Got my yellow belt! Part One

The first level of Krav Maga (or a Yellow belt student) is to first learn about a correct stance. Learning how to stand might seem silly but a lot of how you defend your self comes from how you stand. Think about standing with your feet together...how well do you think you can keep your balance with an aggressor attacking you. You'd fall over in a heart beat. Then the same goes for standing with your legs way to far apart! You might be able to keep your balance but a counter attack or even defending yourself is near impossible, not to mention you are wide open for a shot to the groin.A good stance lets you keep your balance, react to attacks, prevents you from tripping over you feet, and lets you burst(move)in different direction.

We also learn the basics of punching, open hand strikes, several different kicks, and defenses against just about every type of choke. You think a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick. Not so, punching correctly lets you minimize the damage done to you as you punch while optimizing the damage done to your attack. You also learn that punching correctly actually conceals your punch so that it is much harder to defend against. An untrained puncher will swing his/her arm out and parallel to the ground making a huge, wide swinging, and very noticeable movement.

As for kicking, its amazing how underutilized a kick is during a street fight. Speaking from experience, an average street fighter only uses a kick when the opponent is half way, or all the way on the ground. Basically it is not used until the attacker/defender realizes that their opponent is in front of their leg and doesn't pose a threat to their face.

In Krav Maga we learn that it is a weapon that should be used first, in total contradiction to what an untrained fighter is going to use. We learn how to kick correct to add maximum power with extreme training on keeping our balance and choosing how our stance is going to develop from there. For example are we going to kick and recoil, going back to our original position. Or do we kick and progress to an advancing stance. Its all based on the stimuli and how your opponent reacts as well as how well you placed the kick and the power behind it.

Sounds silly? Six months of training on kicking? Well concider that when I first started I could barely get my leg high enough to kick someones knee. Not to mention the big bag, which I could hardly kick. Now......now when I kick it can be from your knee all the way to your throat. And the power I have behind it is enough to knock the bag over. To give you an idea on how hard it is to knock over one of those big bags, you would have to have a grown man run at full speed and slam into the bag. He would have a 50%~50% of knocking it over. If you ever get a chance try it out.

ANYWHO, we did other stuff such as chokes, head locks, and ground work. The ground work was how to get up while keeping your defense up. How to throw an opponent while they are on top of you. How to defend from advance while on the ground. I do it disservice to gloss over it but I need to move on to the actual test.

<.. On second thought I am going to break this up into two posts..>