Boaz Aviram - Krav Maga: Use Your Body as a Weapon

Copyright 2014 by Boaz Aviram

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by

ISBN: 978-1-62873-612-0

E-book ISBN: 978-1-62914-017-9

Printed in China

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply grateful to all those who contributed to this book.

I especially wish to thank:

Sgt. Major Eli Avikzar, RIP, Immis successor in the Israeli Defense Forces and my Krav Maga instructor.

Sgt. Major Immi Lichtenfeld, RIP, the first Israeli Defense Forces head of Krav Maga and its creator. He was my friend and training advisor.

Sgt. Pablo Dreispiel (Eli Avikzars deputy chief). He was my first Krav Maga instructor in the Israeli Defense Forces.

Lt. Col. Giora Cohen and Lt. Col. David Gerstein. They supported me when I was the head of Krav Maga in the IDF.

Raanan Pshigoda and Col. David Ben Asher. They supported me in my Krav Maga career.

My son Brandon Taelor Aviram. He took the pictures for this book.

My friend Steven Hartov. He encouraged me and guided me with my project of writing this book.

My student Tomasz Jeziorski. He modeled in the pictures.

My neighbor Ruben Serrano. He participated in the defense vs. multiple opponent pictures.

My father Col. Harry Aviram and my mother Shoshana Aviram.

CONTENTS

Foreword

T hroughout history, law enforcement has been successful in curbing crime, but never in completely destroying it. In modern democracies, though adult citizens have the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, any day could still turn into a life or death confrontation in an instant.

Just as individuals have the right to vote, they should also have the right to control their fate. Many times false perceptions lead to bad habits. As a result of living in a civil environment, our survival skills are being suppressed.

While we rely on trained professionals in many aspects of our lives, we should also be able to resort to the basics if everything else fails. This book shows readers how to use their bodies in a physical confrontation.

In a real-life survival fight, one cannot afford to simply exchange blows to see who can take more than the other. A methodical way to react to danger and to eliminate it is achieved through intensive Krav Maga training. For a skilled Krav Maga fighter, it should not take more than a few seconds to end the fight and survive. The starting point of Krav Maga is the realization that if you finish your opponent, you finish the fight. In modern society, the preference would be to avoid such extremes, but if you want to live, you need to consider this option at all times. A thorough analysis may reveal that in certain scenarios this is your only option.

Krav Maga was the official self-defense and hand-to-hand combat system of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from its inception. The name comes from the Hebrew words Krav for fight and Maga for contact. The first IDF Krav Maga chief instructor was Imrich Lichtenfeld (Immi Sde-Or). Second was Eli Avikzar, and I was third.

The Krav Maga approach to fighting is a result of comprehensive analysis of all the dangerous elements that are involved in a confrontation scenario. To master control over your body for the purpose of self-defense, you need to identify the situation, identify the most immediate threat, and instantly overcome it using your body. Learning the principles of Krav Maga will give you the tools required to prevail.

The most important contribution this book can make is to give you the security and calm in life that is the basis for excelling in any other fieldas Immi used to say: So may one walk in Peace.

The book is for anyone who feels the need to hone his self-defense skills, or just get a thorough understanding of the split-second process. Students, instructors, civilians, military, and law enforcement personnel would all benefit from it. It is recommended for judiciary system officials as well, for a clearer understanding of the mechanism behind successful self-defense processes, to help better serve communities, and constituents.

While I did not intend for this book to be used by those in the fields of sports or entertainment I realized it would be a great source to well-known professional boxing trainers and mixed martial arts fighters. Superior fighting knowledge might end a fight sooner than expected. To have full control in a street fight, you must be able to see all the combat options and prioritize what takes the minimum amount of time. The same applies to fighting sports, except some of them have fewer dangers, and therefore allow additional tactics. Learning Krav Maga could help athletes make sense of what they are doing and how to do it better. An audience might see less pain, less sweat, and more knockouts. I believe that once you can easily perceive the basic elements of your activities, you can then excel in them.

Krav Maga was designed to provide training methods with optimal self-defense capabilities while maintaining strict safety during training. The key to this system is the correct hierarchy of prioritization! However, the Krav Maga known outside the military is not the IDF Krav Maga, but another form of martial arts marketed to civilians.

Modern martial arts generally have rules that make it very difficult for fighters to kill each other in an instant. They provide social activity, entertainment for spectators, and a controlled release of violence. When the student is engulfed in this environment, he becomes part of it and it becomes part of him.

While martial arts, boxing, and wrestling provide some help in overcoming fear, they very seldom give students an ability to control their opponents in hand-to-hand combat scenarios. Martial arts and fighting sports have rules that were designed to reduce injury. Some non-competitive martial arts geared toward combat have proven hard to learn due to a lack of communication that may have persisted over generations.

The Israeli underground forces had to train their members in hand-to-hand combat. Carrying weapons was restricted under British rule and access to weapons was limited anyway. Daily risk was confronted with the stick fighting method, based on sword-dueling techniques. As members of underground organizations gathered, they used sports fighting skills as part of their training. As the IDF was established, the need for a systematic uniform training system arose. Immi was chosen to implement the system because of his superior skills.

By observing animals we can see how they use their bodies for hunting and survival. Cubs hone their hunting and survival skills through wrestling their parents. The human race, over the years, has concentrated its resources on devising weapons. In the old world, it was essential to learn how to use each handheld weapon for hunting and fighting. In the new world, however, as technology gave advantage, most military battles were won with large, high-tech weapons.