No Cure - No Solution
By Moshe Katz
CEO
Israeli Krav International

June 20, 2015, Israel

Defense in and around a car; we do all we can to survive. (Hubert Amann from Germany, Tour and Train Israel, June 2015)

When you were young and your heart was an open book
You used to say live and let live
(You know you did, you know you did you know you did)
But if this ever-changing world in which we’re live in
Makes you give in and cry

Say live and let die
Live and let die  (Paul McCartney)

When we were young we believed many things. We believed that justice would always prevail. We believed that the guilty would always be caught and punished, we believed that we would live forever.

We believed.

But none of that is true.

Some things are just difficult to believe, that is just the way we are made. The first time we encounter death it is very difficult to accept. What child believes that dear old grandad is gone forever? Who could believe that one little mishap while driving and a loved one, or more, are gone forever?

Who would believe that the international market would cause dear dad to lose his job? Who would believe that war would come and we would have to leave our beloved home, never to return again?

Who would believe

But in this ever changing world in which we live in...these things happen.

So we learn to be prepared. We learn to take precautions. We put aside money for a rainy day, we prepare for the emergency and we train in Krav Maga.

And we feel a little better. But we are still not masters of our fate. We are still not master of the universe. We still do not control the climate, we cannot stop the storm from coming.

A young scholar is having difficulty with a Talmudic passage. He sends his question to a leading rabbi. The rabbi responds by referring him to another passage. The young scholar studies this passage repeatedly but cannot find the answer. In fact the Talmudic passage he is referred to seems to have its own problem and no solution at all.

The young scholar is confused and writes to the senior rabbi again.

I had a question and you referred me to another passage which had no solution. How does this help me?

The rabbi responded, precisely young man, I wanted to teach you that there are questions without answers, situations without solutions. For that is the nature of life itself.

It was more than thirty years ago that I learned this lesson. Sometimes there is no solution. Nonetheless we do all we can.

My friend Itay Gil is certainly not the type to give up but even he would often say, "You are F.... there is no solution". Of course, we never give up. It simply means we go along with something until we see a window of opportunity. Until the day we die we never give up.

Sometimes students send me video clips of other instructors, not IKI, dealing with a certain very dangerous situation. Sometimes the situation is new to me, and I appreciate the opportunity to address a new and challenging problem.

We take the situation, we reenact it in our Krav Maga laboratory, and we come up with a simple solution, one that fits in with the principles upon which IKI Krav Maga is based. We must stick with the IKI principles for if every new situation demands a new solution that would create an impossible situation. No one can memorize so many techniques.

We come up with a solution that is easy for all, that does not demand muscle or speed, one that even smaller people can do. We keep it simple.

And yet, now and then, rather rarely in fact, we see a situation for which there is no immediate solution. I say no immediate solution because hopefully, if they do not kill you at once, an opportunity will emerge soon. But sometimes there is no immediate solution.

I look at the solution offered by the other instructor, we try it out and find that it simply will not work. It only works on video. It will only hasten your death. How instructors can teach such suicidal techniques I do not know. But we will not teach it. Rather than offer such horrible solutions we admit that currently there is no solution.

But how can we? Aren't we Krav Maga masters?

Have you ever heard of diseases for which we currently have no cure? Of course! In fact every day people die all over the world, every minute people die. Doctors try their best, medical researches try there best, surgeons and EMTs and nurses try their best but sometimes there is simply no solution. As the senior rabbi pointed out to the young scholar sometimes there is no solution. Sometimes we just need to accept that.

You are stuck in traffic, there is no way forward or back, what can you do?

Such is the nature of life.

Comments

Moshe:  I just read your blog post.  Excellent!  I wanted to thank you for confirming something I feel is critically important and it is something I often tell our students:  There are and will be some situations which, at the time, are all but impossible to resolve.  However, the odds are that if you can maintain your composure and look for a solution, the aggressive party will very likely do something that will allow you to escape or attack.  Certainly not guaranteed but if you are not dead or horribly injured, there are indeed times that you must, above all, be patient, observant, compliant act instantly once the opportunity occurs.

Hal Herndon, USA

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