Comments on: Krav Maga vs Boxing: first impressions

By: J.R. Jackson

J.R. Jackson — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:51:56 +0000

Great Post.

I’m in Utah and took my first Krav Maga class last week with my 15-year old son.

The class lastest 1-1/4 hours and I have never been more exhausted. In fact, the couple of days following the training I was sore all over.

I’m going back tonight for my 2nd class and to signup for longterm training.

If you have not taken at least a sample class do yourself a favor and do it.

J.R. Jackson
http://www.JRJackson.com

By: Stevan Apter

Stevan Apter — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:59:20 +0000

Hi Niall

Just happened across your first impressions of a Krav class, and I thought I’d add a few comments.

I’ve been practicing Krav for about two years now at this location in New York:

http://www.yorktownfitnesscenter.com

Apart from a couple of years of Judo when I was a kid, I had no other martial arts or boxing training at that point, and my fitness level was, well, pretty damned awful! If your trainer has been certified by the National Training Center in LA, then your classes will probably be similar to mine: 15 minutes warmup and conditioning, 30 minutes or so drilling in combatives/grappling and/or self-defense techniques, and 15 minutes in Krav’s version of “randori” — multiple-attacker scenarios, &c.

Yes, the level tests are gruelling — intentionally so. The instructors seem to be more interested in pushing the students into that zone of fear and exhaustion where technique falls apart and something approximating the chaos of actual combat occurs. All I can say about that experience is that it has given me a new appreciation of the value of avoiding a fight whenever possible!

Martial arts purists often dismiss Krav as “mcdojo” training at its worst, but I think they just as often misunderstand the objectives of the training, which is not to become Bruce Lee XXIII, but to give the ordinary schlub an extra margin of survival in a real-world encounter. That includes what my instructors call “tactical thinking” — learning to recognize a bad situation as it is evolving, and to have more choices in those situations.

My instructors also encourage cross-training in other martial arts. For example, at my gym, the Krav instructors train with their students in BJJ and Judo, and encourage students in those disciplines to attend their knife- and stick-defense seminars.

Anyway, best of luck in your training.

By: Niall’s Weblog » Blog Archive » Fixed-gear bicycle impressions

Niall’s Weblog » Blog Archive » Fixed-gear bicycle impressions — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:27:56 +0000

[...] I already wrote a bit about completing my fixed-gear bicycle last week, and since then I have had the chance to ride it around San Francisco a good bit. I live in the Inner Sunset, by Golden Gate Park, and I work downtown on New Montgomery. Its around four and a half miles from my house to the office - usually I cycle along Market up to Page and then on to Irving. If I stop by Krav Maga on my way home, I end up going along Pine to Masonic, then through the Pan Handle and into Golden Gate Park. The point to all this rambling about my bicycle route is that it has a few quite considerable inclines along it. The main thing that worried me about riding fixed-gear was the hills. Not so much going up them, since I figured if it was too hard I’d simply walk the bicycle up. Going down however, worried me. Leg braking well enough to control descent down some of these hills requires practice - and more importantly, hard leg braking is supposed to be hard on your knees and can even make your muscles weaker. According to Sheldon Brown “Heavy duty resisting is widely reputed to be bad for your legs, and to be counterproductive for building up muscles and coordination for forward pedaling […] Eccentric contraction is reputed to cause micro-tears to your muscle tissue, so it actually weakens your muscles, unlike other forms of exercise.” [...]