Interview with Krav-Maga instructor, Amnon Darsa

[Mr Boogaloo]

Known generally for its no-nonsense street application and the horrendous damage that the system can potentially cause, Krav Maga is sometimes viewed as an evil cousin of the fighting arts. However, this skewed perception fails to take into account where the system has come from and the intentions of its practitioners.

The style is taught in a respectful, safety-conscious environment just the same as any traditional martial art, only with the added twist that it is designed to save your life, and the lives of your loved ones, rather than be employed in any form of competition.

Ironlife.com recently caught up with Amnon Darsa - one of Krav Maga’s most senior instructors – to find out more about the fascinating and often-misunderstood system.


(Keeping the knife away from him, Amnon lands a knee)

How would you describe the style, or the art, of Krav Maga?

First, I would say it’s not an art, it’s a fighting system. It’s not a beautiful art; art is something beautiful. Krav Maga is not an art, it’s a fighting system designed primarily to survive everyday street situations that people can encounter during their regular life. It’s adjustable to whatever age, population group, whatever; small against big, big against small. It’s as adjustable as we can make it.

When was the system first devised, when was it born?

Officially it was born in 1964, that was when it was official. But before then it was used by the Israeli defence forces, it was part of a soldier’s education. He learnt how to shoot and he learnt how to fight hand-to-hand combat. Because it was initially in the military, it was really military-orientated, so everything was ending up by killing the opponent – a little bit aggressive, but this is the job of a soldier.

This is how it started. Later on, Imi [Sde-Or], he was the father, the inventor of the system in the army, he started teaching it outside the army, in civilian life. But the Krav Maga that he had was not suitable for the civilian, so then the whole Krav Maga started to shift into more of a self defence type of system. Now it’s about saving your life, or saving your friend’s life and getting away.



So, in a street situation, what sort of attacks is it designed to defend against?

Everything from punching, to kicking, to threatening with a knife, a gun – everything that happen in the street. Somebody’s pulling your shirt, which is a low-level stress, or somebody’s trying to stab you with a knife, or a broken beer bottle, trying to cut your head. Things happen, a brawl in the pub, this happens; so it’s designed to solve everything. The question is; are you ready for that?

Something you mentioned in the lesson just then was how you hear messages about certain techniques from your affiliated schools and then go back and break down the techniques and take a fresh look at them…

The main approach is to be the best you can in the street, to deal with street situations the best you can. If that means that the problem changes and you need to adjust your technique, you do it, that’s it. Tradition is really nice, but tradition is tradition. Tradition is, we say, ‘fighting yesterday’s war’, and we don’t want to fight yesterday’s war, we want to fight the future war.

If I do not think, if I do not react all the time and try to think what the attacker can do, I put myself into trouble - I cannot evolve, I cannot be the best. So if I get feedback from the other affiliated schools, that we have this and that problem with this and that technique, we will examine this and try to solve it in a better way. Because if we have a better solution, our students will probably survive the situation better. That’s the whole idea, surviving the situation.



It sounds from that and what you said earlier, the modern system is more designed to survive and get away from a situation, rather than finishing your opponent there and then; is that a fair interpretation?

We bring up the students to adjust to the situation as it is, because it’s always changing. If I walk alone in the street, something happens to me, I have only myself to take care of. Something happens to me, someone is threatening me with a knife, he wants my cell phone or my watch – I have to adapt to the situation in the area. I can do my best to take away the knife, after that I can immediately run to the nearest police station, there’s enough CCTV in London, enough policeman… this is what we train the students, to save their life and go for help.

… but if I am with my kid and my wife, I cannot just run, so I have to be a little bit more aggressive, to take him down a little bit more aggressively, causing a little bit more damage because – running away, with my wife and kid? It’s a different story.



Another situation can be being caught in the tube [subway], in the tube if a guy grabs you because he wants your money, where are you going to run in the tube? The tube’s in motion, or just at a station, where are you going to run? There are not so many places to run to. So here, again, you need to be a bit more aggressive and put him down. What can you do in these circumstances?



One thing that gets a fair bit of press is if someone who is very familiar with a fighting system does some serious damage to an opponent in the street, an attacker, they might find themselves in trouble with the law.

In particular, with Krav Maga, which seems to contain techniques which can cause long-term damage, what do you make of the legal situation that your students may find themselves in if they cause serious injuries to an attacker?

Definitely it can cause serious injury, like all types of fights on the street. If two people are fighting in the street, not related to a martial art, if they punch each other they can inflict serious damage on each other.

So this point, it’s no different; we are teaching our students to counter attack to the point where they are discouraging the guy from continuing whatever he’s doing. So if it’s one punch and that’s enough? - or you go to another punch, he falls down, that’s OK. If he’s still fighting, the damage inflicted is not enough, so you need to do more to control him, to discourage him.



Sometimes with one punch, if the guy is big and aggressive you need a bit more, but the idea at the end of the day is to save myself. You have to save yourself, you have to make a decision on what is better; to be judged by 12 or carried by 6?

If he is putting his knife through your body, probably after a few times, you will be dead; so what is better, to survive – OK, you will have to defend yourself in court – which is doable if it’s in self-defence, it’s doable; or don’t do anything and finish 6 feet under?




Do you have any martial arts background away from Krav Maga?

After so many years of Krav Maga, I cannot call this background, but something I did in my past, I did some judo when I was a kid, I did some karate, but I started Krav Maga very early, I started at 13 years old. So I’m always telling my wife, ‘it’s the one constant thing in my life, except you – but I have been with Krav Maga longer than I have been with you!’

She doesn’t really like it, but that’s the truth unfortunately for her. I’ve been doing it for so many years, other things are – for example, I’m doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu whenever I can, Thai boxing whenever I can because I like it and it makes me a complete fighter.



How does the hierarchy of Krav Maga work?

You start as a student on the practitioner level, ‘P’ level - there are 5 practitioner levels, with curriculum to each one so you go 1,2,3,4,5, and you get tested for the different levels. Then after this you have 5 what they call graduate levels, 1,2,3,4,5.

Then there is the ‘Expert’ which is the equivalent of a black belt 1,2,3,4,5 and then you have the Masters – Masters are the ones at the top of the food-chain. After that there was Imi, who passed away ten years ago, he was the founder of Krav Maga.



What do these tests in between levels involve?

There is a curriculum of techniques that the student has to perform in front of an instructor, on top of this there is sparring, fighting multiple opponents, depending on the level that the students are going to, the harder they get. It’s basically like every other martial art, there are certain techniques which you have to perform and that’s it.



It seems like you take all the precautions you can, with padded bats and rubber knives, but do you ever see injuries occurring in these tests or general training?

Because we are pushing our students, training as realistically as we can, we suffer some mistakes. The number of times that I have opened my eyebrow, busted my nose and fingers… I’m not even talking about red marks, black eyes. But it’s very simple, the more that you train, the better you are.

So today, if I make a mistake, I learn something – but usually it’s the other ones who suffer, but always there is someone catching you, somebody who is surprising you. Things happen, unfortunately. Yes, we have injuries, but I’ve been doing this for 20 years and apart from cuts and bruises, nothing happened. I’ve heard about people dislocating their shoulders, dislocating their knees, but fortunately for us, it’s really rare.



Here’s a slightly cheesy question for you – if one of your students were to face a very tough, well-trained, hard-bastard mixed martial artist in the street, what kind of techniques would you advise your representative to employ?

Don’t play by the rules.

[I fall about laughing; Amnon smiles, but continues with a serious look]

We are laughing, but whatever art or sport, whichever you are, most of them have rules. Yesterday, I was rolling around with a BJJ guy - that’s really nice, but what was passing through my brain a lot of times when he was trying to lock me down, things like this, ‘what if I put my finger in his eye right now? If I bite his finger – or on the neck, it will save me’.

In BJJ there are rules, but in Krav Maga, there are no rules. If I were to take a bottle, or my cell phone, and smash it on somebody’s head in order to save my life; I’ll do it. The biggest mistake you can make is to play by other people’s rules. If I take on a Thai boxer and fight by his rules, I can never win; if we fight by my rules, he can never win.



It’s always the same, even an MMA fighter. It’s very simple, if I gouge somebody’s eye out, he can be the best fighter in the world, if he cannot see me, it doesn’t matter, he cannot work, he cannot attack me.

This is the reason why Krav Maga doesn’t have competitions. You cannot have a competition if you don’t have rules. If you put two people in the ring, fighting each other, you need to have rules, because rules keep the people safe and rules judge the people. How can you judge a realistic situation? There is no way.

If [a Krav Maga student] needed to fight somebody as a ‘challenge’ from a martial artist, I would tell that guy, ‘don’t even dream of playing by his rules, play by your rules.’ But there shouldn’t be a problem, ‘you are the best at what you do, I am good at what I do, we are friends’, that’s it.



What would you say to someone who’s heard of Krav Maga and they’re interested in taking up the system?

Come and train. Find a gym and come and train, come and have a little bit of fun, that’s it – because at the end of the day, it’s all about having fun. Of course, you will learn self-defence and everything, but if you are not having fun at training, people will not come back. Have fun, learn something – that’s the best I can say. If you don’t have fun, I haven’t done my job as an instructor.

Many thanks for your time, Amnon, I very much appreciate it!

Amnon is part of the global instructors team from the IKMF (International Krav-Maga Federation) and kindly gave this interview whilst he was in Hendon, North London, teaching an instructors course .

Find out more at www.krav-maga.com