Krav Maga anyone ?

A few days back, before the holidays ended, my friend called me up ,again,regarding the part time job. Seems he was going out of station so he asked me whether i would fill in for him. Since i was anyways jobless ( in both the meanings :).. )i agreed.
On the days i went there was no work to do as nobody came so I started reading the news paper. An article in the supplement caught my eye, it was titled 'Krav maga anyone'. I vaguely remembered the term though not what it was so i read on. It turned out that this was the hand-to-hand combat technique taught to the israeli army and one of the most effective . And now this technique was being taught to IT employees in banglore,security guards and to certain elite sections of the armed forces like NSG commandos, Black cats ,etc

My interest was aroused and later that night i looke up krav maga on wikipedia. Apparently this is a martial art just 60 years old thus making it one of the youngest. But it varies vastly from other martial arts. You see the basic rule in krav maga is ' There are no rules' ! YOu see i have trained in isshinryu karate for 3 years and though we had sparring we always had certain rules like no hitting on the face, no hitting below the belts , etc. I always used to wonder how effective it would be in real life even if you are a black belt-The exalted status in karate.But krav maga is just the opposite . It seeks to exploit the opponent's weakness.

And krav maga specifically aims to protect one in anyway possible. Even if it means greviously injuring the other person. ANd not just that they also emphasise on use surrounding objects as weapons. I guess most of us have seen jackie chan's movies. Remember how he used to defend himself with various things ranging from : dolls to underwears to wooden sticks ?? Well thats what they try to teach here too. I know idiots will be thinking " Defending with underwears eh ? nice !" but you do the get the point.

ANd not just this they also they teach how to defend from multiple attackers, defending against knives and other weapons etc... YOu see unlike other martial arts there are no belts. There are just levels here. In first level they teach basic things like making fists, kicking, basic of first aid, getting out of various body locks , escaping from grabs, blah blah blah... Then second level would be actual fighting and defending against small weapons While third would be fighting multiple opponents , defending a third party alongside self .. basically the higher level you go the more difficult scenarios they train you for.Another thing i liked was that they train you for different scenarios. Sample this-
~~They might make you jog 2 miles or so and then IMMEDIATELY defend youself against 2 or more defenders (Believe me that is the MOST tiring thing you can do !)
~~Or they use fog machines or disco strobes (you know those round ball thingy used in pubs which produces light effects)to cause disorientation and make you fight!! Apparently this helps you in self defence when there is a lot of distraction.
~~ They blindfold you partially (by using some thin cloth through which you can just about see vague outlines of things) to simulate darkness and again make you fight !


ANd this is just the civilian version ! There is a military version which is all the more brutal and even teaches sleeker things like preventing car jacking , evasive driving and loads of other stuff .. cool eh ?!!
Anyways they are starting classes in chennai and i hope to join soon. Man its sooo gonna rock !! adios amoebas!