What is Urban Krav Maga?
Urban Krav Maga draws on many years of experience in the following fighting systems as well as various styles of Krav Maga: Karate; Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Traditional Jiu Jitsu, Aikido, Boxing, Muay Thai, Vale Tudo and MMA. And just to confirm, we are an independent organisation, we no longer have any connections with Israeli organisations and we are apolitical and certainly do not endorse, or otherwise, any Israeli government policy.
We continue to train in other systems so as to find any flaws (however small) in everything we do; our ethos of ever improving and evolving with time is one that allows no rest. This approach to training continues to inform and evolve our teaching and, linked with our real world experience, helps us to adapt and modify techniques to fit the needs of all who train with us. We approach everything in what we believe to be, the original and true spirit of Krav Maga. We find that these modified and innovative ideas work for our students under pressure – and that is the sole focus of Urban Krav Maga.
Urban Krav Maga is a defence system that:
- Combines the best elements of the systems referred to above with the mentality of “this is the problem – what is the solution?”
- Contains a range of techniques that are not dependent on sex, size, or strength. All techniques need to work against anyone, regardless of physical disadvantage. We also acknowledge that different students sometimes need different or modified solutions so there is a personal development approach for the student too.
- Is genuinely collegiate and evolutionary in its approach. There’s a very wide range of experience in the Technical Committee, everybody has a say in how techniques develop and, crucially, nobody is hidebound by ego or adherence to tradition – the one priority is to make techniques work well for all who need them. We listen to students – the genesis of the system lies in our observations of what does/doesn’t work for them under pressure and how we can improve upon their chances of getting home safely from any form of violent encounter.
- Recognises the importance of pre-emptive strikes for self-defence – action always beats reaction.
- Takes a genuinely scenario-based approach. In Urban Krav Maga, the ‘core’ syllabus is based around the disciplines and techniques needed to defend the 10 most common street attacks.
The core syllabus also contains a range of techniques applicable to female self-defence, grappling (stand-up and on the ground), fighting/sparring techniques, and weapons defences.
The Urban Krav Maga aim is to equip the student as soon as possible to defend themselves against the most common attacks they may face. Once the student has mastered these techniques more difficult scenarios are addressed to build a support system that will enable the student to deal with almost any situation. By teaching concepts through techniques, students are taught how to read a situation and react/respond accordingly, even if they have not experienced that exact same scenario in training. Giving students the ability to improvise is an important element of our training, this is not like learning a kata.
Awareness, avoidance and pre-emption are placed high in order of priority but we recognise that you can’t always avoid a potential violent encounter. We teach everything that is needed for self defence when it’s necessary in all environments, including, highly confined, crowded spaces, cars, shopping centres, nightclubs, buses etc.
We make no apologies for our civilian approach to street violence and our subsequent breakaway from the original military solutions in dealing with armed attackers: a knife defence based on somebody attacking like they were making a committed bayonet thrust will not be so effective as one that is based on somebody stabbing with an aggressive pumping/piston motion with fast recoil when we are dealing with today’s street. As stated we retain the term Krav Maga as our approach reflects that on which Krav Maga was originally founded and we are, of course, indebted to the experiences we have gained training with the various Israeli Fighting Systems.
