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A student in my class mentioned the Krav Maga Notebook and DVD that is made in Europe. Does anyone have any experience with the notebook or dvd? Do they even follow our curriculm? My instructors didn’t know anything about them.
Thanks,
Kim
Personally I’ve never heard of a notebook and the only DVDs I know of are the five that you can buy here on the KM website. I looked on the IKMF website just out of curiousity and the only literature I saw mentioned was Imi and Eyal’s book.
http://www.kravmaga.be/pages/notebooken.html
The curriculum in Krav Maga Belgium’s \”Notebook\” is different than what we do here. I have the book and the DVD and it’s good stuff. I’d love to see a similar book based on our curriculum.
Rather than taking bets on when the thread will be closed, how about a quick chat about the technique on the video clips?
What did people think about the weapon defences?
In the pistol threat, the defender didn’t seem to get his weight down on the gun to give good control but I did like the way he went to hand over the keys before attacking. His knee attack also seemed totally ineffective. Personally, I’ve have done a few more strikes before attempting a disarm. Also, the defender’s initially burst forward doesn’t seem to help his body defence – taking his first step forward with his left leg (instead of doing a little shuffle)would have been better.
The upper block against the knife didn’t seem to go too well, with the knife ending up over the defender’s shoulder/back. At first I thought the problem was the difference in height and the fact the defender blocked too far away from the knife hand, so he couldn’t get control but watching the clip again, I think the defender made a deliberate choice to take the knife across his shoulder/back. This position seems to make disarming pretty much impossible but the defender doesn’t want to disarm but to throw – I’m not sure I like the way the knife can fly around during the throw.
I also thought that in doing an outer block against the slash attack, the defender could have sent his head forward more, so if the knife flew out of the hand with the force of the block, the defender wouldn’t get hit in the head with the knife.
What do other people think? John W, your comments would particularly be appreciated.
Cheers
RobThe video clips (or DVD clips?) are at http://www.kravmaga.be/pages/dvden.html
Just click on the pictures to view them.
Cheers
RobI’ve watched only three of the videos so far (no DSL, takes about ten minutes to load). I clicked on the picture with the car.
That one involves a downward stab knife defense. It looks okay when viewed fast, but it’s interesting to slow it down and watch it frame bt frame. It kind of looks as if the defender does a stick defense instead of a 360 knife defense. His wrist never seems to touch the attacker’s wrist, his arm just kind of slides past (as in stick defense). Then he has little control of the knife and it dangles around on his back. I don’t know if that’s just sloppy technique or if it’s supposed to look like that.
There is also a choke from the front defense in that sequence and it looks as if the attacker merely puts his hands on the defender’s shoulder (no real choke) and the defender seems to pluck at the guy’s arms instead of the hands. Again, it looks cool in fast speed, but slowed down, I don’t know, maybe a bit sloppy.
There are also some pictures, (original link). There’s a rifle defense and in the picture that shows the disarm, the defender stands at quite a distance to the attacker and the attacker’s arms are stretched out in front of his body, where he would still be able to struggle for the rifle (instead of the defender being closer, pushing the rifle past him to disarm).
So, I don’t know if those are mere differences in technique or just sloppy technique. If the technique as shown in the pictures and videos isn’t accurate it wouldn’t be good, because the buyer of the book will obviously try to recreate what he sees in the pictures and might end up learning to do the wrong thing.
There also seem to be some differences in technique, most notably the gun from the front threat. According to the description, the defender is supposed to drop his body, then use both hands simultanously and push the gun up, over his head. He doesn’t step to the side as we would do. Then he kicks, pushes the gun back down and into the attacker’s throat. That’s actually interesting, it might hurt the attacker, but I don’t know how much control you would have over the gun in that position (one would have to try it.)
That made me wonder how many significant differences in technique there actually are between the two versions of Krav Maga. Does anyone know other examples? Just curious…
Oh, and interesting that their letter of endorsement was written by a guy, who was certified by Amir and Darren. Playing to the potential US buyer, I guess…
Okay, let’s see if I can load the other videos without crashing the computer. I’ll check back in, oh, probably 100 years from now! 😉 🙁
Okay, I’ve done it, I’ve watched them all!! 😀
Some more things I’ve noticed: Choke from behind with a push. The defender has already turned halfway around before he even lifts his arm up, then he lifts it with his elbow pointing up, forearm parallel to the ground. (Might be a difference in technique?).
Choke from behind, no push: The girl being attacked attempts to pluck, but fails (she doesn’t even move the guy’s hands). Still she continues the technique with the guy still choking her, hits him in the groin and then he lets go (without another pluck). The guy is a lot bigger and who knows if the groin strike alone would have made him let go in a real situation.
Gun defense: The defender does kind of shuffle his feet. Then he ends up very sideways to the attacker, who might be able to spin toward the wall and regain control of the gun. The defender also knees the back of the attacker’s leg, I don’t know how effective that counter attack would be in real life.
They seem to like takedowns. For knife defense for example, they don’t do a cavalier, but pull the attacker forward and end up with and a reverse armlock on the ground. And there are a lot of neck twist takedowns.
There is a defense that looks like a 360 defense against a hook punch, but again (as in the car/knife defense) it kind of appears as if the defender hits either the crook of the elbow or the biceps rather than the wrist of the attacker’s arm (it’s hard to tell for sure, it’s a small screen). I’m wondering if this may be a different technique? I know there is a hook punch defense where you try to hit the biceps as he is punching, maybe that’s what they are doing?
Anyway, looks like a lot of the video techniques look cool when watched fast, but might not be very accurate when slowed down and watched frame by frame. But maybe it’s just different technique.
My comment was tongue in cheek. A sarcastic comment.
Every time I reply to a comment about the IKMA, David Kahn or Haim Gidon the thread gets shut down.
Same goes for other threads about Mike Lee Kanarek, Rhon Mizrahi and a host of others.
I truly am surprised that this thread has stayed up.
Anyway, i can only get the video picture clips, is there sound?
Je ne parle pas francais. Four years of french class and I only remember to say I dont speak french. Are the dvd’s available in other languages?
Maybe it’s just me, but I saw no real difference in technique than what I have been learning. Obviously if you watch 5 people do the same technique, they are not all going to look exactly the same. For example when Giantkiller said there was a bit of a shuffle step on the one. That may just be that guy.
The notebook and video was released by World Krav Maga Federation, based in Belgium.
http://www.kravmagaonline.com/
The head of the fedration was a student of Richard Douieb in France. Later he founded – I beleive he got like 4th dan blackbelt from Mr. Douieb – and formed the fedartion.
According to their website, they make you instructor with 4 days. The video techniques are pretty lame, making many mistakes. Even scary one…
The shuffle step isn’t too visible in fast motion, so maybe it’s okay, but some other techniques (as the knife by the car or choke with a push) looked kind of bad. I’m just thinking, if you are going to put it in the video, you better make sure it’s the correct technique, because that’s what students will be imitating.
Anyway, I’ve never even heard of the WKMF until now. They actually have a forum, one in French, one in Italian and one in English. (Just press on the earlier link, then on \”Forum\”). Most posts are in French and from what I’ve been able to figure out they have three or four different levels for instructors, somewhat similar to our system (at least that’s what it sounds like).
The apparent head instructors and moderators are Thierry and Larissa Viatour. They seem to be from Belgium, but may be based in Milan, Italy. Has anyone heard of them?
I tried to register to ask some questions about the techniques, but you have to activate the account and I haven’t received an e-mail yet. If it works, I’ll let you know what they said about it.
I think the DVD’s are in English. One guy asked about a technique on the French forum, but he quoted what he had seen in English. The notebook is in English, too, I think.
Rich, took me all of a week to learn not to comment on certain books and such on here.
I am not against different techniques if they are effective but I think Giant Killer is right on here. When you slow the videos down it would appear that the techniques lack control in the weapons disarmings. I have watched it a few times in slow motion, it looks like the deffender grabs the arm or elbo in the gun defense. That could be ok, if you aggressively slide down the arm to the weapon and control it, but it didn’t appear to me that the deffender did that.
I will ask a general opinion from the gallery as well. I know the proper technique is to soften the attacker up with a combative or five before actually taking the pistol. Why not take the gun and counter attack with it? I realize it may not fire for various reasons, but even then, you can certainly bluntly traumatize the attacker with the butt of the weapon. Is this taught mainly as a legal concern?
JC
I do not wanna look like super expert, as I am not one. But the videos on the website and the samples of the notebook is really not proper, and I beleive not even good techniques.
If we add they provide 4 days instructor certification program…well, than I lost all my interest in this notebook or organization.
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