Self Defense, Fighting & Pre-emptive Striking

Gershon Ben Keren

Sun 25th Mar 2012

I often have people coming to my school who say that they don’t want to learn how to fight, only how to defend themselves. I understand the sentiment they’re expressing but also recognize the danger in their thinking. Self Defense is a useful term to describe an approach to fighting where the person “defending” themselves isn’t the person initiating the conflict however this doesn’t mean that they’re not the person who makes the first strike – striking pre-emptively is an integral part of self-defense and KravMaga (as the Hebrew bible states \"Imbal\'hargekha, hashkeml\'hargo,\" \"If someone comes to kill you, rise...Click To Read More

Dealing With Angry People - De-escalation

Gershon Ben Keren

Wed 21st Mar 2012

De-escalation In the last post, I talked about several of the dynamics that cause individuals to become angry, with anger being a necessary pre-cursor to physical violence. As I always say, violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum; people are motivated to move towards a particular emotional state e.g. if someone spills a drink all over you, this act motivates you towards anger, if a gang of aggressive individuals corner you in an unfamiliar bar, both the setting and their actions motivate you towards experiencing fear. It is these situational components that often cause us to freeze i.e. we don’t know how...Click To Read More

Self Protection Continued - People\'s Instinct For Anger

Gershon Ben Keren

Sun 18th Mar 2012

When I was studying Psychology at University, our department over the 3 years I was there began to develop/evolve into two main camps: the Behaviorists and the Ethologists - two schools of thought that are divided on the “nature versus nurture” debate. I found myself gradually sliding towards the ethologist’s point(s) of view, especially where anger and violence is concerned i.e. are responses are hardwired instinctual survival mechanisms rather than learnt behaviors. I also came to the conclusion (and I was not alone in this as the research of the past 20-30 years had been pointing in this direction) that...Click To Read More

The Importance of Self Protection

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 12th Mar 2012

Krav Maga Yashir (meaning “Direct Close Combat”), consists of four main components: 1) Self Protection, 2) Self Defense, 3) Combat Fitness & 4) Full Contact Fighting. In the next four (or so…) blog posts I am going to talk about why all four areas need to be trained and more importantly why they need to dovetail together to present a coherent, comprehensive and consistent approach to dealing with violence. With a grading coming up in late April it is very easy to shift all our attention to the study and learning of techniques and lose the bigger picture of what we...Click To Read More

Simultaneous Blocks & Counters

Gershon Ben Keren

Fri 9th Mar 2012

I believe that simple ideas can sometimes be presented in a simplistic fashion and in doing so the real meaning and idea can become lost or misinterpreted. I believe this is often the case with Krav Maga\'s concept of the simultaneous block and counter. This idea of a seemingly simultaneous defense and attack makes a lot of sense i.e. you will never survive a real-life aggressive assault by simply acting defensively; at some point you will need to attack/assault your aggressor - and if this is the case you might as well do it as soon as you can....Click To Read More

Using The Body\'s Natural Defenses

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 5th Mar 2012

There are certain things which all Krav Maga systems/styles have in common, apart from the principles and concepts that define a system as being \"Krav Maga\" in the first place. There are several common techniques which are seen across all Krav Maga systems; one of these is the 360 Defense. The 360 Defense is a means of defending any circular attack (coming overhead, from the sides or upwards) , such as a swinging punch or a circular knife slash - remember you respond and block \"movement\" rather than trying to alter your defense based on the nature of the attack/assault. In...Click To Read More