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Is It Funny?
BY MOSHE KATZ
CEO
ISRAELI KRAV INTERNATIONAL
October 16, 2024, Israel
Is it Funny? I recall a college class, Economics, Bernard Baruch College, New York city. We had a visiting Israeli professor; his English was less than perfect. He tried to pull off a joke in class. He struggled, no one got it, but I understood it and laughed. It was an Israeli joke that he translated from Hebrew. Not only was the translation lacking, but the social context was all wrong. Similarly, I recall seeing "The Frisco Kid", a great Jewish Western comedy, (yes, odd combination) with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford, again, an unlikely combination. My family and I saw the film in Texas, we were rolling on the floor it was so funny, but as we walked out, we heard others, the Texan crowd, mumbling, "I thought this was supposed to be a funny film, there was nothing funny about it." They were not Jewish, they did not get the jokes, the jokes fell on death ears.
We enjoy comedy because we can relate to it. Comedy is cultural. Martial arts are also cultural. If you don't understand the culture, you will not understand the comedy. If you don't understand the culture, you will not understand the martial art.
We like comedy because we are basically laughing at ourselves, our lives, our situations. We can relate, it is relatable, we can see ourselves in the skit. When I watch "Seinfeld" I see my own relatives, "Would it kill them to put out a piece of cake with the coffee?! There we are, sitting like two idiots, our coffee getting cold, waiting for a piece of cake." I can relate, totally. But if it were two Mongolians, I might not get it. Comedy is funny because we understand the culture, the nuances. When I was very young, I recall hearing a lot of Yiddish jokes. I did not understand the language and I asked for a translation. It was never funny, and then came the classic line, "It is only funny in Yiddish", i.e. you must get the cultural context and nuances.
It is the same with self-defense. When I first began martial arts training, traditional Karate, Judo etc., it was difficult to see how this would be applied to real life situations. We were eventually taught about "Bunkai", or application, but still, I was baffled. As a beginner we learned many katas, and I would watch the black belts perfrom their advanced katas and be amazed at their skill. However, when I would watch them fight, I could detect no relation, no connection, whatsoever, at all, between the kata, the drills, and the actual fighting. Now I realize that even the fighting itself has no relation to real life self-defense situations, a karate fight between two blacks bears no resemblance whatsoever to a violent street encounter, a mugging, a hold up, a rape. I do not see any connection.
Our training works the other way around: rather than starting with traditional training and then trying to somehow apply it to real-life violent encounters, we begin with real life. And like comedy, it is not pretty. As comedian Steven Martin said, "Comedy is not pretty". Today everyone is worried about being politically correct and not offending anyone, thus comedy is dying a rapid death. As Martin said, real comedy is not pretty, it is in your face and often offensive, and such is life, and such must be our self-defense Krav Maga training. It is real, it is simple, it is ugly. Comedians mock us, we laugh at ourselves, this is healthy!
Often students expect to see fancy martial arts, as the movies have trained them to expect, but this is not reality. Often, they expect to see Bad Ass martial arts, as is often advertised. They expect to see tough-as-nails guys who look like Rocky, Rambo, Van Damme, Van Diesel, Van Nostrum, Schwarzenegger, Schwarzemonster, but these are not real martial artists nor self-defense experts, they are actors, models. They are excellent at what they do, and their life stories are indeed inspirational, but they are not about learning real self-defense. Real self-defense does not look like the movies. What you are watching on the big screen, or what you see in the flashy YouTube videos and commercials is not your life, and it is not relatable. Like Israeli or Mongolian comedy, you will not "get it", as you are in the wrong cultural context.
Jerry Seinfeld is funny because he comments about everyday life, things that we all experience, we can relate, so we laugh. That is how we teach Krav Maga survival; it comes from our everyday life, not from the movies, not from Mongolia. It is real, it is from the streets, from our very lives, it is relatable, and it is useful for 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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