Krav Maga Doesn't Work 

CLARIFICATION: Krav Maga is perfectly adequate as a way to instill an aggressive mentality in soldiers, which is its real purpose. It fails when used as a system of fighting, which is what many people attempt to use it for.

That bit about "you're going to get whatever your instructor's background is" is extremely important - one of my earliest friend's father was a private self defense instructor, with a background in Karate and kickboxing, and essentially just taught a loose-form, high-aggression mixture of those arts sold as "Krav Maga" because the name gets people in the door.

Krav Maga instructor here. You are pretty much spot on. Much of what is called Krav in the U.S. is often junk. I have an MMA and BJJ base and the Krav organization I am affiliated with is the same and we practice regular sparring. We follow the principles you mentioned, and if it doesn't work, we ditch it as it's too complicated. Good video.

I took Krav Maga for 2 years, you're absolutely right. After 2 months of Muay Thai, I was already more competent at fighting then after 2 years of Krav 😂

I've practiced Krav Maga for 9 years, and it actually helped to defend myself from a knife attack. But, my instructor had a different approach, he taught us how to utilize our arms, how to evade and how to strike effectively. Once he had the basics layouted for us, he would give our pair knifes, clubs and other stuff and just "toss" us into the dojo while saying things like "Theory will get you so far... Now practice and die a few times here so you don't have to die out there" - The fights were quite real, our attackers would grab our shirts, try to tackle us down, slice several times at once etc... Said and done, the knifes would mark us with red paint and the objective was to get rid of the attacker without dying. This was it, plus the sparring which was focused on learning how to parry, dodge and counter-attack.

I always say "Krav Maga is more of an attitude than it is a style." There's nothing wrong with their ten principles, generally speaking. The rest is instructor dependent. If the instructor is good, then you will get a decent mix of close range striking, clinch fighting, vitals targeting, takedown defense, simple weapons, disarms, and non-sport scenarios (location, surprise, size difference, etc). If the instructor is bad, then you get a lot of yelling and cosplay.

If fighting is not allowed in a martial art,then that's not a martial art,it's just cardio/fitness😂

You have to spar. No private lesson BS and just working drills with a compliant person. You have to spar.

Did it on and off for a couple of years. Some of it has great application, while others, such as the "plucking" choke defenses, have no place in real life. My instructor knew this and also taught kickboxing for an hour before the actual Krav class. This turned out to be a genius move. It gave us real insight on how to apply MMA principles to a self-defense situation. I kind of wish more schools did that.

My personal opinion is that Krav Maga is one of those martial arts that in order for it to work for an individual, you need to have at the bare minimum intermediate to advanced abilities in legit striking and grappling styles and to be pretty athletic on top of that in order to make Krav Maga work, and by the time you've gained the tool set and attributes to make Krav Maga work, the tools you've already acquired are more likely than not more reliable and effective than the tools you're now physically capable of pulling off through Krav Maga. It is certainly not a style a beginner in any style should take or someone should for civilian self defense. If you want to be good at defending yourself simply learn how to fight

This backs up my experience. 21 year veteran of the US Army and life-long martial artist. I've trained at some well-known and highly regarded MMA gyms, and decided to try a local KM school. After a few months of classes, I came to the conclusion that all I was getting from it was sub-par MMA instruction.

What I've noticed about the rare occassions that I've seen good Krav Maga experts in action, it starts looking incredibly similar to Muy Thai, JJ, and wrestling, just with extra face or groin stomps at the end of every altercation.

If you're a soldier, in combat there's a high probability that you're wearing a helmet. Headbutting might be a more viable option. Also, if you didn't have your guns but you still had a loaded magazine, maybe you could wrap your fist around it and punch the enemy with it. These are the sort of things that come to my mind when I think of soldiers improvising weapons in a fist fight. Not something I could use.

My buddy is a bjj brown belt, reasonable good judo player and boxed to a decent standard had about 15 fights. There is a Krav studio in the gym we go to lift weights. There was a bit of banter between them and the krav instructor said any time !!! So my mate went in a few days later about 10 minutes into his class. He said come on then. Long story short the krav instructor ran at him with a flying knee and unloaded a few punches to his ear. Nothing really landed. My mate sweeped him too the floor, put him in a kimura, broke his arm and punched his face in. My Krav Maga story.

As you said in another video, "A good martial art uses high percentage techniques". In war this means weapons and projectiles. Ming dynasty unarmed combat was 3 months. General Qijiguan said that unarmed combat was nearly worthless in war, but it kept his soldiers in shape and raised morale to have unarmed bouts. This was before "kung fu" as we know it was created with forms etc. Personally I think marine pugil sticks are overlooked. They are arguably better at teaching the vectors, angles, and circles of combat, range aggression etc.

I trained Krav Maga for about a year and while this video doesn’t reflect my experience exactly, my instructor would have been the first to tell you that Krav Maga has a quality control problem. He had the whole class in a FB group chat and would regularly post videos from Krav Maga McDojos and have us critique their zero resistance, aikido-esque nonsense and propose more viable, realistic defenses to whatever “attack” was coming their way. There was also very real expectations set about what Krav Maga was and was not. We weren’t learning to become John Wick, we were training to have the broadest possible array of situational defenses to defend ourselves against the least common denominator. The argument was for developing breadth of knowledge vs depth of knowledge. I ultimately left because that’s not how I like to learn, but I can see the value in a **well-curated** Krav Maga practice as long as everyone involved is being honest with themselves about what skills such a program does and does not grant.

Interesting take. I found some of the arguments a little short sighted, stereotypical, and cherry picked from the typical "krav" videos on RU-vid -- but either way, as someone who has been doing Krav for years and very much aware of the good and the bad, I get it. There are flaws (as there are with any system though). Krav has sort of made itself easy to pick on in some regards. While there are flaws, it's hard for me to make a blanket statement and say that the whole system doesn't work. That's a pretty strong accusation. Perhaps I've just been lucky in my experience? Who knows. In my experience (training or teaching), we have always sparred, pressure tested, sought to improve curriculum, discussed legality in self-defense, cross trained, etc. I dont mind "admitting" to cross training either because I don't think that proves that it doesnt work. Don't all styles have to cross train to a certain degree? BJJ needs striking. Striking needs grappling. Almost all of them lack weapons training and environmental based scenarios (car, home, outside, etc) which Krav can provide. Perhaps it's more of the principles and "idea" of Krav that I think are still very applicable. Krav isnt just Krav. It's SUPPOSED to be whatever works best -- and if that's supplementing or changing the curriculum to involve more mma, grappling, different knife techniques, etc. then cool! I'm all for advancement and improvement. But hey, that can be a high bar to reach for some and without a doubt there is, unfortunately, a lot of terrible Krav out there. Hurts my little Krav heart, but it is what it is. Anyway, just my thoughts. I don't really get offended. I'm just a dude that likes to train and learn. 6 years of Krav. 3 years of Muay Thai, Dutch Kickboxing, and Jits. I love them all! Either way, I appreciate the time, effort, and balls it takes to put a video out like this haha. 🙏

I have clearly been doing a very different Krav Maga than what you have been seeing. The reason there's no competitions is because it isn't a sport, its fighting--and very dirty fighting at that. I'm also not sure where you got the conception that it's just a set of principles and not techniques. Anyway, I'm very interested as to where the disparity is! If I had to guess, it's that you are coming from a combat sports perspective, and myself and my instructors are coming at it from a self-defense perspective. And yes, we do spar, and yes, it has very much been adapted for civilians, and they very much have tested to moves. I mean, it was originally (before Israel was a country) developed to fight Nazi sympathizer gangs in the streets to keep them out of your nice, Jewish neighborhood. We are also absolutely taught the legal ramifications of our actions and appropriate use of force, which I know is where some schools go wrong, so I dunno, I must be in a good area! I know my instructor has real world experience: he was a bodyguard and a bouncer, as well as having been in some notable fights throughout his life (as one might imagine of that career). He definitely has some things to say about certain schools, but overall seems to have good faith in Krav Maga techniques and principles. I'm very curious as to where you found your video examples. It looks almost nothing like that Krav I've seen here on the East Coast! Anyway, would love some good literature and links if you'll spare the time. I'm always interested to learn more!

Hey! Former Krav Maga practitioner here with over 12 years of training. First, this is a great video and actually pretty spot on considering you have never trained it yourself. I can confirm that most of what you said was true. Only thing I'd like to correct is that traditional schools do have a curriculum and won't accept anything outside said curriculum as krav maga. With that said, After that humongous time training, I have seen SOME stuff that actually works in reality (specially the stick defense principles, those are actually pretty simple and useful). I have been training MMA for some time now and since then, I have been able to filter a most of km's bullcrap. I teach self defense without following KM's curriculum, only teaching what I have been able to test and prove that works, which also includes a short number of krav techniques.

To be fair, suggesting that a tournament is a good way of testing something's effectiveness is a bit limited because if both people are using the same style of fighting, it is immediately representing an unrealistic scenario.

So it’s basically a less clearly obviously LARP version of ninjutsu. Instead of larping as a ninja who didn’t even fight that way, you’re larping as a soldier who doesn’t even fight that way.

Pirates of the Caribbean 7: Dead soldiers don't file reports

"If you pre-emptively stab the guy in the eye with a pen, YOU'RE THE BADGUY" hahahahaha! Love it. "You go STRAIGHT to JAIL". Yup. Lol.

I've trained with two krav guys. First guy was a cop and had a back ground in a variant in Japanese jujutsu which he used regularly against criminals. The other guy was from Israel and he trained their police. There were times he'd show us how they used to do it and then tell us how someone died doing that so they changed. For awhile, I used what they showed to great effect (their weapons stuff was a million times better than the system I was doing taught and they still weren't all that great). Now I tend to use stuff that's from wrestling and bjj mixed with karate, which was where I learned striking.

I had a sparing session with a bar owner that was a black belt in krav maga. I have trained mma for 3 years he still beat me

I've trained krav maga for 30 days So far i've killed 341 attackers

I think that role of testing as means to prove techniques is secondary to the fact that it's impossible to even reliably learn techniques without testing them personally, due to way human acquire that kind of skills (see sport theory about motor learning stages for open type skills or something around those lines).

But wearing camo pants means my enemy won't see my groin kicks coming!

One thing that so called reality based systems have in common is they absolutely refuse to test any of their techniques in real time against a resisting person. I’m not even talking about someone fighting back, I’m talking about any kind of resistance. My advice is to never trust an instructor who wears camo haha

I have often seen Krav-Maga-Videos where someone has been stabbed in the back with a pistol, even a submachine gun, and within a second the guy that was threatened had deflected that attack with a graceful twist and sweep with his hand or arm, disarming the attacker. That always struck me as extremely unbelievable. And dangerous, too, for after all in reality the attacker only has to bend his finger on the trigger.

I hope you’re ready for all the wannabe commandos you just made angry

This sounds like my friends and me shitting about whatever in high school just for the sake of shitting on something.

Great video. You nailed it in every corner it's unbelievable. Every krav school you can actually tell what martial art background the teacher had lmao.

Before taking krav, I took kickboxing and bjj. I prefer krav, and yes we do sparring. Why? Because it gives me quite a few more fun tools in my tool box. Simple. It's essentially dirty MMA. And you're right, it depends on the school.

Former Israeli infantry man here. You are absolutely right. Krav maga is not a martial art but a set of ideas. It's goal originally is to teach people who never fought in their life what to do in case they get into melee (which is already a fail), in two weeks. Even the most elite army units in Israel train 99.9% of their time in physical conditioning (mostly running with weight, crawling etc), marksmanship and group tactics. There is simply not enough time for any proper melee training, let alone a real sports training like boxing, wrestling of bjj. That is why they teach Krav Maga just in case they get into melee, which they should avoid at all cost. Also, 70% of military Krav Maga is focused of melee strikes with your rifle. TBH I do not understand people who go to Krav Maga classes in their civilian life. Krav Maga came out of necessity and time limitation. With time of your hands you better go do a real sport like boxing or wrestling, which will also be more effective as self defence practice.

A train boxer will knock out any Krav Maga pro anyday.

Alright this video was hilarious. I was rolling when you started talking about preemptively stabbing someone in the eye until they stop moving!

The legitimacy of 'well the military uses it so obviously it works' disappears when you see videos of the Soviets practicing karate drills

Thank you for this video (and all your other videos that I binge watched recently). It made me take a step back and reevaluate my Krav Maga class. The things I noticed: -A person training there for 5 years still getting basic training cues as to how to throw an elbow (red flag for me) or not be able to explain the different use cases to me of two simple block techniques (which he should know if he wants to utilize either of them) -Other people who have been going to the class for at least a year now are at least the same amount lost in basic techniques as I am who just started. -Hard2Hurt had a video about this: Coach making people do meaningless (running around) warm ups instead of sport specific or drill based warmup. (huge waste of time) -As someone who brushed up pretty extensively on general strength training methodology it always bothered me that the coach does a 35-40min tabata at the beginning of the class (and the moves were not even related to fighting, just basic fitness elements) saying that in real life scenario, you would be tired and it simulates real life how you would do techniques under stress. And after this was the part where he taught new techniques. Which in my opinion is a badly structured "workout". You always place the skill work after the warmup but before the strength component to have your athlete be fresh to learn new stuff. I guess this is also one of the reason other pupils were suffering the lack of skills. -The last drop was when I went to his fight training hoping to stress test at least those simple techniques that I learned and instead there was no actual sparring, just a back and forth striking where the training partner played the punching/kicking bag. This resulted in me having two large hematomas on my inside thighs due to repeated low kicks because this is supposed to be "conditioning". All this (even though I know were wrong) I managed to overlook in the beginning because I was so excited to resume training after 10 years of absence. Then your video popped up in my feed and helped me reevaluate my training by asking questions to my self. Needless to say I am not planning on going back to a place that neglects, basic training principles, structuring material and fails a proper (and safe) stress testing of the techniques they teach. I am probably going to take a few weeks to heal and like you said look for a proper combat sports (BJJ or Muay Thai) class near me. Thanks again for causing a ripple in my calm waters! :)

Many years ago a Krav instructor from Israel came to my academy. He told me he was an IDF trainer. I asked him why he chose to come to my school, which was a JKD and Filipino martial arts school, instead of a Krav school. He said he couldn't find one legitimate Krav school here. He said there was no quality control in the Krav here so he wanted to try another similar style. So he signed up with me for a few years.

I've gone back and forth with this myself. Is it good? Is it shit? At best, like you said, it's going to teach you a poor mans MMA. Poor mans MMA with situational awareness and some weapon stuff that could also be shit. Honestly, at its best, I'd say it's passable for defending yourself in a street encounter. Mainly because, as much as a lot of these systems like to push the boogeyman that is the "Street Fighter", the reality is, most people you're going to encounter on "Da ST33T!!!!" couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. So knowing at least something and maybe having enough confidence to try and pull it off, you've got a decent shot of coming out on top. Which to be honest, can be said about really any martial arts worth its salt. If you come up against someone else that's had significant training in a full contact combat art? I'd say your chances are pretty fucked. No amount of "Dirty street moves" are going to overcome good solid fighting fundamentals and you'd probably be asleep or on your arse before you got the chance to try out your dirty nut grab technique. Though the biggest problem is in what you've said. The above is speaking through the idea of finding a good Krav gym. The quality control with Krav is completely non-existent and your more likely to walk into a terrible one than a good one. Hell I've seen a lot of systems that teach it exclusively online. Or where you can go through your entire belt curriculum online. Often by someone in tactical gear or camo pants. That's either severely overweight or is stick thin. Which also share commonality with Aikido and other arts just like it. The reason being is that anyone can open a Krav gym. I could open one tomorrow and start teaching my style of Krav Maga and milk idiots for money. You, yes you reading this could probably do that too. Lack of quality control leads to that. Though yeah, the biggest blunder you point out is the almost complete emission of competition. If you're not competing, how do you know if your shit works? How have you tested your shit? You have no fighting experience. Fighting experience is important. There's stress and adrenaline there that no amount of co-operative training is going to help you deal with. Sure, you have to omit some moves. Big whoop. You're forced to get better at your foundation, so as to beat the other person who also could have a solid foundation. The other person that has a steak in beating you up, whether it be for pride or purse or both. The response you get from this is "I get my fight experience from DA ST333T!!!" Okay.... How? Maybe if you're a bouncer or law enforcement where in your trade requires you to be in constant confrontation (Though even move police officers that have come to train at the place I train tend to suck, though they have weapons and strength in numbers to sort that out) I could understand that. If you're Joe Blogs, and you're getting into enough fights in the street to be able to master an art of fighting... Then either you're talking bullshit or you're the problem. Anyway. Closing out, I see this is a relatively new channel that's going to be jumping into some controversial subjects. You've got a subscriber out of me, good luck with your channel.

As icy Mike said, name one thing you can get good at without doing? Without live sparring a martial art can't be practical. And even then it takes so damn long to get good at. Last night we drilled scissor sweeps for 25 minutes and I still couldn't land one while rolling after.

Can Krav Maga work in movie for fight choreography?

I've done (doing) some KM and while I admit that I certainly don't have a lot of experience I thought I just share a bit. We tend to do 75% + sparing with partners during every session. It is always very much hands on and I usually have a number of bruises after each class, certainly not from punching air. Who knows maybe it is one of the better classes you've mentioned. I find that it really puts you in the mindset of awareness and a defensive mode and I am exhausted after the classes (in a good way). Believe me I am definitely a very peaceful person but have had the experience of being attacked in the past. Not pleasant. In the classes we have never ever been told to attack first as you've mentioned. It is always to react fast but not to engage in any way if unprovoked (where you know a hit is just about to land in your face). We even practice this for example with punches coming your way or being shoved and then "punched" at. I am sure though that some idiots will use it for unprovoked aggression but that's on them then. Also "eye stabbing" hasn't been part of that at all either. At least to what I know. Thanks for the video. Certainly interesting to hear other opinions. I am not claiming that I know everything.

Any school with camo pants is extremely suspect.

Hand to hand combat frankly makes so little sense it's not even really taught kn my countries. was in a European military for almost 4 years, was deployed and everything. I was NEVER taught hand to hand combat. And why would you need to? You need to practice regularly for several months to actually become effective and sparring at the very minimum is essential to keep everyone honest about their abilities

“Undercook fish: jail. Overcook chicken: jail”

They should link this video in Wikipedia for krav maga.

It works as well as any other self protection system. Doing a sport such as boxing/mma without some street smarts/self protection training= failure Doing Krav without some sparring/developing actual usable skills= failure. Both have their place.

Damn you’re improving with your humour ... as for Krav Maga.. that’s pretty spot on. I actually used to like it as a pre-teen, but I remember someone else debunking it back then..

I'm a lady looking for exercise and learning some self defense and I'm getting a little intimidated by how many martial arts styles there are. What should I try?

So glad Icy Mike led me to your channel.

I believe you definitely had valid points with specific gyms teaching “Krav Maga”. I would definitely look into Nick Hughes as he is the chief instructor of my Krav gym and as you read about him can definitely tell you what’s effective and what’s not

You just woke up my neighbors ;-) (My tendency to laugh too loud played a role too...)

The best explanation I've heard until now

As a ATA student 19 years ago it was required for us in the instructor program to learn it I didn’t really care for it that much to me it was more hype then what you needed to know for everyday protection as a taekwondo instructor I teach more combat skills than how high you can kick

Although you make some good points, I would disagree with Aikido aspect to some extent. The current look of Krav is vastly different to what Aikido is like. Principles are also different. Just because the roots might be based in a particular art doesn't mean it now resembles the same thing. Also anything can be ineffective if it is used out of context. Still, you've put the video together well and you get the point across!

During my basic training I've had a few hours of krav maga training . Later, during my service, we had never a krav maga training again. Later on we were basicly teached to shoot an attacker. I am not aware of a soldier in my or other units that used krav maga to overcome an attacker. They always used their guns. Many years later I've participated in a few civilian krav maga trainings. They used different (watered down) techniques to be used. The scenarious were not adapted to real encounters. The techniques teached were often useless and/ or dangerous. TBH if your opponent has a knive or a gun just run or give him your money.

Martial art: *exists* Jake from Armchair Violence: It doesn't work! I'm just kidding here 🤗

what is the best "real world" self defense fighting system/martial art for just an ordinary everyday person that just wants to be able to defend and fight back

Even considering that military training has to accommodate for knives, so much of their training is lacking, and a lot of times when a soldier is really good at fighting, it's because they took time out of their own schedule outside of their military training to learn it. Not bashing it in any way, but like you said, if a soldier has to fight melee for a while, they screwed up. The bigger priority for them is to have training with guns and knives, and general tactical knowledge. There's a limited amount of time they have to work on H2H combat. Same goes for cops. TLDR: Just because cops and soldiers use it, doesn't mean it's effective

I personally like to train with soccer moms. They don't care about what color belt to wear, they smell better and they are not afraid to lose a fight. Once I got a nasty scratch on an arm from those big nails though. Much better to fight with then the Karens who are out there in our parking lots.

How do you think if I take part in a competition with a gun .KM is not fit for competition as it focus on survival

Maybe the real krav maga was the friends we made along the way

About to test for black belt in Krav and I don’t think he’s wrong. There are many things the upper ranks at my school believe do not work, based on the lack of actual resistance during training. I still like the system, but as an introduction to self-defense, not the whole package. I frequently tell students that have been in the class for a while to take BJJ courses or another striking course in order to actually be effective in using the techniques taught in our Krav classes

I beg to differ. Krav works however the issue is there is too many Krav schools out here that have watered down programs. It's a matter of finding the right school with instructors that have trained in authentic Krav. Of course that is few and far between.

Could you take a look at "Urban Combativs Netherlands" and let me know what you think?

What martial art should I go into instead?

For what it's worth, Krav Maga is far more of a "complete" system than many other individual systems out there, including boxing and my beloved BJJ. Krav Maga is essentially the Crossfit of the martial arts world, kinda trains you for a bit of everything therefore it won't fully prepare you for much of anything. Something you could do is start with a base system be it Krav, Muay Thai, or something else, and "fill and flow" with other methods as you find the holes in your base system. Following my military service I knew what I learned was just enough to keep me from getting blasted..by untrained assailants...as long as the fight only lasted a couple of minutes. So within a few months I started learning Krav to fill in the gaps, saw the holes in that, so I also took on boxing, Muay Thai, and pankration, still saw the holes in all of that knowledge, and so the training journey continued. Point is, there is no perfect "system". The principles make sense, so take those, and whatever your personal self defense objectives are, and make sure whatever style of styles you take on check each of those boxes, but remain aware that you'll likely have to pull from other systems in order to be well rounded.

I’ve been teaching Krav for a few years now and something I try to instill in all my students is that it’s not special and it’s not gonna turn you into a living weapon since that’s apparently the idea that a lot of civilians have about it. My students often ask why I’m bothering to teach them boxing, Muay Thai, mma, or wrestling techniques and the answer is always because those are fighting styles which are constantly being proven to be effective and are always under evolution and development. This has lead to more of said students starting to take classes in other martial arts and I’m glad that in this way Krav Maga can be kind of a gateway martial art for people who might be a little intimidated by standard combat sports. I practiced Krav my whole life growing up but it wasn’t until I actually got into kickboxing and Muay Thai (more than ten years into my martial arts journey) that I learned how to properly fight. I was getting my ass kicked by people who were much less experienced in martial arts and it was because all I knew how to do was walk forward and throw basic combos. No real footwork, no lateral movement, no knowledge of strategy or of how to read what the opponent was doing. It took a lot of time and effort working with some really kind and understanding pros before I actually got any good at fighting and I’m so thankful that I went outside of the Krav-sphere as it’s given me a much greater perspective of martial arts and how fighting works. Don’t try to catch knives y’all

Gotta thank YT suggesting me this channel Great content, practical and real life orientated concepts, theories and suggestions presented with a good mix of seriousness and jokes

So if my Krav instructor long ago had a Karate background. I learned watered down Karate with stick disarms and no katas or belts to take home and make my momma proud 🥺

BUT I’D RATHER BE JUDGED BY 12 THAN CARRIED BY 6 😤😡💪🏻

Hey. I’m an audio engineer. If you need someone to clean up your audio, let me know. I love your content. Rare to see someone start out so good.

Krav magoons scromiting at this one because their Rex Kwon Do got dunked on.

Hey, have you watched the Krav Maga competitions?

Sadly good Krav places are the exception

there are many forms of krav maga including civilian based krav maga. it was originally developed to protect people from the soldiers who carried weaponry such as guns n knives. much of its basis actually useful for real situations because in todays world (dont know where you live) many people are strapped and if you live in poverty you are pretty much defending yourself against scared people with guns much like military soldiers. The idea is that with bare hands you are still equipped with the spirit/grit and therefore ability to defend yourself. i do agree that many teachings of the art via social media aren’t situational based as much as they are just trying to make content snd money but the idea and structure of the true combat and mentality is not useless

So what is the best way to defend myself if I say decide to ride my motorcycle around the world?

I haven't seen it in the search results, but maybe one you can cover is Systema (if it isn't covered in another video). Also, any stance on supposed prison systems like 52 Blocks?

Can confirm I did 3 years of Krav Maga and 3 years of BJJ(blue belt) when your doing “good” Krav Maga it’s just shitty mma we did spare in Krav about twice a week and the sparring winds up being shitty kickboxing with takedowns.

The krav I've been doing puts us through a ringer, after doing twae Kwon do, aikido, and western boxing I've learned that krav has alot more real world application. In the real world it's almost never 1 on 1, point based, or wearing protection. Kravs taught me how to strike the vitals, protect the knuckles, and not end up in a situation where I'm on the ground tryna wrestle someone while their friends just watch.... But I guess my instructor is just legit and was in the Israeli military at the right time 🤷🏻‍♂️

So much of this rings true after listening to an audio book called “worth defending” by Richard Bressler. He was essentially blacklisted as an instructor at GJJ in the 80s. He found refuge in KM and taught GJJ in the KM system for years and years. They just let him show up and teach whatever he wanted

This was exactly what i was looking to hear, thank you bro

If your Krav gym trains in camo anything, it’s probably a bad Krav gym. If your Krav gym doesn’t spar, it’s for sure a bad Krav gym. If your Krav gym looks a lot like an mma gym and encourages you to branch out and get additional training in the “big four” martial arts, congratulations! You’ve found a good Krav gym.

Seems that you didn't actually test it yourself and do much background work on this. I know that because of the claim that there isn't a regular curriculum in Krav Maga. There are a couple of different professional Krav Maga organizations and they both have standardized curriculum that come from the original one developed by Imi. When I've looked up other Krav Maga schools and watched their RU-vid content I see the same core techniques being taught across the board. There are some bad schools out there and unfortunately they have the loudest voices so people get the wrong impression, but if you ever go to a school that's licensed under one of the professional organizations you'll find it's far different than the thing you're describing here. Honestly what you are describing doesn't bear any resemblance to the Krav Maga I know. You also said that sparring is often discouraged in Krav Maga schools. That's also not true in my experience, not at all. Almost every Level 1 class I ever went to ended in a stress test scenario, often based on real life like making you sit on a couch like you were just in your living room at home and then a home invasion happens and someone is attacking you while you have to somehow get up and fight your way free. At Level 2 they start throwing in free sparring in addition to ending each class with a stress test. As far as the comment that "any soldier who gets into extended mele on the battlefield has made a lot of mistakes", go read the Medal of Honor citation for David Bellavia and then tell me if you're going to go lecture him on how he shouldn't have beaten someone to death with his body armor. Now to the claim that Krav Maga is too heavily influenced by Aikido. That is again not true. Level 1 and 2 are almost all striking. Imi disliked anything that involved highly technical moves and the people he handed it off to, while they had experience in other styles, still kept the core the same and you don't get into anything even remotely related to Aikido until level 2 (one technique) or higher. Near the end you say that Krav Maga instructors deliberately lean into their strikes to try to look cool. That's also not true. Every instructor I've had emphasized NOT leaning into strikes but rather using good rotation to get power in your strikes. Just one last point, you used some clips from hard2hurt, but NOT the clip where a Krav instructor left him doubled over in pain... Props to him for being fair and unbiased. Try it some time. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-K560CmIIiE4.html

Ive experienced krav maga gym, where the coach was learning his students some krav maga techniques, and at the end of the class, he would make his students spar for 20mins without break. He was saying "even if youre at your bottom, keep your hands up and resist him". He has solid boxing and kickboxing background, so his class were something klike Krav Maga Kickboxing. I think this really is the best thing for street.

SOoooooooooo what martial art do you actually recommend?

I wasted two years learning krav maga, it taught me a lot of bad habits that I am now having to unlearn.

My Krav Maga dojo is suuuuuper fighting heavy. Every class there's proper sparring, 3 rounds, sometimes as many as 10-12. There are times when I wonder about validity of techniques, but I get to talk about it with my instructor who never shies away from questions or criticism. He himself threw away every single bullshido technique that found its way into KM curriculum, so I'm pretty happy about the training. It thought me agression, good standup, some groundgame and why knife is a serious fucking problem. We're also encouraged to go and train other systems. I like standup the most, so I frequently go sparring to Muay Thai and K1 gyms to test my stuff. Im pretty happy about the results.

Depends on the practioner

Learn to keep your hands up and your chin down, develop a solid jab/straight combo, learn a really solid low kick that you can target the groin/knee with, develop a good sprawl/takedown defense, learn how to hip escape and get up with someone on top of you. That is more than enough.

I noted the subtle reference to BJJ as the "ultimate functional martial art". While nobody can deny it can be quite effective, it's certainly not an "ultimate" anything, unless it's the ultimate "promotional success story", as it seems to have hypnotized half the planet into thinking it eclipses all other martial arts and self-defense systems. This is patently untrue. 1) It focuses almost exclusively on ground fighting, which is unrealistic. / 2) It's first and foremost a sport, with necessary and typical safety restrictions. / 3) Rather than avoiding being taken down in the first place, the emphasis is on floor work, attempting complicated grappling moves, rather than quick and simple strikes, due to its sports nature. / 4) It fails to recognize that no real attack is going to take place on a soft mat in a gym: the ground is hard, often wet or even icy, uneven, strewn with rocks, glass, et cetera. / 5) It seems to have bamboozled the world into thinking that all fights will end up on the ground, which is untrue, especially if the person attacked does his/her best to avoid it. 6) Ground grappling is almost totally ineffective against armed and/or multiple attackers. So the bottom line is that while very effective as far as it goes (Like all martial arts and self-defense systems), BJJ is certainly not the "magic bullet" of martial arts people have been hypnotized into believing it is. As we've all been truthfully told many, many times, the best system is a comprehensive combination of practical techniques, and good, effective training. That's my take on all this, anyway. You're certainly welcome to disagree and thank you for letting me spiel. Have a great day, everybody.

Hi great video and some good points. But all fighting style do not work in the "real world". As a martial artist you are taught respect, so in a competition you respect your opponent. In BJJ if you get your opponent to the ground, put them in an arm bar, if they refuse to tap out, as a sane, moral, respectful person, you don't keep going until you dislocate their arm or break it, you stop you let them up. We only do what we practice, can we take it up to 100? I don't know if I could. If we do are we not as bad as the person that is attacking us?. And so what if it doesn't work, ' in the real world' let's be honest, outside of the dojo how many times have you had to use your skills. As many other have said, as long as you enjoy what you are doing, then keep doing it.

Thank you for being so informative appreciate your work

Great Video! The problem is that there is a big hype around Krav Maga so people just brand their stuff as Krav Maga to get people to train at their clubs which makes it hard for many people to find a good place to train. I have a combat sambo background and train at a Krav Maga club where a lot of mma is trained and we do pressure testing every day. But it’s generally a problem with many of these martial arts that they don’t have any quality tests or curriculum

What do you think about kajukenbo?

The reason why people still practice useless Martial Art such as Aikido is to learn the culture/ tradition/art, but there is no reason to learn Krav Maga if it is inefficient since Krav Maga is meant for street fight. This means that Krav Maga is supposed to be effective. The problem lies with quality control. *Many* bad schools don't incorporate live sparring with a fully resisting partners.

Good video, entertaining, understandable points, good audio and video quality. But your thumbnail needs more enhancement (just never use that font). You can take hard2hurt's thumbnails as example. Btw, congrats for the 1k!

I like to categorize in three groups: combat sports (box, judo, bjj, kickbox, muay thai etc), self defense (krav maga etc.) and martial arts (aikido, taichi, kung fu). The first has a set of specific rules that allows you to host competitions and "combat test" the techniques. But because of this, the rules are drilled into your muscle memory, like not to strike vital points, joints, strike under the belt, or not to use your surroundings (you know the saying "if you are a hammer, then everything is a nail to you", which means if you are a boxer, you will strike, or bjj will default to grappling). Self defense schools (if they are good) will give you drills and condition you to fight using your surroundings, objects, other people. They will give you simple moves, strikes that you can use in stress situation where you don't have time to "warm up" or you don't know if an attack is coming (and will emphasize getting away from the situation as opposed to fighting the opponent). Never the less, I also think that in order for krav maga to work, you need a strong foundation of kick/strike/grapple, and self defence priciples are just the seasoning on the top. The third category I could describe as "traditional moves" + "way of life" thinking. Martial arts can immerse you and can give you like an inner peace, while you pay your tribute to history and ancestors. I would say its closer to the people who wear armor at renaissance fairs and bash each other with swords and maces. Its super fun, but it may not be applicable to real life self defenses :)