krav maga gun seminar
The Krav Maga Gun Seminar was a huge hit. we had over 100 people attend. The seminar was 8 hours long. everyone did well.
Salt Lake City Feb 2010 Evans MA version
Archive for the ‘Krav Maga’ Category
11 Feb 2010
13 Jan 2010
John Whitman Krav Maga Gun Seminar
Krav Maga SLC will be hosting a Gun Seminar Taught by Krav Maga Expert and 4th degree black belt, John Whitman on Saturday Feburary 6th 2010.
Because of the amount of people attending, the seminar has been moved to a larger location. the address is 3855 South 500 West Suite E – slc, utah
For more information please contact Paul Evans at kravmagaslc.com
9 Dec 2009
Fatigue Drills
Any Krav Maga instructor worth his salt knows that we are making a mistake if we just train techniques. Techniques have to be applied under stress, during drills and in scenarios that come as close as possible (given logistics and safety issues) to reality. This is a basic tenet of our training. “Success” for our students can’t be measured by their understanding of the technique…to the extent that it can be measured at all, it has to be measured in their ability to perform that technique adequately under extreme stress.
But what happens when they fail? What tools or training are we giving them when the technique doesn’t work? When the gunman pulls back on the gun too fast for us, or we fail to trap the knife arm? This is a worthwhile topic for discussion and, in my opinion, a totally legitimate area of training that many of us might not be exploring. As instructors, we should ensure that our students training includes real-time reactions to situations where our vaunted techniques get fucked up.
The obvious (and very Krav Maga-like) solution is aggressiveness. If you miss the gun during Gun From The Front (for example), burst in, catch the gun any way that you can, and counterattack like a madman until the threat is neutralized. But I want to give me students a basic strategy for how to burst in (all call this family of defenses my “Oh shit” defenses…not sure how I’m going to publish that). Once they understand the defense and can execute it aggressively, I want them to experience failure and react aggressively and decisively to that situation. I build into the training drills moments of flawed technique or extra-sharp attacker reactions and make the defenders deal with it.
There is a downside to this training. I can almost guarantee the following: if you incorporate drills where the defender must attempt one technique, fail, and then transition to some other movement, at least some of your students will cheat the first technique in order to prepare for the second. This is obviously unacceptable. They must make the initial defense decisively and aggressively…and THEN make adjustments on the fly if things don’t work out. (Can you think of a better metaphor for life?)
This last observation begs the question: when in training do we incorporate these sorts of failure drills? If we introduce them too early, then we destroy the student’s confidence in the basic technique. A good rule of thumb is to let the student train on the basic technique until they have a good, solid understanding and can execute it well under stress. Once they have that ability, start pushing the envelope. Introduce them to real-life scenarios where failure is certainly a possibility, then give them tools to use in those situations.
Obviously, we must start with basic techniques and principles—not simply because those techniques and principles are inviolate, but because those tools allow students to act decisively and aggressively, and it is decisiveness and aggressiveness that will safe their lives. Once they have those basic ideas, they must transfer that decisiveness, they must use that aggressiveness, during higher stress situations that are outside their comfort zone. When we do that, we are bringing them a greater measure of safety.
Don’t Forget about the John Whitman Seminar Feb 6th. We will be covering Home Invasions and Gun Defenses.
12 Nov 2009
Krav Maga Home Invasion & Gun Seminar
Krav Maga SLC is pleased to announce that we will be hosting a Weapons Seminar on Saturday Feb 6th 2010.
The seminar will be held by John Whitman. John Whitman is a 4th degree black belt in Krav Maga and a CrossFit Level 1 certified instructor. He served as president of Krav Maga Worldwide for 7 years, and has been teaching for 15 years. John teaches civilian, military, and law enforcement personnel, and has taught elite military units in the United States and abroad. John is co-author of the books Complete Krav Maga and Krav Maga For Beginners. John has “train the trainer” status and has trained most of the other Krav Maga instructors currently working in North America. He contributed significantly to the creation of the certification course used in North America to train Krav Maga instructors. He has appeared in numerous media outlets, including The Today Show, ABC News, and CNN.
For more information please contact Paul Evans at www.kravmagaslc.com
22 Oct 2009
Krav Maga Combat Concepts
The following information is to help better understand conflict and the mindset of the attacker. I will be holding a free community workshop in Dec (date to be announced). this will be open to all. I encourage other school owners to come and lend your knowledge as well.
1. Defense Versus counter attack
a. defense merely delays the oncoming attack from overwhelming you.
b. counter attack stops the attacker by attacking him not defending against him.
2. Attackers Mentality (4 types of attackers)
* Mugger – A mugger thinks of robbing you as a job and does it with no remorse for his actions. to succceed in doing his job he is always experienced.
* Desperate Criminal – he is turning to crime because he is desperate for money or needs drugs. he is very dangerous because his desperation makes him capable of doing anything.
*Dare Devil / Hard Guy. He is showing off for a friend or possibly trying to pass gang initiation. he is the least threatening of all the attackers but is dangerous because of his pride.
* Predator. By Far the most dangerous types of attackers. he thinks of you as his prey. He wants to hurt you as his first primary goal, if he gets money from you it is just a bonus to him. All meetings with a predator are extrememly dangerous.
All attackers look for three things. 1 – is it going to be easy. 2. what will I gain from it. – 3. will I get caught
Victims Mentality – victims are people who believe that if they are good to everyone that nothing bad will happen to them. they are Idealist and they are always chosen when they have something of value because an attacker can see that it will be easy and that they won’t get caught. In a dangerous situation, a victim reacts to the fear inside of them and either Freezes or fail ineffectively, or runs wild with no direction and no awareness to their surroundings.
Victimn are usally oblivious to their surroundings and when they do decide to fight back, which is rare they are the appidamy of a half-hearted attack and usally earn themselves more damage. Victims will say things like” what did I do to deserve this”, or “how could this happen to me?”
Warriors Mentality – A warrior is a master of themselves. He’she responds with a fully committed effort to stop the attackers. He is a realist and is always aware of his surroundings. A warrior lives his life with purpose and with the purpose of being happy and he knows that no one has the right to theaten his happiness, so he instantly responds to his attacker with all of the intensity of a person defending the very essence of life.
A warrior understand the choices in self defense. Diffuse – discourage with pain – incapacitate or Knock out – Physiological Discouragement – Injure to some degree – or lastly, destroy.
learning to defend yourself is as much as a mindset as it is hardskills. which one are you? a victim or a warrior!!!!!
12 Aug 2009
intensity vs technique
Post by Paul Evans
Time in each class (which is usually one hour) is obviously finite, so you are always making a choice: emphasize technique or aggressiveness?
Of course, you can and should include both. No Krav Maga class is complete if you haven’t done at least one or two stress drills, and students should leave every class drenched in sweat. But at the same time, if all you do is stress drills, students can miss out on simple concepts that make their techniques more efficient (and, therefore, allow them to become even more aggressive). The simplest example of this is the student who is willing to punch aggressively and powerfully, but continually drops his hands while punching. At some point, we need to slow his training down to help him build better habits.
The opposite is also true: focus too much on technique, and your students become technicians who don’t understand the violent, uncomfortable, stressful nature of a real fight. This is a crime no Krav Maga instructor should ever commit.
So…we understand the dilemma. How to resolve it?
My solution is by no means the only one, but I find it workable. I oscillate back and forth in my lesson plans over the course of two or three months between aggressiveness and technique. While making sure that every class has elements of both, I will focus a little more on technique for a month or two, and then move toward more aggressiveness. I am conscious of the emphasis, and I plan for a transition from one end of the spectrum to the other. This way students in Level One classes (average time in that level is 3-4 months), get a healthy dose of both technical understand and stress training.
At our gym, we are just transitioning out of a technique-oriented phase into more aggressiveness (of course, I feel the need to restate that every class includes stress drills! It’s not a matter of omission, just emphasis). I just laid a challenge down to our instructors: I want to see who can generate the most “Oh-my-god-that-was-hard” comments from students. (The day after my challenge, one of our instructors made a brand new member throw up.) I will let you know what sort of results we see.
Let me know your thoughts on aggressiveness v. technique training!
14 Jul 2009
krav maga – heavy bag class
Heavy Bag Class – Solving the Problem of Too Many Students
Those of you who teach bag classes have probably run into the problem of having too many students show up for class. You end up with two, or even three, members training on one heavy bag. Now, having too many members is a high quality problem, but it is a problem nonetheless. Your lesson plan needs to accommodate these large numbers, or you’ll end up with a) people standing around, waiting their turn to punch; b) banging into each other as they all work together; or c) fragmenting your lesson plan so much that it feels like a shopping list of activity items rather than one homogeneous, well-thought-out lesson.
There are multiple solutions to this problem. We’ve included a few here:
1) “Burn Out” Drills – assume you’ve taught a striking combination. Your group of 2 or 3 people on a bag have been taking turns, and up to this point it’s been OK, because the pace has been a slightly slower, learning pace rather than an all-out kick-butt pace. But now you want them to work! Have them take up the speed and power of their combinations, and make it a “burn out” drill – the minute one person is finishing the combination, the next person must start. The two (or three) students on the heavy bag will end up challenging each other, giving each other no rest. What was a difficulty (too many on a bag) now becomes a challenge.
2) “Station Race” – create two or three stations, one of which is a combination on the heavy bag, the others being any hardcore, functional exercise. Those of you who do CrossFit should consider activities like wall-balls, thrusters, burpees (or just sprawls, if you want to keep it in a fighting context). Here’s the kicker – give each station a set number to reach, such as “Do the combination 5 times” or “10 wall balls” There is NO REST between sations…unless you finish before your partner. Then you get to rest until he finishes. Do you see where this is going? The student will be driven to go hard and fast to get done and rest…but so will his partner! The overall affect will be one of greater output and work.
3) “Station Bounce” – a variation on “Station Race”; have several stations (one of which is heavy bag, of course), and arrange them so that members in a group of 2 or 3 move in order from one to the next (for example; heavy bag, followed by push ups, followed by squats); each person must continue to do the activity at that station until “bounced” to the next one by the person behind him in order, who has finished.
4) “Sprawl While Waiting” – a simple way to maintain activity if your students are waiting for their turn on the bag: do sprawls (or, logically, end the combination with a sprawl). If the combination is long, make the waiting student sprawl twice during the partner’s combination,
5) “TeamWork” – if they are really waiting, make the wait worthwhile by making the 2 or 3 people a team against the other “teams” on other bags. Each person must do the combination 5 times, see which team can finish first. The person waiting his turn on the bag can and will cheer on his partner. It won’t feel like waiting. If you want to make it harder, make each person do 2 sets of 5.
These are just a few ideas. We hope you find them useful…and feel free to post additional ideas of your own!
19 Jun 2009
problematic Knife attacks
The title of this entry is a bit ironic, because ALL knife attacks are problematic. Knife is a dangerous and difficult weapon to deal with. I believe very much in the simplicity and aggressiveness of Krav Maga’s defenses. They have proven themselves to be effective in real life situations for civilians, military, and law enforcement personnel. Still, we should push the boundaries. While not every attacker grabs at the defender, many do. Once we have a basic understanding of the knife defenses, we should push the boundaries:
Have the attacker start in close, using his left hand (assuming he is right-handed) to grab the defender’s shirt. He should use this hand to a) keep the defender from getting away and b) shield the knife so that the defender cannot control it.
The defender’s job is to make basic 360 defenses, punch at the attacker, and disengage as soon as possible (assuming he cannot control the knife). The defender disengages either by pulling at the attacker’s elbow to get deeper to the dead side (similar to the entry on some Machine Gun Takedown movements, or Passing Through Crowds, for those of you who know those techniques), or by pushing on the arm/elbow to dislodge it. For videos and real life attacks clips visit www.kravmagaalliance.com
Train hard and as always be safe and walk in peace.
Posted By Krav Maga SLC
28 Apr 2009
krav Maga SLC
As some of you may know Krav Maga is a system based on performing under high stress. I want to give everyone in all systems a drill which can be tweaked to fit your system. the drill is as follows:
3 person drill – 1st person is striking a pad using various combos (it can be punches, kicks, knees, etc.,) 2nd person is holding the pad. 3rd person puts a belt around the waist of the 1st person and pulls, pushes, messes with the 1st person for 30 seconds straight. this teaches students to focus on their goal (target), attack and never stop. a Variation of this would be to have the pad holder on the ground with the 1st person (one punching) full mounted while the 3rd person is pulling and messing with him. Also turning out the lights, using a strobe light and loud music all create a stressful atmosphere.
Do this for several rounds. Enjoy and let me know what you all think.
Paul
27 Apr 2009
Krav Maga (Israeli defense system)
I just wanted to take a minute and introduce myself to this blog. my name is Paul Evans. I am a Krav Maga instructor who owns a studio in SLC. I am certified with Krav Maga World Wide as well as Krav Maga Alliance.
Krav Maga is the official system of self defense employed by the Israeli Defense Forces, Israeli Anti-terrorist Units, and various branches of the Israeli Security Forces. It is also the preferred system for U.S. Military and Law Enforcement Personnel.
Krav Maga emerged in an environment where extreme violence was common. It has ample opportunity to be tested and improved under real life conditions, proven itself to be an ideal and realistic means of defending oneself. No defense tactics program in the world is more battle tested than Krav Maga.
Krav Maga is not a traditional martial art. No katas. No rituals. No nonsense. Based on simple principles and instinctive movements, this reality-based system is designed to teach real self defense in the shortest possible time. Learn to defend against common chokes, grabs, and bearhugs, as well as weapons such as guns, knives and sticks.
I have trained in many martial arts since 1984 and have loved them all. I believe that all martial arts have value. Some are more sports oriented and some more self defense but they all have value. I encourage anyone wishing to train in martial arts to consider what are they looking for and find a system that best meets those needs. At Krav Maga SLC we focus only on self defense. Our classes are designed to deal with high stressed- street conflicts not fight in a ring. I f you are looking to be a fighter I know several great BJJ and Muay Thai schools and would be happy to refer anyone. One last thing to think about is that finding the right Instructor is everything. You can have a great system but a crappy instructor. Take your time and find the right school.
Also Coming in August 2009
GRACIE COMBATIVES
WHAT IS
Gracie Jiu Jitsu Comabtives ?
In the late 1920’s, Grand Master Helio Gracie created Gracie or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu after he realized that he was physically too frail to utilize the traditional Japanese techniques. Proven over the last 80 years to be the most reliable system for a smaller person to defeat a larger, more athletic opponent, the techniques of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu are based on precise timing and effective use of leverage so that virtually anyone can do them, man or woman, regardless of size or athletic ability. Although Gracie Jiu-Jitsu consists of over 600 techniques, studies of the fights conducted by members of the Gracie Family have shown that 36 techniques have been used more often and with greater success than all the other techniques combined. Originally developed for the U.S. Army, Gracie Combatives is the only course that entirely dedicated to the mastery of these 36 essential techniques
I look forward to posting about Krav Maga. If you wish to check us out please visit my website at kravmagaslc.com.
Train Hard, be safe and walk in peace.
Paul Evans
