skills, confidence and nerve to 'deal' with anyone at all who is competent.

imo it would be very unlikely to run up against someone so skilled at Tai Chi unless you que jump at the library that they could use it to their advantage and not their detriment.

I can take onboard not going to ground when you may get kicked in by others; if there's no mates their though it is choke time

When I did it we were taught how to 'get out of' many different situations. Scenarios were created that could easily happen if you were out and about.

Fighting in bars, in cars, defending people, disarming people with guns pointed at your head or blades to your throat.

Had to give it up in the end as it was a fair distance from me house and it cost quite a bit for the classes. Was enjoyable though.

palooka wrote:From what you have said you have at the very least very decent skills, confidence and nerve to 'deal' with anyone at all who is competent.

imo it would be very unlikely to run up against someone so skilled at Tai Chi unless you que jump at the library that they could use it to their advantage and not their detriment.

I can take onboard not going to ground when you may get kicked in by others; if there's no mates their though it is choke time

I get my fair share of hidings mate believe me, but thats the best way to learn anything I think. Sparred an MMA guy the other week and struggled like fornicate, but learnt more in 18 minutes that I had all year. (He made a mess of my leg cos I was in a boxer type stance and he just pulverised it with low kicks).

taiji is a fantastic art if taught properly, prob is there r too many charlatans that teach it as a yoga type exercise. Certainly recommend it to doormen. It takes bare minimum 6 years to be able to apply it effectively so a lot of people drop out in favour of learning something less demanding. But you have to have hard sparring like any form of combat, being able to stay relaxed under pressures half the battle really. it does suffer from people wanting to believe in magic and thinking learning the form somehow makes u superhuman. There is no "special" technique and its not like you learn some "different" way to fight.

I believe a lot of jujitsu comes from the chin na (joint manipulation) side of taiji (i could be wrong though). And of course its also a very sneaky, dirty way of fighting. eye gouges, headbutts, groin strikes, spinal damaging techniques, kicking out the knees, throttles to the windpipe instead of chokes etc. I see a bit of it in what I believe the MMA crowd call "dirty boxing".

The best way to learn to "fight" imo is to try and spar as many styles as possible, ive seen pro boxers completely bamboozled when they've had their hands trapped with sensitivity techniques for instance.

Its like anything, practice hard enough and you get good at it. In my experience theres good and bad in every art . But your so right saying train tough, take your lumps and dont lie to yourself, which i think is a HUGE prob in MA.

Sorry we have highjacked your thread johnswan

jBacca wrote:When I did it we were taught how to 'get out of' many different situations. Scenarios were created that could easily happen if you were out and about.

Fighting in bars, in cars, defending people, disarming people with guns pointed at your head or blades to your throat.

Had to give it up in the end as it was a fair distance from me house and it cost quite a bit for the classes. Was enjoyable though.

yeah we did a bit of that, I must have seen a duff instructor I think. I though they were totally unrealistic about how dangrous a knife actually is. Thought what they taught could get people hurt.

Put a magic marker in the hands of a 7 year old girl and watch how easily she can mark you up.

One dvd I really rate for people interested in this kind of thing is JAMES KEATINGS CROSSING THE BRIDGE. Very practical for the man on the street ie not an athlete.

I had a go at Krav Maga. The instructor was a fat bloke in camo trousers and boots who made us do press ups and stuff but didn't do anything himself. I wasn't impressed with that. If he doesn't need to be fit for the art, then why do we?

In the first lesson he was teaching people who had never done martial arts before to use eye gouges as a first line attack. He also showed us some crappy guard called the 'helmet' or something, with one palm on your forehead and one one your elbow. Maybe that works if you've been doing it for a while, but it looked rubbish. He basically taught 'how to get done for GBH or to get seriously hurt in a street fight by applying overly aggressive and ineffective moves 101'

Also because it's the Israeli Armed Forces martial art, there is something truly horrible about it.

I thought it sucked.

There was a big thing a little while ago started by Geoff Thompson with a drive toward 'realistic' martial arts that were applicable in a street situation. It started to move away from what Geoff taught (which was enlightening and interesting) towards eye gouging, fish hooking biting and stamping on people.

I was lucky enough to train with John Anderson (Geoff Thompson's mentor) and Dennis Jones (who used to write the Samurai on the Door column in Martial Arts Illustrated) and they both taught me pretty much the same thing: Knock people out.

Talk to bouncers and street fighters and they'll tell you you can hit people in the balls, take out an eye, all those techniques. Some people just keep fighting. If you try and take someone's eye, don't you think they're going to try and take yours? fornicate it. Punch 'em as hard as you can on the chin. If they fall over, run away. If they don't fall over, run away.

MachoMan09 wrote:I took three sessions of Krav Maga:

Session 1. I was issued with a pair of Ray-Bans, a t-shirt emblazoned with "JeruS(a)LAM Krav Maga is Kick Ass", short shorts, and pair of calf-high desert boots. I was instructed to strut around the area of the Western Wall for three hours keeping an eye out for gentiles intent on attacking me with bottles, knives, Korans, and expletives.

Session 2. Wearing the same apparel as Session 1, my group was given a "down and dirty" familiarisation of a vehicle mounted water cannon before spending the remainder of the session hosing down Palestinian street urchins.

Session 3: We learnt how to deal with sweating, middle-aged women heavily laden with plastic explosives and a mish-mash of nuts, bolts, ball bearings and six-inch nails. The general concept was to run like a motherfucker in a state of extreme fear.

Your out of order. I am now sat in the office giggling like an idiot getting dodgy looks ! lol

I read a book by a former SAS captain - and his instructions were simple, always be the one to hit first if you cannot avoid confrontation, hit as hard as you can and repeatedly until you disable your opponent, and then run away.

Ironically, two days after reading this book, my mate got mugged, I ran down the road to help him and attacked one of them, he ran off - leaving me to fight 3 people, and I got my bike and wallet nicked as well as a good old stamping.

Moral is: you can't legislate for complete and utter cnts.

Sounds like a few of you have had poor teachers.

The majority of the stuff we learnt at the beginning was making yourself aware of everything going on around you, getting yourself a yard or two of space (from attackers), and making your way to the exit (guiding friends if need be).

A lot of the early attacking techniques we learnt were quick combinations including knees and elbows, with the finishing action resulting in you being out of reach of attack and ready for the next attacker or whatever.

Then we went on to learn about the pressure points that could be exploited to get out of holds or other situations where you were against it.

I put it in the same basket as Win Chung, personally. But to each, their own.

However, if I get a pair of Ray Bans I may reconsider.

clopixolacuphase wrote:In the first lesson he was teaching people who had never done martial arts before to use eye gouges as a first line attack. He also showed us some crappy guard called the 'helmet' or something, with one palm on your forehead and one one your elbow. Maybe that works if you've been doing it for a while, but it looked rubbish. .

There was a big thing a little while ago started by Geoff Thompson with a drive toward 'realistic' martial arts that were applicable in a street situation. It started to move away from what Geoff taught (which was enlightening and interesting) towards eye gouging, fish hooking biting and stamping on people.

I was lucky enough to train with John Anderson (Geoff Thompson's mentor) and Dennis Jones (who used to write the Samurai on the Door column in Martial Arts Illustrated) and they both taught me pretty much the same thing: Knock people out.

that Helmet defence sounds a very negative approach, very easy to smother.Kind of like this Keysi fad thats popular at the moment.

Fat blokes teaching are so rife in MA, guys that basically pick on novices to show how effective their techniques are.

I rate a lot of geoff thompsons early stuff, working off the fence etc.

Dennis Jones is also a good teacher.

Poncey wrote:I put it in the same basket as Win Chung, personally. But to each, their own.

However, if I get a pair of Ray Bans I may reconsider.

I think wing chun has its place depending on who uses it and how, its good for women to learn (which is who it was basically invented for) cause realistically not may of them are gonna have the power to KO a man. So long as they dont try to "fight" their attacker, ie. use it as a method of escape.

The Biu Jee side of it is good for females, elderly or unathletic.

Prob is so many new martial arts only cater for young strong toughies, a lot of people in MA forget we all have to get old.

stevieb_8006 wrote:

Poncey wrote:I put it in the same basket as Win Chung, personally. But to each, their own.

However, if I get a pair of Ray Bans I may reconsider.

I think wing chun has its place depending on who uses it and how, its good for women to learn (which is who it was basically invented for) cause realistically not may of them are gonna have the power to KO a man. So long as they dont try to "fight" their attacker, ie. use it as a method of escape.

The Biu Jee side of it is good for females, elderly or unathletic.

Prob is so many new martial arts only cater for young strong toughies, a lot of people in MA forget we all have to get old.

I have a scar in my eyebrow from sparring a Wing Chun guy! I bled like Henry Cooper and the session finished right there!

johnswan1 wrote:Just wondering if anybody here has done it or are doing it. What exactly does the training involve and do people spar? Is it something people improve their fitness doing or is it merely teaching you about weak points of the body to strike to get out of a situation? There is a club around the corner from me and I'm considering taking their beginners class. TIA.

http://www.krav-maga.org.uk/

Its a bullshitty kung fooley bullshido type israeli martial art concoted by cowards in the israeli nazi militia who like to beat up weak palestinian unarmed women and children.

I once attended a MMA seminar and was made to spar with this israeli who had been banging on about his krav maga to anyone who would listen and about how realistic it was....I had to do some judo randori with the cunnt and took pleasure in tapping him out in record time and pretending to not have noticed he tapped!

mugabi wrote:

johnswan1 wrote:Just wondering if anybody here has done it or are doing it. What exactly does the training involve and do people spar? Is it something people improve their fitness doing or is it merely teaching you about weak points of the body to strike to get out of a situation? There is a club around the corner from me and I'm considering taking their beginners class. TIA.

http://www.krav-maga.org.uk/

Its a bullshitty kung fooley bullshido type israeli martial art concoted by cowards in the israeli nazi militia who like to beat up weak palestinian unarmed women and children.

I once attended a MMA seminar and was made to spar with this israeli who had been banging on about his krav maga to anyone who would listen and about how realistic it was....I had to do some judo randori with the cunnt and took pleasure in tapping him out in record time and pretending to not have noticed he tapped!

... and that's funny?

jBacca wrote:

mugabi wrote:

johnswan1 wrote:Just wondering if anybody here has done it or are doing it. What exactly does the training involve and do people spar? Is it something people improve their fitness doing or is it merely teaching you about weak points of the body to strike to get out of a situation? There is a club around the corner from me and I'm considering taking their beginners class. TIA.

http://www.krav-maga.org.uk/

Its a bullshitty kung fooley bullshido type israeli martial art concoted by cowards in the israeli nazi militia who like to beat up weak palestinian unarmed women and children.

I once attended a MMA seminar and was made to spar with this israeli who had been banging on about his krav maga to anyone who would listen and about how realistic it was....I had to do some judo randori with the cunnt and took pleasure in tapping him out in record time and pretending to not have noticed he tapped!

... and that's funny?

Yes it was funny to me seeing how quickly this shyster tapped when 5 minutes earlier hed been telling me how great krav maga was and it had an escape for every submission ....also funny since this sick fornicate was telling me he had paid money to go on a course embedded with israeli special forces on raids on palestinian lands to test out his training...so yes i took perverse pleasure in giving him a small taste of his own medicine