Everyone has an opinion, and Matt Thornton is entitled to his. There’s been an article (on calfkicker.com) that’s circulating social media where Matt Thornton talks about Krav Maga instructors preparing for high level Krav Maga certifications who came to his school and were constantly being smoked by BJJ Blue Belts with maybe just a couple of years’ experience of BJJ and MMA and then going on to pass their Krav Maga courses/certifications a few weeks later. Do I believe him? Yes, I do (I don’t think he’s a liar or making things up). But I don’t agree with his conclusion i.e., that Krav Maga is simply bad MMA. This is his experience, and it’s limited to him, and the people he’s met and trained with, i.e., it’s far from a scientific or universal analysis. Also, it ignores the fact that those individuals who went to train with him obviously recognized a gap in their training and wanted to fill it. Hats off to them for recognizing where they were weak, were missing something, and wanting to address it. We should be celebrating this. I have students who want to work, and put in time, on areas of their fight/survival game, where they might be lacking in some way etc. and I always welcome that awareness, and the humility to admit that they are far from perfect etc. In saying all of that he also has a valid point that many Krav Maga instructors and practitioners should acknowledge i.e., the structure of combat sports training, can often reflect reality more than “traditional” Krav Maga training.
Krav Maga is a reality-based self-defense system, in that it looks to deal with real-life violent encounters. MMA and BJJ are combat sports. The context in which encounters occur differs – this is important, and training reflects this. However, I would make the argument – which may be unpopular with some Krav Maga practitioners – that if you can’t perform in the more controlled environment of a combat sport setting, you are not more likely to be able to perform in the completely uncontrolled environment of a real-life physical encounter. Whenever I make this argument, I’m usually met with responses and arguments that claim if groin and eye-strikes were allowed in combat sports the Krav Maga practitioner would prevail. Sorry, I don’t believe that it’s the presence of “rules” that allows the BJJ/MMA practitioner to prevail against the Krav Maga practitioner in a controlled, combat sports environment. The Krav Maga practitioner usually fails – and this varies by individual - because they lack the necessary fighting skills, and because their faith is completely invested in a knowledge of self-defense techniques.
What the BJJ and MMA practitioner knows is that a fight isn’t comprised of single, individual moments, it is made up of phases e.g., one person does this, the other reacts/responds, and then they counter, to which the other person counters again, and the cycle continues. Sometimes what you do works, sometimes it fails and is countered/responded to etc. This is not unique to combat sports. It is a reflection of reality. When I look at the vast majority of violent encounters I’ve been involved in, they were solved by incremental gains and progressions, not by one-and-done techniques i.e., there were multiple, and overlapping, phases to the fight.
However, trying to compare and/or judge Krav Maga in relation to MMA is erroneous for a number of reasons. Krav Maga is sometimes referred to as MMA for the street. However, it is not. Whilst Krav Maga practitioners need to have fighting skills, they should be primarily looking to disengage and get away rather than to “submit” or “end” the fight. This is for a number of reasons, but one significant one is the potential legal consequences of being involved in a fight. From a legal perspective, once you are no longer in imminent danger, you lose the right to make a claim of self-defense, and if you continue the fight, you are now the aggressor. When I competed in Judo, my coaches drilled into me, that even if you believed you had won the contest by gaining an ippon (throwing a person so that they landed on their back), you should continue, and follow your opponent to ground, in order to gain a pin or submission i.e., don’t assume that the referee will get the decision right or that you were correct in assuming the win etc. In a real-life confrontation, if after I make a throw and have a clear opportunity to safely disengage from the fight, I don’t take it, I will most likely lose my claim of self-defense, which could be costly in a number of ways. MMA, BJJ, Judo, boxing etc., are great at teaching and developing fighting skills, and techniques that can be utilized in reality-based confrontations, however they also need to be understood in a legal context, if they are going to be used in this way.
There are two other assumptions that I make when dealing with real-life confrontations: an attacker is armed and assisted. These are two assumptions that those practicing combat sports don’t have to make. However, this doesn’t automatically make Krav Maga a superior alternative to MMA and BJJ, though it is often what is highlighted as Krav Maga’s advantage i.e., the approach deals with armed assailants, and multiple attackers in a way that combat sports don’t. If a wrestler, judoka, grappler can drop/throw you to the ground, they may get cut in the process, but you’re probably not getting up again soon – not a bad way to survive an armed assault, or deal with one of the attackers in a group etc., even though those techniques and strategies aren’t designed to do so. So why do I believe in Krav Maga and still teach it? Why didn’t I make the move to MMA or BJJ? And why don’t I agree with the statement that Krav Maga is just bad MMA?
I started training in Krav Maga in 1993, the same year as the first UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). I watched Royce Gracie – a grappler – win the contest. As a Judoka I was excited because I’d always believed, despite numerous arguments to the contrary that grappling skills could nullify striking skills; Gene LeBell (Judoka) had demonstrated this against Milo Savage (Boxer) in 1963 – perhaps the first MMA match ever. However, I’d been working in pub and club security for three years by then, as well as having competed in Judo for about thirteen years, and the differences between real-life violence and combat sports had become profound to me by this point. Whilst there were similarities between competition fighting and real-life violence there were also major differences. One of these was the difference between certainty and uncertainty i.e., when I fought in a competition setting there were boundaries and defined outcomes, things that weren’t present in real-life confrontations (these might seem minor when written on the page but they are major ones when having to face a violent aggressor in real life). The Krav Maga training I experienced acknowledged these differences and addressed them. It is worth noting that I initially learnt Krav Maga in Israel where there was an attitude/expectation that violence was something you were going to face i.e., it was/is inevitable. This attitude alone changes the way in which training is conducted; it’s something much more than a workout, it’s about survival. Whilst I’ve trained BJJ and MMA, I’ve never been at a club where training was conducted in such a way that your very life depended on it; and this is natural, it’s about sport not survival.
I can’t and I’m not going to get into a discussion and debate about how different Krav Maga associations train or what their standards may be, or applicability of various training methods to real-life violence etc. I am more concerned with meeting the needs of my students, and this involves acknowledging the value of training in a number of ways e.g., sparring, rolling, grappling/wrestling, boxing etc. To believe that MMA or BJJ “owns” these methods and is the only art that trains in this way is somewhat disingenuous e.g., Dennis Hanover, in Israel, was perhaps the first/original MMA instructor, combining different martial arts into one system. I don’t doubt or questions Matt Thornton’s experience of Krav Maga, but it lacks a certain curiosity to draw the conclusion that Krav Maga is simply just bad MMA, as tantalizingly a message that may be to those who practice BJJ and MMA. I believe BJJ and MMA are great combat sports, I also believe that some of the ways Krav Maga is taught doesn’t prepare practitioners, not just for uncontrolled contexts but controlled ones as well, but I believe the productive way forward is to collaborate rather than to compete i.e., rather than make out that one system is superior to another, the context within which it is trained should be recognized along with the limitations that such a context brings.