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Ever Changing World
BY MOSHE KATZ
CEO
ISRAELI KRAV INTERNATIONAL
May 27, 2024, Israel
I don't like change. Anyone who knows me for a long time knows this. I don't like trying new foods, new clothing, new ...anything. Some have even thought that I border on autism. I like things as they are. Give me that Old Time religion, take the old books off the shelf. I like the old music and the traditional ways.
And yet, when it comes to survival we must adapt or die. and we must not lead others astray. We want our Krav Maga, our self-defense, to be relevant and effective. When it comes to Krav Maga, let the changes come as they must, leave tradition in the museum and in the history books. With Krav Maga we are not traditional bound, we are progressive and forward thinking.
The Beatles began with very simple music. They first played songs made famous by others, then they imitated their songs and then they created new music and changed the world.
As a solo artist Paul McCartney wrote Live and Let Die
But if this ever changing world
In which we're living
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die
What does it matter to ya
When you've got a job to do
You gotta do it well
You gotta give the other fellow hell
We wake up. We smell the roses, or the coffee, and we realize that things have changed. We were once lining up in rows and wearing Japanese karate outfits and shouting Kias. But in this ever-changing world in which we live in we see gangs, we see blood, we see cruelty that we never imagined back in the dojo. We see that we cannot stop a street knife attack with a classic Upper Block.
Flashback, Brooklyn, late 1980s; a member of the JDL, the Jewish Defense League, asks to see my downard block, my gedan barai, he says, If you try to block me with that, you will break your arm, and then I will break the rest of you.
Made me think. A street guy, a guy who fights off racist Jew-haters, he has the street experience that I lack. I better pay attention. In this ever changing world in which we live in...
Flashback, we I started IKI and the On-Line Distance training program, I thought after I make 100 videos that will be it. I mean, after all, how many techniques are there? How much is there to teach? After a while I will surely run out of new material. I think we are now going on close to twenty years and not a week passes that I don't come up with a new situation based on real violence from the streets, or at least a slight improvement on an old technique. We are never content with what we know. We are always trying to improve. We are always seeking better, more effective methods to teach, and sadly, there are always new forms of violence. Violence is not frozen in time, not in the age of the Samurai and the Ninja and not in the 1960s with Krav Maga.
Man seems to have an incredible ability to come with more diverse violent situations. and so, our program has never slowed down and there are always new videos.
But not everyone shares this view. I assumed that everyone did, but...in this ever-changing world I am always discovering new things. Allow me to quote from the website of a traditional Krav Maga school. I will change a few words so you cannot trace it back, and I mean no disrespect. They obviously have different goals, but for me, it is shocking as I believe, as I Know for a fact, that the sole intention of the man they refer to as founder, was for people to learn to protect themselvs.
On that note, there is no single founder of Krav Maga, that is a myth, like many religious myths, and can easily be disproven. Please see History of Krav Maga, and Krav Maga History Interview.
This is the perspective of some other schools of Krav Maga; "Since its foundation, the sole purpose of the school was to maintain, preserve and protect the Original Krav-Maga, as created by Imi Lichtenfeld in Israel, without any change or cut. .... In the view of its founder, it is at the same time the eternal temple of the Krav-Maga, as the Shaolin is for the Kung-fu, and on the other side a sanctuary of the original way, just as the Kodokan is for the Judo."
So we see that some schools of Krav Maga have as their stated goal the preservation of an old system as a temple, in a religious sense, rather than the evolvement and improvement of a system of self-defense. This is a key difference.
Part of my job is to study crime, gang activity, terrorism, violence. That is why our program never gets boring. We are up to date, we cannot allow ourself to stay in the past, can you?
Moshe Katz, 7th dan Black Belt, Israeli Krav Maga. Certified by Wingate Institute. Member Black Belt hall of fame, USA and Europe.
Understand the Israeli Fighting Mentality - Israel a Nation of Warriors by Moshe Katz
What is the cultural background of Krav Maga? What makes it unique? What makes the Israeli military so effective? Why are Israeli security systems used all over the world?
What are the Biblical origins of Krav Maga and who was the first Krav Maga instructor?
What weapons and military strategies did our Biblical ancestors use?
How has Krav Maga developed in Israel and what are its goals?
All that and more in this unique book.
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