At a Krav Maga seminar last week taught by instructors Paul Plotkin and Alex Abramovich from KAPAP Combative Concepts in Illinois, Northwestern University students learned self-defense techniques used by Israeli soliders. The seminar gave students tools to defend themselves and feel safe on campus, including instruction on how to effectively respond to an attacker who has a knife.
Krav Maga combines elements from other combat disciplines including boxing, judo and wrestling. It is taught to Israeli Special Forces soldiers and used in real combat, said Plotkin, who, along with Abramovich, is a former Israel Special Forces Soldiers who learned Krav Maga during his military service and later in academies in the U.S.
Durnig the two-hour seminar, the instructors demonstrated different strategies to help students assess dangerous situations and defend themselves during the first part of the session. Participants practiced different striking techniques on striking pads as a warm-up. Afterwards, participants were shown different maneuvers to defend against knife attacks and drilled the techniques in groups and pairs of two with plastic knives.
One student said the seminar was helpful in reinforcing similar defense methods she had learned before.
Others commended the seminar with special regards to female students, noting that the self-defense of women is particularly important on any university campus.
Cara Bell, director of programs at the local Women’s Center, said she thinks self-defense sessions are useful to teach participants techniques, even if they don’t continue the training. “If you know some tactics to help you defend yourself or fight off your attacker, you’re in better shape than if you don’t,” Bell said.
Written by Oliver Ortega, Edited by Anna Kaminsky
Krav Maga is a ” no holds barred ” discipline of fighting, emphasizing real-life combat situations, rather than the formal, choreographed moves of many Asian martial arts that are known as katas. It was designed for the street and for the commando. From its beginnings in the Haganah (the early Israel Defense Forces), Krav Maga distanced itself from sport fighting, focusing on practical fighting skills the typical soldier or street fighter would encounter. And since Israel is in a constant state of war with its neighbors, the techniques and tactics developed in Krav Maga are constantly being tested – not in theory, but on the battlefields of the Middle East.