Krav Maga Way of Thinking
By Moshe Katz, Krav Maga Instructor, Israel

March 9, 2014

In many areas of life, sports, business, relationships, we seek ways to gain control over our environment. The more control we have the more we feel protected against unpleasant possibilities. Chance favors the prepared.

This is inherently a good thing, an attribute of self-preservation, a way of ensuring our survival, insurance against the unpredictability of life.

There are those who do not plan ahead, do not put away "money for a rainy day", and when that day comes they throw themselves on others, they beg for help. Sometimes we find them begging in the street.

The fact of life is that ultimately we cannot control everything, our control is inherently limited. However we must control what we can, and learn to let go of that which we cannot control.

An entire industry can collapse, there is nothing you can do about it. If you are an employee of the car industry and no one is buying cars, you are out of a job. You as an individual employee have no control over that but there are areas where you do have control.

You should have built up a savings plan. You should have developed skills that will allow you to work someplace else. Certain types of people will always land on their feet.

My nephew was married just this week. I had a long conversation with his father-in-law who, naturally, was quite impressed with my nephew, but not for the reasons I thought. He told me that Arie had targeted one specific company he wanted to work for. He planed for this and prepared for this.

Many people in his graduating class are still looking for jobs. Not only did Arie land a job upon graduating but he is now working in the exact job that he wanted, with the company he chose. His father in law is pleased and is confident that his daughter will always be taken care of. (not so sure about that crazy Krav Maga uncle though....)

Wisdom lies in knowing what we can control, what we cannot control and what we should never even attempt to control. Certainly a great deal of world events are beyond our control. What we can do is gain a certain degree of control over those matters within our capabilities, look out for ourselves, protect our future.

Sometimes these efforts are misdirected. Trying to control other people will never work. Trying to guess outcomes of future events will usually prove futile.

Krav Maga is about gaining that "certain degree of control". We cannot stop people's tendency towards violence. We cannot "teach men that rape is bad". We cannot "clean up the streets". Those are great goals which society must tackle but we as individuals cannot look to that for our personal protection. We must gain some control over our owns lives, independent of what others may or may not do.

Krav Maga is about saying, "I will do something, I will take responsibility for myself", "I will be proactive rather than wait for society to take care of me".  Social action is great but individual action is essential.

Those who form the habit of taking charge of their own lives will always be in an advantageous position.  They will always end up at the front of line while others are in the back complaining that life has been unfair to them.

Krav Maga is about self-defense, in all areas. It is about dealing with the attack as it is, with life as it is, rather than blaming others.

We train based on real life experiences of people from all over the world. Our techniques are derived from real attacks against people in Israel, the USA, Mexico, South Africa, Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Puerto Rico and many other countries. We deal with the world as it is. And we work to make the world better, one person at a time.

When you gain control over one small aspect of your life, when you realize that you do not have to be a victim, you become empowered to tackle other areas of your life.

You will never gain complete control over everything, even with Krav Maga nothing is ever 100%, but the control we do gain empowers and enhances our lives. It puts us in the driver seat rather than in the passenger seat. It teaches us we have options.

Krav Maga is that turning point in your life when suddenly you stop feeling sorry for yourself, when you start doing rather than waiting, when you start taking action rather than reacting.

Yuriko, together with three other instructors, came all the way from Chile to Israel to learn IKI Krav Maga. They are making changes in their lives.

I recall two sisters. One always seemed to be the "victim" of something. She always had a crises, with the phone company, with the bank, with some delivery that went wrong. She was always yelling about "some idiot" who messed up her day. Her sister was always there to listen and help out.

But her sister stopped feeling sorry for her. She would listen but the sympathy was gone.

What changed? The successful sister told me that her sisters' troubles were really her own doing. She forgot to pay her phone bill on time, so all sorts of charges added up and it became a mess.There were fines and late fees.

She forgot to instruct the bank to make a payment on her behalf, so her electricity got cut off.

She forgot to remind someone about a delivery and so no one was home at the right time. But yet she was always angry about how the "system was messing her up".

Krav Maga is about saying, I am taking charge of my life, one small aspect that I can have a degree of control. I have seen that many people after beginning training in Krav Maga find that other positive things begin to happen to them. A chain reaction of positive events take place, a streak of good luck.

It is not luck, you are the good luck. Be the change in your life. Time to get in the drivers seat of your life.

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