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Hello, I have never trained Krav Maga before but have been thinking about it for a while. Everything I had heard about it made it sound like exactly what I was looking for. But, as I like to do plenty of research before I try something new i decided to read up about it some more.
I noticed a split of opinion in the online martial arts community, some said it was great, effective self defence that anyone could learn, but a huge number of people on martial arts forums I went to seem to hold it in extremely low regards. I notice that particularly people who do Muay Thai, jiu jitsu, mma, etc consistently claim that krav is all hype and that it is bogus. The reason they all seem to give is aliveness in training.
Basically many say that unlike Muay Thai, mma, etc that spar against a fully resistant opponent, krav relies entirely on drills with compliant partners offering minimal resistance. They all said this makes it impossible to build up the muscle memory and the skill to be able to perform the techniques under the pressure of a real life situation.
I know that people will generally praise their own system and bag others but reading this kinda lowered my confidence in krav. Particularly as many of the forum posts I read were from people saying they had done krav before switching to Muay Thai, and that the sparring was dead, minimal, nonexistent, etc.
So I ask you guys for your opinions and experience, do you spar with resistance? Is krav pressure tested? Should I learn krav?Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
Bas Rutten likes krav. You’d think that would be enough to shut the knuckleheads on the MMA forums up but of course nothing can do that.
That said, any system is only as good as your instructor and your training partner(s). Like one of our forum members said, there’s krav and then there’s a bunch of other crap claiming to be krav. You’ll have to decide for yourself if your local school is the real deal or not.
Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
quote Croney:Basically many say that unlike Muay Thai, mma, etc that spar against a fully resistant opponent, krav relies entirely on drills with compliant partners offering minimal resistance. They all said this makes it impossible to build up the muscle memory and the skill to be able to perform the techniques under the pressure of a real life situation.OK, here’s the deal. People say things like “If Krav Maga is so great, why isn’t there a UFC champion who has a Krav background?” and such.
The answer is simple: Everything taught in Krav is illegal in the octagon!
Seriously. We’re taught how to take every advantage. Target first the groin, throat, eyes. If your only way out of a hold is to bite, you pull a Rick Grimes and bite a chunk out of someone’s neck. If there’s dirt, throw it in their eyes. Scratch, claw, WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GO HOME SAFE.
Krav is NOT a sport. There are no points. If you want a sport, train Muay Thai, Judo, MMA, BJJ, etc.
Another point that should be made. My Krav partner has been in MMA for a long time. He’s studied Muay Thai, BJJ, etc. He has one flaw in training. He keeps thinking about a fight being one on one. He says, well I’ll just do THIS and take you down like THIS (showing me a brutally effective BJJ takedown). But then I say “Yeah, but my buddy then is going to bash your skull in from behind.” You see, he’s been taught to fight against one opponent for so long, trying to think about multiple attackers is a big change for him.
Also, when we learned knees, grabbing the trapezius, putting the forearm in the chest, and putting our other and on the inside of our opponent’s elbows, he said “Well wouldn’t a Thai clinch be better?” (Two hands behind the neck bringing the head down.)
I said yeah but, try it. He did, and I stabbed him in the rib cage with my free arm. (Not really. You know what I mean.) His Muay Thai technique didn’t account for someone with a knife in their hand which he might not have seen.
Krav is a different animal. It cares NOTHING for rules, points, etc. It only concerns itself with making sure you go home safely regardless of what comes at you by ANY MEANS necessary. You can’t spar. How do you spar eye gouges or rabbit punches or throwing sand in someone’s eyes? You can’t. And that’s half of Krav. Taking advantage. Doing REAL damage.
It may be for you, it may not. But know what the difference is.
Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
That makes perfect sense, and I agree with your points. But, again playing devils advocate, I have read that in the early days of ufc (when eye gouging, etc was legal) there were a couple of krav guys who entered and they all did abysmally. You can google it.
Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
quote Croney:That makes perfect sense, and I agree with your points. But, again playing devils advocate, I have read that in the early days of ufc (when eye gouging, etc was legal) there were a couple of krav guys who entered and they all did abysmally. You can google it.OK, well another point is civilian Krav (as opposed to what the IDF actually learns) has no offensive training. It’s 100% defensive. Yes, we train kicks and punches, etc. but all in reaction. Krav is effective if you can punch once, stun the attacker, and RUN. There’s no emphasis on “finish him”. No submission moves. It’s not sport.
And biting was never legal in the UFC. Groin shots and fish hooks were illegal as well. No groin, no Krav Maga! 😉
I don’t know who were the Krav guys in the UFC other than Bas Rutten (who did great). Just because they were Krav practitioners, doesn’t mean they were GOOD at Krav. 🙂 What were their levels? Who were their teachers? What was the belt lineage? I don’t know.
Marines who’ve fought in the UFC have had abysmal records as well. You wouldn’t tell me a Marine wasted his time with his training just because it didn’t work well in the octagon, would you?
Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
Just a point of clarification UFC 1 rules were no eye gouging , no biting, no fish hooks. Groin was allowed.
Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
quote CJs Dad:Just a point of clarification UFC 1 rules were no eye gouging , no biting, no fish hooks. Groin was allowed.thumbsup
Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
Although! (I just looked it up.)
UFC 1 – no biting, no eye-gouging and no groin attacks.
UFC 2 – Groin attacks were unbanned.If we’re getting all technical. 😉
Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
hmm ok, I admit I’m getting old so my memories is a little faded. Regardless my fighter lost lol.
Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
Back to the original point:
quote :Particularly as many of the forum posts I read were from people saying they had done krav before switching to Muay Thai, and that the sparring was dead, minimal, nonexistent, etc.I’ve seen those posts and most of them were written by people who never moved beyond the krav white belt level. If they are really as badass as they claim, why didn’t they quickly smoke all those krav wusses and move through yellow, orange, green, blue, brown, etc? (grin)
But more to the point, the white belt classes welcome everyone. Do these guys really want to kick a 40-year-old housewife’s ass at 100% power???? As you move up to the more advanced classes, the sparring gets a lot rougher. In contrast, most of the people in a Muay Thai class are young and athletic so they can get rough a little quicker.
And most krav schools have a dedicated fight class that’s nothing but MMA-style sparring. Our moderator CJs Dad teaches one and I’m sure he’d be happy to demonstrate some “live” sparring to those internet tough guys. (grin again)
Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
I got more sparring in Krav in the first month than I did in the first 3 of Muay Thai.
Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
My .02cents.
If you are a KM er and go toe-to-toe with a Boxer or Thai Boxer without resorting to a luckily placed maiming technique, things will not go well for you. While you are working on striking, so are they. While you are working on other techniques, they are still working on striking which makes them very good and ,therefore,very dangerous.For anyone that has any doubt about that, go to your nearest boxing gym, jump in the ring and try going a 3 minute round… or to the first knockout.
That being said, your average Boxer wouldn’t know what to do if thrown into a headlock or if a gun was pointed at him, or any other situation outside the ring that he needed to do to save his LIFE which is kind of the point of Krav, isn’t it?
Re: Is Krav Maga ‘alive’
Never box a boxer! 🙂
In a boxing ring, a boxer always wins! Solution: never get in a boxing match.
If you’re in an actual conflict with a boxer do NOT stand toe to toe trading strikes with him/her. Plenty of other tools in the Krav Toolbox to defend against an attack from a boxer.
However, and I just had this discussion on Facebook, learn to box if you can! Can only help with your Krav training. 🙂
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