a little pain
BY MOSHE KATZ
CEO
ISRAELI KRAV INTERNATIONAL

May 4, 2016, Israel

Chana Senesh, she fought back...and paid the ultimate price for freedom.

Learn more about her on Tour and Train.

We are born with pain.

A baby cries. Life begins with tears. Yet when the baby cries the parents are happy. They cry as well, tears of joy.

The baby's tears are signs of life, of a healthy baby. No sound would mean death. The sound of crying is an indication that all is normal and well.

And it is a hint that life will always have pain. It will begin with pain and it will end with pain.

And yet we spend our entire lives trying to avoid pain. But it is not possible.

As my teacher would always say, all we are trying to do is minimize the damage. But eliminate pain from our lives? Please, let's stop this foolishness.

A man is born to work, and a man is born for pain. And a women, even more so. As the Torah tells us years ago, with pain you shall give birth. This is the way of the world.

Of course we want to make every effort to protect ourselves from pain, to limit and minimize suffering. But there is always pain. We do not want the flu - so we take a flu shot, but the flu shot itself involves some pain. However an intelligent person realizes that the pain of the shot is far less than the pain of suffering with a potential deadly influenza.

We choose the lesser pain but we still have pain.

I started a Krav Maga class for women, as once again the "demand" was great. Many came but most left. Why? too much pain.

Why did they come in the first place? to avoid the pain of being stabbed, to avoid being killed. My classes are not boot camp, they are as user friendly as they can be. I am not the "Bad Ass" type of instructor. And yet some walked away, it was "too much pain". Some even said, "I was hurt".

Of course they were not hurt, but they are so unaccustomed to pain that even a tap on the arm is "hurt". This is the product of a poor upbringing, too gentle. Too soft.

Training in Krav Maga is taking the "lesser hurt" in order to avoid being stabbed to death and leaving your children orphans. Simple logic.

We need to develop a warrior culture, a fighting back culture. We need to learn to stand up for ourselves.

Tonight we mark Holocaust memorial Day, and we honor the heroes who stood up and fought back. Let us honor their spirit by training harder. Let us honor their spirit by making a commitment to our own training, and to our own lives.