@oldkmdude
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Re: seeking advice about a local gym
We might be reading too much into this. Maybe the basics class is for people who want to learn the basics without necessarily progressing through the ranks and the “black belt” classes are just the progression through the standard levels. A lot of the smaller gyms I’ve seen group their classes into basic (L1), intermediate (L2-L3) and advanced (L4-L5) or something similar. OP, why don’t you just ask them how the ranks work at their school and what they teach in these black belt classes. They would know better than us.
Re: Has there been a decline?
I think we’re talking about two things. One is the attrition that happens in any martial art (yes, I know, Krav is not a martial art) as you go up the ranks and the other is a general decline in interest (new students) in Krav Maga.
Just looking at the calendar at the place where I train, we have 11 P1 classes a week. We only have one P4-P5 class. That’s normal and I’d be worried if there was a glut of mid and high ranking students and relatively few low level students. It would tell you that either you don’t have enough new students or that it’s too easy to go up in rank.
As far as a general decline in interest, there may be some of this, too. It seems like Krav is in a pretty unique spot, so the appeal may be limited to people who are looking for something very specific. It’s too violent for the traditional crowd (just compare it to Tae Kwon Do or Kung Fu) but not violent enough for the MMA crowd (who spar harder and more frequently than we usually do), so we’re probably losing potential students from both ends of the spectrum.
Re: Can’t get pass the white belt level and now I can’t sleep
Congrats, Crash! Every test I’ve taken (5 so far), I tell myself – “there’s no way I can get through another one of these.” And then I do. And you will, too. Keep training hard.
Re: Balancing Aggression With Tactical Caution
I think the aggro monkey approach is probably the right one most of the time. Chances are, the person who’s attacking you will be relatively unskilled and surprised at your response, which should work in your favor. Where you might run into a problem is against a skilled opponent, especially if your initial attacks fail and you find yourself in fighting range, but not far enough away to straight-up run away.
Recent example: I was sparring with a guy, we’ll call him Krotty Dude who had close to zero real sparring experience (but had studied some other martial art). Like with most noobs, I hit him in the face. A lot. But softy, very softy (I’m not an a-hole, after all). Now when someone hits you in the face, the tendency is to want to hit back, so he tried. And tried. Each time he missed, he got more frustrated and more aggressive (but also more predictable) until he was basically swinging for the fences, so it was easy avoid his punches. I finally had to defuse the situation with a joke and sort of snap him out of it (although he still didn’t hit me in the face).
So that’s the only caveat. Against someone who knows what he’s doing, pure aggression may not work. I think drills and pad work are great, but it’s also important to have the tool you get from sparring in your arsenal and know when to use them.
Re: Balancing Aggression With Tactical Caution
I think both Krav and what you learn from sparring are useful in a real world situation. Let me give an example from the way back machine. In a former life, I was a bouncer. A 5’8″, 155lb bouncer. Not very intimidating, right? The only reason I wasn’t getting my ass kicked on a weekly basis was that I had a set of go-to moves that I was able to use for most situations.
I think of the defenses in Krav as a set of go-to moves. In other professions they call this a “best practice.” If someone is stupid enough to choke you from the front, you have a best practice. Same goes for a headlock, choke against a wall, etc. That’s what we learn in Krav. If this, then that.
When your “best practice” works, it’s pretty damn cool. I’m thinking specifically of this one jujustu (Japanese, not Brazilian) hold that I would use to toss people out of the club. But every once in a while, as it tends to happen in the real world, I wouldn’t quite nail the move, or the guy would squirm out, or something would happen where I’d find myself facing someone who had gotten away from me and was squared up and ready to fight.
In that situation, I don’t have a best practice. I definitely have some go-to combinations and strategies, but I’m not going to do the same thing every time someone throws a punch because there are too many variables involved. I have to know how to read my opponent, how to move, and how to react. Most of that, I’ve learned from sparring, not from drills. Fighting is always plan B, but you gotta have a plan B.
Re: Level 1 Testing
I don’t really get the point of waiting an excessively long time to test. If you think you can pass the test (so that you don’t waste your time and money), you should take it. There is no need to be perfect. That will come later. I’ve been doing Krav for over 3 years and I still take L1 classes sometimes (and occasionally learn something new from them). I think it’s really worse to be stuck at a lower level for too long and start getting bored than to start a higher level a little too early. The only exception to this is if you feel that it’s really not safe for you to train at a higher level. In most places I’ve seen, passing that first test allows you to spar, which I think is a crucial part of the overall training. Anyway, just my opinion. In the end, you have to talk it over with your instructor and find what works for you.
Re: Why not compete?
Well, because Krav is just too deadly for the ring. Every Krav fight ends in the utter destruction of testicles and eyes. Oh wait, you said you didn’t want that.
There is a lot of stuff in Krav that is just not applicable to a typical ring fight (choke defenses, weapon defenses, multiple attackers, etc). Any time spent learning that is time spent NOT learning how to straight-up fight.
If the goal is to compete in MMA, then the best training for that is…well…MMA, not Krav.
Re: Krav Maga Alone?
I think that for getting someone “street ready” in as little time as possible, nothing beats Krav. And that’s kind of the point. It was designed to take someone from zero to 60 in as little time as possible. Just look at the level 1 curriculum in the major orgs – it’s mostly linear strikes (straight punches, knees, front kicks), aggression, constantly pushing forward, and defenses against chokes that no one with any training would ever do, but the types you see from angry people who are intent on hurting you. These techniques rely more on aggression and surprise than skill.
Now I’ve been doing Krav for about 3 1/2 years and fell in love with it from day one. I plan to keep doing it for many years to come. But I don’t think that it was really meant to be studied in the way that many of us like to do it these days – as a martial art (sorry, self defense) that you practice for many years. It seems like the higher up you go in Krav, the more you build on what you know in a way that adds breadth somewhat more than depth. You don’t tend to get really spectacular at a few things; you tend to get pretty good at a lot of things.
Now take something like Muay Thai. You learn pretty much all the moves in a month. Then you spend years trying to master their application. You hear professional boxers say things like “I need to work on my jab” and you think “really? you’ve been boxing for years and you feel like you need to work on the first punch you ever learned?” But that’s the difference between a specialist and a generalist.
I don’t think there is a one size fits all approach to fighting. Your body type, your strengths and weaknesses, and types of situations you’re likely to get into will be individual to you. For me, I’ve found that the tools that I’ve gotten from Muay Thai and boxing have really helped – I’m not a huge guy, so I need to be able pick my shots and make them count rather than go toe-to-toe with someone who weighs twice as much as me.
Sorry for the long rant, but the short version is: Krav is great, but if you can cross-train, do so.
Re: Krav Maga Alone?
For a while, I was training at both an MMA gym (with a Muay Thai emphasis) and a Krav gym. For both time and money reasons, this became unsustainable. In a month of Muay Thai, I probably learned more about striking than I did in a year of Krav. I still use some of the tricks I learned during sparring where more often than not, I can get the better of the higher level belts (or patches, I guess. We’re a kmg school). I ended up picking the Krav gym over the MMA gym because I wanted the self defense aspects of Krav. Kravists are generalists. They train for both the likely (a fistfight) and less likely (guns, knives, etc, although I’ve had the former pulled on me twice). The time you train in knife and stick defenses is time you don’t train punches and kicks. But a specialist will usually beat a generalist, all other things being equal. In a fistfight, I’d put my money on a Muay Thai guy over a Krav guy any day. So to your question of “is Krav Maga alone enough,” it depends on what you’re after. For self defense against the people who are most likely to attack you (people without a ton of training, multiple attackers, occasional weapons), I’d say yes. It’s as good as you can hope for, considering these are situations in which the odds will usually be stacked against you. If you’re trying to become a better fighter – someone who fights other people who have a moderate or better amount of training in fighting other trained individuals – then probably not. But I think you have already seen that. If you have the time and money to cross train, I say go for it.
Re: epilepsy
Medical advice is one of those things where you generally want to ask an expert rather than a bunch of random strangers on the internet. Your neurologist can give you a much better answer than any of us. That said, people with epilepsy have a lower seizure threshold and should generally avoid activities that lower it even further (like getting hit in the head).
Re: Transferring to another (non-KMW) school?
I transferred from a KMW school to a KMG school (no problem with the KMG school, which was great, just moved to a different city). At the time I was a KMW orange belt. Although the techniques at each school were pretty similar, there were enough small differences that I felt I should just start over and learn them. In hindsight, I wish I would have asked to test or place out of P1 so that I could have started sparring or taking the P2-P3 classes sooner. After being used to the fight class and the intermediate level class at the KMW school, I got a little burnt out doing 3 months of straight P1. Probably wouldn’t hurt to ask if you’re going to a new school.
Re: My Wish for KMWW
I think it’s just a matter of what is prioritized and how you make use of that time. I’ve been lucky in that the places I’ve trained at have a variety of classes outside of regular Krav, so if you want a little more ground work or a little more sparring (with full gear and harder contact), you can just take one of those – it’s modular!
But even in the regular classes, I think there are ways we could be using time more efficiently. For example, in our beginner classes, we start the warmups with “power drills” – basically various moderately difficult exercises. It’s great, fun exercise, but not a lot of learning. In our intermediate classes, we warm up with light sparring. The time spent and the end result are the same: you get a good warmup and workout. But the with sparring, I feel like I’m improving a skill at the same time. Other schools I’ve visited warm up with combatives and combinations, which I think is also a great way to go (but I still prefer sparring).
In any case, that’s just my opinion. I know there’s a fine balance between keeping the classes intense and also accessible to people with different preferences.
