I love teaching Krav Maga and don’t remember a single class the dragged, that I would keep looking at the clock counting seconds till the end. Usually when the class is over students are surprised an hour went by that fast.
But then there are days like last Friday. I was teaching a three hour Krav Maga Workshop at Krav Maga Detroit. As usual we quickly reviewed the list of the techniques and selected the ones students wanted to focus on. My goal is always to answer all their questions and cover as much material as possible so we started right away. No pushups or jumping jacks for a warmup. Instead we started with the Inside Defenses. Slowly and methodically, focusing on details and a deeper understanding of the move and the context. I kept moving through the room giving little pointers and making corrections. As soon as we ironed out the details of one we moved to the next. After Inside Defenses we went to the ground and tackled foot grabs, pulls, axe kicks and spin outs with kicks. Some participants never even considered various attacks we had covered. Then we got back up to dig deeper into elbow strikes. Here we focused on generating power to make the elbows as devastating as could be. Pivoting, weight shifting, understanding RANGE (thank you Jerry) and angles, even proper pad holding were explained and drilled. Next on the list were bear hugs and here again we left no stone unturned. Jerry reminded us all about the importance of RANGE while Baby and Johnny demonstrated the perfect hand placement for the bear hug from the front defense. All who trained that night have a new found appreciation for Dirty Dancing and its pivotal role in helping us execute Krav Maga techniques correctly.
And just like that, as we were moving down the list, the time was up. We all looked at each other seemingly thinking the same thing, “where did the time go?” We covered so much yet we all were ready for more. It was then that the familiar feeling I’ve had so many times before returned - these were the fastest three hours.
Thank you to all who showed up and made it a great training night in Troy. Hope it was as much fun for you as it was for me. And for those who have never done one before, I’ll be looking forward to seeing you next time. Maybe you too will experience the fastest three hours of Krav Maga training?
Pawel Cichowlas
3rd Dan Black Belt Krav Maga Instructor
