Krav Maga is About a Lot More Than Just Fighting
Are you looking for a battle proven self-defence system that is relatively quick to learn and practical to us?
Krav Maga is about more than just learning to fight. Sure, teaching you to defend yourself is important and it’s a big part of what we do, but threat awareness, functioning effectively under stress of attack, de-escalation tactics, and adopting body language and the self-confidence to make yourself a hard target is just as important.
From your very first training session, the highly skilled KMDI instructor team will guide you as you to navigate drills that are designed to simulate the stresses and uncertainties of real-life conflict. You’ll be exposed to common street attacks, from both armed and unarmed assailants, you’ll learn to understand the mindset of an attacker, and we’ll teach you to defend yourself effectively, whether it against one, two or more attackers. This is always done in a safe and beginner friendly environment.
First developed for the Israeli military in the 1940s, Krav Maga is taught to every member of the Israeli Defence Forces, from the newest of recruits to the top-level special forces operators, and over the years it has proven to be devastatingly effective in some of the most dangerous urban environments on the planet.
Designed to build upon and enhance your body’s natural reactions to a physical attack, Krav Maga uses techniques that are based on instinct and reflexes, and it is this that makes it quick to learn and practical to use—a necessity when you need to train large numbers of soldiers and a bonus in our time-poor civilian society.
Krav Maga isn’t an ancient and mystical martial art that will take decades to learn. It’s not flashy or showy in any way; rather, it’s a modern, brutally effective and practical self-defence system that anyone can learn and most importantly, it’s one that works.
Today, Krav Maga is taught exclusively in every branch of the Israeli Protective Services; where it continues to develop. It also forms the basis of defensive tactics systems employed by numerous military and police forces around the world, and in its civilian context, you can find Krav Maga schools in virtually every country on the planet.
Imi Lichtenfeld
The Founding Father and Grand Master of Krav Maga
Imi was born in 1910 to a Hungarian Jewish family. His father, Samuel served as a Chief Inspector with the Bratislava Police Force and was also the owner of a modern gym – the first in the capital – where people practised boxing and wrestling. At his father's encouragement, Imi engaged in a wide range of sports from a young age, winning championships in boxing, wrestling and gymnastics.
During the 1930s, Fascist and anti-Semitic groups started appearing in Bratislava and began to target the city's Jewish community with violent attacks. Not one to stand by and watch his neighbours suffer, Imi gathered a group of Jewish boxers and wrestlers and routinely stood guard to defend his neighbourhood. It was here, during many street fights that Imi realised that the sports he had trained in had little in common with real combat, and so began his life’s work—to develop a system of techniques for practical self-defence in life-threatening situations.
In 1940, Imi fled the Nazi occupation of his homeland, and in 1942 arrived in Israel. There, it didn’t take long for Imi’s fighting abilities to be recognised and he was soon commissioned to train the defence force fighters in hand-to-hand combat.
Following the establishment of Israel in 1948, and the formation of the Israeli Defence Force (‘IDF’), Imi was appointed as the IDF’s Chief Instructor for hand-to-hand combat. In this capacity, Imi further developed and refined his unique method for self-defence and hand-to-hand combat and gave it it’s Hebrew name, Krav Maga (Contact Combat).
In 1964, Imi Sde Or retired from the military and began adapting and modifying Krav Maga to civilian needs. The method was formulated to suit everyone - men and women, boys or girls. Even during his final years, Imi continued teaching Krav Maga, captivating his students with his personality and imparting them with his knowledge.
Imi Sde Or, our valued teacher, passed away on 9 January 1998, aged 88.
His legacy lives on.