Acting and Krav Maga
By Moshe Katz
CEO
Israeli Krav International

February 2, 2018 Atlanta airport

I often jokingly refer to my acting "career", I had one line in the first grade play and four words in the sixth grade play. I feel I had my impact and I have retired from acting. Now I focus on Krav Maga.

The point is I know the difference between the two.

I often see "stock photos" for Krav Maga advertisements. In them an attractive female is submissively raising her hands while an attacker is, 1. pointing a gun at her head, 2. has a knife to hear throat from behind. 

The sad thing is these are not only stock photos but the way most Krav Maga associations actually train. What is the problem?

If you don't know the answer, well, you are in bad position but you are also in the majority. And as in most cases the majority is wrong. 

Our goal is to preach the truth, as would say, the Painful Truth. But we are descended from Abraham who stood alone with this truth though mocked by the world.  

The problem is that unless you are an award winning actor this hands up nonsense will not work. You will be killed. 

Why?

Most Krav Maga associations have this acting bit as the foreplay to the quick, precise and rapid disarm. i.e. you sound pathetic, Please sir, don't hurt me, and you are able to move your hands to the desired position. This new position puts you within comfortable striking distance of your opponent. This is similar to the game of Risk, the search for world domination. When the other player goes to the bathroom you illegally move your troops within striking distance of his armies. The odds of him not noticing this are slim to none. The Krav Maga acting is much the same; you are counting on your opponent being so lame and dumb that you can really pull off your amateur acting. 

So what do we do differently? In some cases we also employ this acting but the difference is we never rely upon it. How so? As we raise our hands and do our little amateur acting we are in movement. We are moving out of the most immediate danger. So we are acting in some cases but as we are doing so, from the very first instant we are getting out of the line of fire, or rotating away from the blade. Thus even if our acting will not land us a job in Hollywood we are already out of the most imminent danger. Our very first move saves our life. The rest is important but our initial objective has already been achieved. 

Yes, this goes against the Krav Maga Gospel, or the "Bible of Krav Maga", so be it. We are here for the painful truth. 

When I see those photos of women with a knife to their throat from behind and the attacker can cut their throat as easily as slaughtering a goat for Ramadan feast, I say, they better be Oscar winning actresses because their life depends upon their performance. 

Of course these techniques look mighty impressive on Youboob; as the attacker waits patiently the Krav Maga practitioner to accurately and precisely grabs the knife-hand and stun the helpless attacker. Bravo.

As they say on TV, Folks, don't try this at home, we are professional Krav Maga actors. Trying this for real may be deadly. 

At IKI we try a different approach. 

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