The Krav-Club

Without these 5 elements, the best techniques in the world are useless! We will also see that some clichés die hard and that the most important is not always what we believe.

If you have not developed these skills and states of mind, the rest of your preparation becomes almost useless. Indeed, either you won't have the opportunity to apply it, or it would be in a really inefficient way. You must always train with these principles in mind, and serious instructors do specific exercises to increase these capacities in their students.

Note : dedicated articles explaining how to train each point will soon be translated from french !

1 : Quickly understand the situation

Without knowing what's really going on, it's impossible to react properly. Be on your guard without being paranoid, because a very intense attention cannot be maintained very long. And really listen to your instinct. It is the result of thousands of years of natural selection and it is rarely mistaken about danger. That guy who's following you with a hand strangely remaining still behind his thigh probably has no arm mobility problem...

Furthermore, reacting earlier gives you a better chance of escaping by limiting the risks. These two articles dedicated to this topic describe when and how to act and how to spot an imminent attack.

Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt.

Sam in the movie "Ronin"

2 : React appropriately

You're answer to each kind of danger must follow a minimum of logic. If you stay at the wrong distance of a baseball bat, you will quickly be able to closely study the texture of the road... See the dedicated article.

This is common sense, but under stress and caught off guard, it's much more complicated than you think. That's why you have to work every technique until it's automatic, but also to do stress exercises to get used to improvise.

3: Be aggressive

The aggressor is not kidding, he is not not trying to spare you, he has certainly gained the upper hand by attacking by surprise or with an advantage in terms of brute force (bigger or with buddies). If you stay a nice little civilized city dweller during an assault, he will eat you alive! When you hit, you have to do it with all your strength. If you manage to grab the weapon, you must do it as if your life depends on it, because it is indeed the case! A soft or superficial strike will not produce anything decisive, a week defense will only limit the injury and will not allow you to take back the initiative. To learn how to develop or manage aggression take a look at this article.

4: Never give up

It is an extension of aggression, you must never give up, always continue to try pull through by any means. If you are being chocked and your best kick in the groin does not produce any effect because you met a eunuch, continue to fight, strike, bite, do something, the only sure way to fail is to give up! Read this to learn how to develop your determination.

5: Stay alert until the end.

It would be a shame to have done all the work against a tough one to get swept by his friend who is a head smaller than you and who came from behind, no? At the end of the assault do not stand there, proud of your "victory" ... Your attacker can have accomplices and you must not make their life easier! Leave the place as soon as possible or check that there is no danger around you (the famous scan). To learn more, go to the article "how to get out of an assault".

Bonus: what is far less important than you think

The clichés conveyed by the movies, advertising and the commerce industries often make us focus on things really incidental.

The self defense gadgets

If you are not trained to use your tactical pen that is both a pepper-spray, a taser and a nightclub strobe, it won't help you. It is not enough to know how to make it work or strike with it efficiently, you have to be able to deploy it quickly, in the dark, while sitting, lying, with someone crushing you etc ... You have bought a pretty toy, then play with as much as you can, otherwise leave it in a showcase.

Doing perfect or epic moves

Spinning kicks, arm-locks with tangled limbs are super classy when you succeed. But you don't always do in training, so what would it be in the street, facing someone who reacts unpredictably, with the uncertainty of an uncontrolled environment like a slippery floor or shattered bottles, hidden opponents... At the gym we tell ourselves that we missed and with a little luck we are blessed with a reality check on our abilities. But in the street, this reality check will cost you dear: one leg grabbed, the other swept and the nose smacked to the asphalt followed by a sneakers-made massage of the maxillary.

Hit 10 times per second

Lightning-fast combinations with strikes raining everywhere are really impressive, but how many strikes are really effective? Which ones can be done with enough power to produce an effect? Which ones are still doable when the attacker folded in two at the 3rd hit? Instead, work on your ability to chain your strikes without any dead time and to react instantly to the changes of your target's position.

Getting better

I will translate 5 articles explaining how to get better in each of these 5 domains, stay tuned !

You can deepen the subject in one of the dedicated articles:

• How to react as soon as possible and How to detect an incoming attack
• How to react according to the attack
• How to develop aggression to survive violence
• How to increase your resolve to deal with aggression
• How to get out of an assault

You can leave a comment below to say what you think about this article, about the format or if you want me to develop a specific topic.