Krav Maga Shooting Fail.

For those that don’t know… Krav Maga is the type of Martial Arts developed in Israel.  I don’t practice it myself, my preference being Shotokan.  Since I don’t practice it, I am no expert in it.  However I do have an opinion.  I think it’s an “All or Nothing” type of thing… You make a move and it either works, or you are totally screwed.  Just my impression, this is probably what you need in Israel if you are the One Guy in the doorway protecting a room full of babies from the guy with a gun trying to get in.  I may be wrong.  Like I said, I’m no expert in Krav Maga.  I think I would like to take a few classes  in it and learn more.

HOWEVER…  I’m not wrong in this:  Krav Maga Shooting looks dangerous as hell and I don’t want anything to do with it, based on this video:

The video starts out with an introduction that is all fine and well.  And then it shows the guy in white camo pants.  Stop.  WHO wears white camo pants anymore?  The guy then does a spastic firing as fast as possible while Prancercizing routine.  Stop.   WTH is that?  Operating the trigger as fast as possible with the off-hand.  Seriously, if I see this on my range – I’m kicking you out.  I don’t care if my range is in the middle of the desert, 100 miles from the nearest building, and there’s no one else on the range… I’m kicking you out.  Because that is a flagrant violation of sane gun handling.  And I’m no Zumbo here.

The rest of the video is choreographed dance routines with guns.  Many looking less than safe.  Some looking needlessly stupid.  Such as holding out your non-firing hand like they are doing.  I’m kind of curious as to the explanation of what that is supposed to accomplish.

I’m not going to talk about the packing on an empty chamber.  I’ll leave that to your own imagination.  Personally, I think it’s foolish.  And training to do so is also foolish.  This is often called “The Israeli Technique” and it stems from Israel’s military requirement of “All Guns Are Always Unloaded”.  This is because Israel’s military is full of Conscripts.  They have a mandatory 2 year military service requirement, and not everyone is a professional about it.  It’s lovely that they learn how to load quickly.  But I’d rather the gun in my holster be loaded.

Synchronized Shooting is becoming too popular in Firearms Training Circles.  It’s no longer about teaching techniques that will help you not get dead and help you make the badguys dead… It’s become all about who has the best Choreography.    None of the newer training videos I’ve seen emphasize the basics of living through a gunfight.   Moving to Cover, Reloading behind Cover, Using Cover, Minimizing Exposure of Vital Organs, Target ID and actual AIMED FIRE, and real Communication to a Battle Buddy.

Things like this show Multiple Target Engagements, but none of them consider that your Multiple Targets, if they are justifiable to Engage, will be combative targets with the same goal you have.  So you go running up on one of them with your super ninja ferocious dance moves, and your Target’s Buddies are going to light you the hell up.   Back in my Light Infantry days, we’d call guys like this “John Wayne”.  The Hero guy that runs in and gets dramatically killed and puts the rest of the team in jeopardy.  This is all about BAD TACTICS.  Everything with this sort of thing is Assault through the Ambush – which is fine.  If it’s just an Ambush.  But if the threat was a set up to draw you out… You just left everything else wide open and you let yourself into a trap, because you didn’t think.  You reacted and ran to the threat emptying your magazine like a spastic 2nd LT Airsofter.

I’m concerned about the wave of foreign instructors coming in with all these new forms from their home countries.  How do we know these guys are Legit?  I’m not saying this guy isn’t.  I’m just concerned in general.  Americans have a nasty reaction to Foreign.  We tend to automatically think Foreign is Better.   A guy from Israel is automatically more exotic, interesting, and deadly than a guy from central Kansas.  Never mind that the guy from Israel is a 2 year Conscript and the guy from Kansas is an veteran soldier who grew up with a hunting rifle and served multiple tours in multiple countries and has taught more people than he can count.  Forget that guy.  Take a class from the exotic unknown guy.

19 thoughts on “Krav Maga Shooting Fail.”

  1. Agreed. I see no reason for the disco show, even in Isreal or multiple opponent scenarios. My crippled butt will be gimping to cover and concentrating on accuracy, thank you very much.

  2. Krav Maga as a hand to hand fighting art is deadly (the weapon disarms are pretty damn cool) but I really don’t know about this weapon training. If those targets were real threats, one guy would get toasted rather quickly doing those advancing movements towards the threats instead of trying to find some cover and looking for a smarter way of either killing or escaping. I don’t get the strong hand firing with the support hand up like a crossing guard stopping traffic or even the crazy rapid fire sweep with the pistol in the opening. I did dig the Micro Galil though, other than that, crap that will get you killed.

  3. I trained in Krav for 4+ years and will get back to it when life settles a bit. One thing about the hand-to-hand training that some people don’t realize is that it is a self-defense system rather than a traditional martial art. So the statement “All or Nothing” is pretty apt since the whole point (or what should be the point if the school is staying true to Krav principles) is hyper-aggressive response to a threat so that you end the threat and are the one the walks away. Having said that, the first thing we would teach, when I had the opportunity to instruct, is the best defense to a situation is not being in it..the second best defense is fast feet as you leave the situation…only if those options are not available to you do you go hands on. Side story, during my Level 5 test we were being tested on knife disarms and I felt like I did pretty well, making the empty-handed disarms and generally ending up un-marked. Until I (and the others being tested) were less than gently reminded of the sticks laying around that could have been picked up to use and of the wide open doorway that provided an easy escape route given the distance the attackers were approaching from.

    With the popularity and explosion of schools it seems like it’s harder to find schools that stick to the core principles though..and schools are using gimmicks to bring in new students. Maybe the stuff in the video was the result of that, even with it being based in Israel. I don’t know much about much..but I can see enough to know that Mossyrock’s comment is pretty spot on.

  4. “The rest of the video is choreographed dance routines with guns. Many looking less than safe. Some looking needlessly stupid. Such as holding out your non-firing hand like they are doing. I’m kind of curious as to the explanation of what that is supposed to accomplish.”

    So they can practice telling critics of their “fabulous” shooting style to talk to the hand?

  5. The whole “OMG!! It’s from country X! Man they would mess us up cause of bs reason Y!” I hear this all the time. ESP when I was in the Army. How you stated it is correct when it comes to the shooting public. However in real life Exotic is retarded. Basics quickly and correctly executed will beat this type of hokum every time.

    1. Will said: “Basics quickly and correctly executed will beat this type of hokum every time.”

      As a practitioner of traditional, Okinawan karate and ju jitsu, along with Iado & Kobudo, I have achieved total “Enlightment” and will spread my magnificence on Will’s comments. I will bless his Zen with my Zen. Namaste, bitches!

      Sarcasm & snakiness aside, Will is spot on. I had a wonderful teacher & mentor in the martial arts/shooting world that reminded me that the experts are so damn good because they focus on the fundamentals & basics to the exclusion of the fancy-pants stuff. Once that sunk in, things got fairly clear for me……except for that whole shape-shifting and air-bending; still working on that.

      Ogre, thanks for the clarification on the whole “Israeli Technique”. I NEVER understood carrying a weapon in Condition 3…..especially in an “impact zone” like Israel. I’ve never been there but it seems like they’re in a rough neighborhood and a weapon with a round ready to go might be to one’s advantage…..just a thought.

      Now, back to my ouija board and yellow jump suit so I can ask Master Bruce Lee for some guidance on levitation while doing a flying reverse crescent kick in 3D. Perhaps Neo can assist…..?

      Zulu OUT!

    1. Probably would have told the rest of your squad to use you and your fabulous dance moves as an expendable distraction.

  6. At about 56 seconds into the vid, look at the overhead (up and to the left of the shooter). It looks to me like ALOT of the overhead has been shot away from the firing line….just saying..

  7. As others have mentioned, krav is an effective fighting style. I’ve studied it for about 3 years now along with jkd and eskrima and although it’s not my favorite style, (fma holds that honor, ) it has a lot of diversity and excellent conditioning. A few things to note.

    As far as describing the style, I wouldn’t so much say it’s all or nothing as much as it’s driven by 2 principles; practice how you play and play dirty. The emphasis tends to be on training for worst case scenarios such as multiple attackers under realistic conditions.

    As far as the video goes, one of the side affects of krav becoming more mainstream is that many of the branches of it are becoming commercialized, much like has happened with karate, (again certain schools,) or taekwondo. The difference being in this case, rather than set up a local mcdojo, they’re quite simply trying to cash in on the brand recognition in order to draw in unsuspecting yuppies eager to channel their inner Statham.

  8. As silly as this is, I’d still rather take a class from them rather than a class from some “former Spetznaz.”

  9. Sigh… the Israeli draw (no round in the chamber). Let’s add 2 to 3 seconds to your sidearm into the fight. 0:20 pistol bump fire?! Yea, I do believe no targets were injured in this video.

  10. Wait a minute, wait a minute …..

    Did I just see, at about 2:35 into the video, the “Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum Swan Dance Duet” choreographed their lovely dance routine so that they both went to slide lock at the same time? They had to do a reload simultaneously … so nobody was covering them after they both emptied their pistols?

    Either I’m missing something, or this is the most mindlessly inane training system EVER!

  11. Glad I read the article before I watched the video. Saved me the trouble of watching.

    I have enough bad technique rattling through my brain. I don’t need to watch any more.

  12. Put a good IDPA practitioner against a person drawing an unloaded gun and see where that second to load get you. for that matter any of the American tactical pistol regimens will reveal that taking that second or partial second to load you gun will get you killed. Against Miculek will get them 8 rounds in the chest in that second.

  13. His little side shuffle at .23 made me think of MC Hammer sans genie pants.

    I will defend white and grey urban camo. It works great in snowy midwest hardwood forests. You know they’re slopping over with snow covered hickory timber just southeast of tel aviv. It’s where the high speed low drag tactical operators tactically operate their operations tactically operationally.

  14. As I understand it, the Israeli reason for carrying with an empty chamber dates back to the late 1940s when Israel had a really mixed bag of handguns post-WW2. The idea was that carrying empty standardised training and did away with the safety up/safety down / frame mounted / slide mounted problems.

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