Krav Maga

Krav Maga is the self defense fighting style developed by the Isreali Special Forces. It basically teaches you how to defend yourself if an attacker were to engage you in combat with or without a weapon. Now I will be honest with you, I don’t plan on getting in any fist fights or hand to hand combat in the near future, but I have started taking Krav Maga classes and I think that learning self defense is something that everyone should do who has the opportunity.

Self Defense in Order to Reduce Physical Risk

Like I said before, I don’t plan on getting into any sort of physically violent situations with my new found knowledge of Krav Maga. I’m not going to go out looking for a fight in order to prove how tough I am, this does not however mean that a fight will not come looking for me. This is something that we should definitely take into account. Most of us have car insurance even though we don’t plan on crashing our car, some of us have life insurance even though we don’t anticipate finding ourselves in potentially fatal situations. Why do we do this? Because the benefit is greater than the cost. The payments on your car every month outweigh the costs of totaling your vehicle in a one time crash and having to pay for everything out of pocket.

The same principle applies to being able to defend yourself against a potential attacker. The potential damage outweighs the costs (which are negligible in the first place) of taking classes and learning how to get yourself out of a dangerous situation. We wouldn’t want those supermodel, genius, olympic athlete producing genes of yours exiting the gene pool prematurely now, would we? Step out of your comfort zone, you will be happy you did.

Self Defense as a Workout Tool

Even if I learn absolutely nothing about fighting from Krav Maga, I will come out of these classes in much better shape than when I started. Each class is filled with different exercises designed to acclimate your muscles to be able to perform in a high intensity situation. Your body goes into fight or flight mode and the adrenaline rush makes you feel insanely powerful. After you are done and your body cools off you realize how sore you are, how tired your muscles became in that hour. It goes by so quickly that you don’t even realize how much of a workout you just went through. Learning Krav Maga is also much more interesting than running on a treadmill every night for half an hour hoping that your favorite song will come through on your Ipod shuffle. Step out of your comfort zone, you will be happy you did.

Self Defense as a Social Tool

At the root of all human interaction is the possibility of violence. This is a purely evolutionary trait that said, if I could beat you in a fight, we get to do things my way. Rarely do things actually come to blows anymore, but the psychological effect still remains just as potent. Think of almost all of the timid and meek guys that you know, those that prefer compromise and everyone getting along, none of them are very physically strong, they are not going to be the winners in a battle royale. This psychological state is a condition of their subconscious knowledge that in the survival of the fittest, I am not the alpha male.

Let’s say you are out at night and you are chatting up this beautiful woman, things are going swell until one of your larger more physical brethren walks over and interjects himself into the social dynamic. Either he will immediately assume the cool, alpha male role, or you may challenge him for a while, but when it comes down to it, all other things being equal, he is probably going to get that girl. You can’t do anything because you know that when it comes down to the lowest common denominator, you cannot compete.

Take the same situation except that you now know how to defend yourself in a fight. The entire dynamic changes. First of all, you’re in better physical condition from taking these classes which is already boosting your confidence. Second, you know that his trump card doesn’t work anymore. This allows you to maneuver the conversation to your strengths without having those lingering doubts in the back of your mind about the pulp he could beat you into if you didn’t know how to take care of yourself. This makes all the difference in your confidence. Step out of your comfort zone, you will be happy you did.