When people think of Israel, they often think of a country in conflict and in truth this has been the case since 1917, when the Balfour Declaration recognized the rights of the Jewish population to the land (referred to at the time as Palestine), which at the time was under British control.

This recognition created two things: an extension of Arab hostilities to the Jewish population and the formation of several Jewish underground movements (most notably the Haganah) who were promoting and preparing for an independent Israel, free from external rule.

These underground movements started to experiment with creating ‘hybrid’ fighting systems, combining the most effective techniques from existing systems (most notably western boxing and wrestling) into something completely new. The only restrictions placed on these systems were that they had to be practical and easy to learn.

The Term Krav Maga

Many names were used to describe these systems e.g. KAPAP, an acronym for Krav Panim A Panim (meaning, ‘fighting face to face’ in Hebrew) and during the 1940’s the term Krav Maga (contact combat) started to be used. This was a name used by Imi Lichtenfeld to describe the system of self-defense/close combat that he had started to develop.

In 1948 (the official creation of the state of Israel) the newly formed IDF, Israeli Defense Force adopted his system to train basic infantry units in hand-to-hand combat. Lichtenfeld oversaw the implementation of this system up until his departure from the army in 1964, when he left to concentrate on teaching/developing his system for civilians. It should be remembered that the term 'Krav Maga' is a generic term and is almost equivalent to the the term 'self-defense'. Just as there are many self-defense systems there are many Krav Maga systems.

Creation Of 'Commando' Krav Maga

The end of 1973 saw a period of introspection and self analysis by the IDF that stemmed from their experiences of the October/Yom Kippur War: a war that had been hard fought and taken more effort than expected in winning. Part of this self-inspection fell on the hand-to-hand combat training program that was in place and Moni Aizik a veteran of the war and national Judo champion was asked to re-evaluate and re-assess the systems effectiveness.

When the Krav Maga program/system was taken to the elite units of the IDF it was found than many of its solutions to combat problems couldn’t be made to work. In re-working the system Moni incorporated Judo, Jiu Jitsu and other Israeli Fighting systems to create something that met the needs of the elite units and Special Forces (Sayeret units), this is the system referred to as Commando Krav Maga.

Commando Krav Maga Today

Moni continues to train the Israeli Special Forces in this system and the system itself has evolved (and continues to) significantly since this time. In 2004 the system was made available to civilians for the first time and since then has rapidly become recognized as the most sensible and effective reality based self-defense system in existence.