Women's Self Defense
By Moshe Katz

2009-2010

There are many 'Women's Self Defense' classes these days, and that is certainly very important. The fact is however, that the techniques that are best for women, are best for everyone.

When I teach a self defense seminar I go by certain assumptions: .

The attacker is stronger and bigger than the Defender.

The Defender is not in the mood for a long kickboxing or wrestling or No Holds Barred match. He wants to get out of there quickly. 

The attacker is not hesitant about hurting the victim, he will not hold back. 

The participants in my seminar are looking for simple, easy techniques.

This works for everyone.

This means there are no such things as techniques for women, only techniques for everyone. If it works for the smallest, lightest, weakest person in the class then it will work for everyone. There is no need to offer the physically stronger students more "advanced" or challenging techniques. 

We take the lowest common denominator and work from there. We start at the bottom, not at the top. Nothing else makes sense. 

Women participants at IKI seminars, college campus tour, USA. Real techniques for real women, and for real people. 

So what would Men's self defense be? A lot of kicking to the head? Wrestling take-downs? That only works if you are Hulk Hogan or the Terminator. Any serious self defense instructor will tell you that in a real life situation you go with the simple stuff that does not rely upon great strength, i.e. what is taught in women's self defense classes.

The beauty of IKI Krav Maga is that we employ these principles in ALL our training. We use techniques that are easy to learn, easy to apply in many diverse situations, and easy to remember, regardless if you are a soldier fighting a terrorist or a woman fighting an assailant.

Krav Maga at Simmons College

Fight Back Against Rape and Sexual Assault 

These days most women only classes focus on several elements: 

1. Women feel more comfortable with each other.

2. Women do not want to be approached by men for dates. 

3. The class is designed to empower women by making them feel good and confident but they never really learn how to defend themselves. They are for psychological reasons, healing from trauma, but little actual self defense training goes on. While there is some value to this it is not real self defense training. 

4. Fitness. Many Krav Maga for women programs use models for their advertisements. These women all have perfect figures and are dressed to show that. Fitness and self defense are two separate matters.

Our goal is self defense for all!

Krav Maga for all types of people.

Please note: not all Krav Maga is the same. One of the women in the above photo served in the Israeli army. She was happy to participate in my seminar, but then after a while noted...Hey, this is totally different than the IDF. 

Indeed that is true. And I firmly believe that what we teach is far more effective on many levels. 

This is one approach to Krav Maga for women, not the one we use. We believe in real self defense for all body types. 

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