Krav Maga (“contact combat” in Hebrew) is an Israeli self-defense system.
It was founded by Imi Lichtenfeld who made use of his training as a boxer, wrestler and gymnast to develop a method of self-defense to help the Jewish community protect themselves against fascist groups in Bratislava in the 1930s.
Kra Maga has been used by Israeli Defense Forces (Tsahal and Mossad) and adopted by law enforcement units and intelligence organizations in the world ever since.
When the teaching of Krav Maga (KM) started to spread beyond the borders of Israel, arose a need to found an international organization. Imi Lichtenfeld founded the international Krav Maga federation (IKMF) with the support of his most loyal students and respected instructors.
Since Imi Lichtenfeld’s death in 1998, several federations teaching Krav Maga have developed internationally.
This system is designed to teach real self-defense techniques in the shortest possible time. Krav Maga does not exclusively rely on strength or power. The effectiveness of the system is in part due to its simplicity and its practical approach to self-defense.
Krav Maga training is based upon natural instincts and reflexes for self-defense. It consists of two parts :
– self-defense : (it’s the basic principle) it’s made up of different techniques to learn to defend against a wide variety of attacks.
– hand-to-hand combat , which constitutes a more advanced phase of KM. It includes tactics, feints, various attack combinations but it also requires strength, flexibility and mental determination.