We have been conditioned to believe that all real warriors have chiseled appearances and look like they live in the gym. Sly Stallone’s Rocky and all his opponents in the movies, real-life championship boxers and certainly a majority of MMA fighters look like physical specimens. How else could they stand the test of combat unless they worked out incessantly, and achieved lean and rock-hard physical dimensions? I submit, however, as a counter example, Fedor Emelianenko. To the uninitiated, Fedor looks like someone who works at your local Stop & Shop meat department, or maybe like your best ..read more

Fans of both MMA and Boxing always have an amazing selection of fights to watch. Great fighters like Canelo Alvarez, Anthony Joshua, Dustin Poirier, Jon Jones and others, mesmerize the crowds with precision, stamina and power. They all put on tremendous performances as they entertained millions of fans around the globe! There is no question that these fighters represent the elite in combative sports. So how should a person who trains in self defense study their performances? What lessons should be learned? What truths about fighting were revealed? Sadly, little…. There should never be any conf ..read more

Krav Maga is unique in the self-defense world as it is not a technical system so much as a principle-based system. What does that mean? What it means is that throughout your training, you will learn fundamentals of motion, principles of combat and rules of engagement, all of which will guide you in your strategy when confronted by an attacker. Traditional martial arts are usually steeped in learning countless techniques typically organized by rank, name or numbering convention. These techniques are learned sequentially and are drilled and tested under mild noncompliance. It is through successf ..read more

When I give workshops or seminars, I normally begin by asking all those in attendance to define self-defense. I do this to establish a simple criteria for success when considering their objectives during a violent encounter: My preferred answer: you are not truly self-defended until you have exited a dangerous situation, as quickly as possible, with little to no damage to yourself. While this may seem fairly obvious, I have found that many people still view self-defense with the same lens Hollywood has conditioned us to use; focusing on knocking out, injuring or otherwise damaging their attack ..read more

I have recently been invited to several JCC’s, chabads and temples to give talks on safety strategies the Jewish community should follow to stay safe during these very dangerous times. To put it into perspective, according to the data collected by the Department of Justice, anti-Semitic crimes are up over 300% since October of last year alone.  What I have learned by speaking with those who attend my talks, is that a high percentage of the community that find themselves in the path of harassments and assaults are advanced in age and/or physically limited through injury or  sickness ..read more

In my 35+ years of martial arts experience, both as a student and as an instructor, I’ve heard countless stories of students who survived violent and/or near violent encounters. Hollywood would have us believe that each one of these victories centers around great acts of athleticism, exquisite timing or physical mastery of sophisticated techniques. In reality, some of the greatest stories told to me were victories created by what is known as verbal judo. Verbal judo is defined as the gentile art of persuasion that redirects others behavior with words. In self defense terms,  it is simply ..read more

One question I am repeatedly asked is “Do I really need to worry about self-defense if I live in (fill in the blank, nice neighborhood)? It’s not exactly a high risk area, right?” Hollywood has done a lot to condition our psyche with respect to when to feel threatened. Dark alleys, ominous street corners in vacated sections of large cities is where all the nefarious action takes place on screen. Swelling music right before the attack is also a great cue. Sadly, real life does not offer us such a simple formula to consider… Darien, Greenwich, Simsbury or Avon have none of those risks, right? Pe ..read more

Throughout my career in the martial arts and especially since I’ve become an instructor of Krav Maga, I have repeatedly been asked how often I have had to use what I know. I understand this fascinating as many people romanticize violent encounters, given how they are depicted in Hollywood movies. My answer, ironically, is that I do use my training everyday and I have survived countless engagements in the last 30 plus years. What would disappoint people, however, is that at no time in the last three decades did I go “hands on”. The self-defense industry tends to overemphasizes all the hand-to-h ..read more

I was training a private student who is entering medical school in the coming semester. As we were training defensive measures involving an attacker grabbing him by the shirt, he hesitated on countering my attack. He smiled and said to me,”I see myself as an instrument of healing, not pain.” I wish the world was so easily constructed that you could “elect” to be one or the other. In the almost 35 years that I have been training martial arts, I am constantly amazed at people’s hesitation on inflicting pain and damage onto someone who is most certainly about to hurt them. I do understand that vi ..read more

While training with a senior ranking Krav Maga expert out of Israel, a metaphor was used to describe the moments just prior to physically engaging an attacker.  Most times, students of all systems train techniques that contemplate the attacker already in the process of striking, grabbing or otherwise menacing their intended victim. What Krav Maga considers is the mental focus of both defender and attacker just prior to physical engagement:  A kravist, the metaphor goes, is a grenade with its pin still in. If you lay it on the table, it just sits there motionless and inert. Upon pulli ..read more