February 27th, 2008

It’s been a while since the wifey and I have started something new for our weekends, it’s called ‘Krav Maga’… the official explanation in Hebrew is contact combat. An effective, easy-to-learn, battle tested Israeli system of Self Defense & combat tactics trained in realistic scenarios with ‘no rules’ & muscle memory based instinctive techniques to eliminate or escape from the threat.

For me the interesting factor for this was the increasing deterioration in the quality of people in Bengaluru… off late I’ve seen too many news and incidences of women getting eveteased, molested or worse raped and murdered in our so called developing country. I’ve been perpetually petrified when I personally witnessed two or three different counts of women being teased, grabbed, groped and felt-over on the crowded streets of Bengaluru. Sad part is that those women didn’t know how to react or defend themselves in such a situation!

What Krav Maga teaches is not something hyper like most of the martial arts, its the use of your basic common sense and muscle reflexes in different situations, not only this! This is probably the only form of self defense where a woman can easily inflict enough damage to her attacker and get out of a situation even while draped in a saree! Here are a few of the situations that many women can find themselves in and probably use KM to get out;

• What do you do when you’re pinned to the ground? (Classic rape scenario)
• When someone holds a knife to your throat? (Kidnapping anyone?)
• How do you fight back when someone grabs you from behind? (A lot of women experience this in clubs and on the crowded streets)

Well not only will you learn how to get out of all these situations and more… you’ll also burn around 800calories in every one hour session of rigorous KM training; which means really toned muscles and perfectly figured bodies.

The wifey enjoys these sessions so much that she actually looks forward to our weekly weekend sessions of KM… and trust me, she is one of the most aggressive students in the class… most of the guys there are so scared to spar with her! Coz they eventually get beaten-up by a frail looking woman.

What started as an experiment to see if training for self defense can be useful anywhere in life has now changed into a weekly stress busting session for us. We punch the $h^t out of the boxing pads there, do so much of workout, and every week we learn something new that can help in tight spots. I also notice a good improvement in self confidence, reflex and attention levels in both the wife and me. I also notice a growth in the overall awareness of surroundings when we are somewhere out of the house.

Well, this might sound like a paid advertisement for KM. but honestly, after personally witnessing and experiencing the before/after effects of KM I would want to recommend it to everyone I know…

Go ahead people! At least go and see what this thing is and try out one introductory session… I definitely see it an amazing stress buster and a way to keep you safe and sane in today’s unsafe and insane world.

Live safe!

Krav Maga India’s Practitioner : Love Joshi

Source: http://lovejoshi.blogspot.com/2008/02/stress-busting-new-way.html

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