Krav Maga: Eye Gouges and Groin Punches for all!

I'll start with a cautionary tale for any who aren't fond of violence: you do not want to read this post. Really. Do not be fooled by my views on the Iraq War. If you are a pacifist, this post is likely not for you.

That said, OMFG, I am in love with Krav Maga. Why aren't we training in this instead of combatives? Seriously. It is much, much more useful. And versatile. And utterly brutal...but I anticipate myself.

For those who haven't known me long, I've had a fascination with Krav Maga for quite some time. Krav Maga, again for the unfamiliar, is an Israeli close combat technique first developed for...have you guessed? Defending against Nazis. How much cooler can you get? Then the Haganah got it, the Jewish underground. It isn't religious at all, but the philosophy is definitely very Jewish-you assume the worst, and work from their. You assume that your opponent is not going to back off voluntarily, and that you can get away from the situation best by crippling them. You start in some bad positions, and it teaches you to defend against multiple attackers, while you're protecting people, while you yourself are crippled, blinded, etc. It is so many times cooler than combatives that I just want to run around shouting about how awesome it is. Fortunately for my neighbors, I have a blog instead.

The crowd was pretty mixed, and there were one or two guys from my unit there. I had been wondering how triggering it might be-with domestic violence PTSD, a session of people hitting, choking, etc you is not necessarily a recipe for a happy time. But it worked out pretty well-the only problem was that I was a little too violent, out of proportion to what we were supposed to do. (Like for example, when one guy taunted me to hit him and I attempted to punch him in the face before he had finished speaking.)

The instructor was an absolute champ, though. At one point, during a technique (and all stuff was at speed and force), I accidentally sliced his wrist up a bit with my nails. But he didn't say anything, and just continued.

The class was for five hours-five hours of straight glee for me. Tiring glee-as I write this, I'm lying on the couch, and not sure when I'll move. I'll probably have a lot of bruises tomorrow. But it was so worth it. One of the fun points was just realizing exactly how brutal it can be. The point at which the instructor explained exactly what parts of the body you can punch dangerous holes in if you put a key in your fist was amazingly enlightening. So was the groin punching. The guys who were Krav Maga regulars all had metal cups, but the others had lighter cups, and man did they take a beating. The sight of guys wincing and holding their genitals was a common one throughout the five hours.

Five was an awesome number for that-it was also the minimum amount of times to strike your opponent. As our instructor explained, Krav Maga is not a pretty sport that looks beautiful and you do competitions around. Krav Maga is a lethal set of techniques that is used to cripple or kill. As such, if you have to take damage in order to incapacitate the other person, you take it.

Man. Again, so awesome. I can't wait until the next class.