Brief History of Krav Maga
(The following is printed with permission from the KMU Instructor Manual)
Imi Lichtenfeld is generally considered to be the founder of civilian Krav Maga. However, in trying to track down the history of any fighting system, be it for art, sport, or combat, you will find a wealth of people, techniques and conflict that shape the development and philosophy of that system. In Krav Maga that development is heavily tied into the history and evolution of the Jewish State of Israel, or more accurately, the Israeli Defense Force.
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) was born out of the Haganah, which in turn came to being out of neighborhood watch groups who were tasked with protecting Jewish settlements in British Mandate Palestine. The Haganah based their hand to hand fighting techniques on jujitsu, boxing and stick fighting. As the Haganah matured, so did its fighting and training methodology.
One person, whose early influence can still be seen in Krav Maga today, was Moshe Feldenkrais. As a member of the Haganah and a proficient Jujitsu practitioner, he became frustrated with jujitsu’s ineffectiveness under real life combat situations. He found that students who performed techniques well in class were being injured or killed when trying to apply the same techniques under duress. Because of this, he set out to create a new training method. He wrote a book called “Jujitsu and Self-Defense”.
In this manual he wrote his concept of “first natural response” which had two components.
One, the idea that defense should be based off of our natural, reflexive reactions - “The first movement of each counter is the most natural movement dictated by the instinct of conservation or self-defense. It will always be the movement which is called forth in spite of oneself, almost as a reflex. And one has only to learn how to finish the counter, the choice having been made by nature itself.”
Two, the learning process will be faster if we start with those natural reactions - “Practice shows that a comparatively short period of training is amply sufficient to learn how to continue the counter which was already begun, and how to carry it out effectively. The contact between the part of the body which produces the first instinctive movement and the limb of the aggressor or his weapon calls forth the impulsion that urges you to continue. And one succeeds in carrying out the necessary counter in practice as well as in the training hall, if not better, owing to the greater zeal one puts into real defense”.
Between 1936 and 1940, a collaborative group began to pull together guiding principles and uniform methodologies for teaching the various hand to hand fighting techniques. This system was referred to as Kapap (which is an acronym meaning hand to hand unarmed combat). It included boxing, jujitsu, stick fighting, knife fighting, bayonet and throwing stones, and each course was taught separately.
In 1941, the Haganah held the first Kapap instructor training course. The chief instructors were Maishel Horowitz (stick fighting), Gershon Kofler (jujitsu), and Yitzhak Shtibel (boxing). From this collaboration, a unified approach to teaching the elements of Kapap was developed. Gershon Kofler wrote “Sport Magen”, the definitive document of Kapap.
Kofler was later killed in action and his position was filled by Yahuda Markus, who was the chief hand to hand instructor for the Palmach (an elite branch of the Haganah).
In 1946, Markus was killed in a shooting accident and his students gathered his teachings together into a book called “Judo Shimushi” (practical judo).
The stick fighting portion of Kapap was a mixture of the local cultural use of clubs and influence from the British police who used batons. Originally broken into two styles of stick fighting, the walking stick method and the short stick method, the short stick became more prominent because it was easy to conceal in the sleeve of a shirt or jacket. Maishel Horowitz oversaw the writing of a stick fighting manual and the short stick became the “trade mark” of Kapap. Stick fighting techniques have gradually been replaced by the use of long guns in close quarter combat.
In 1944 Imi Lichtenfeld was recruited into the Palmach and became a Sport Magen instructor. In 1948, Israel’s independence was declared and the Israeli Defense Force was created from the infrastructure of the Haganah. A physical training department was established and Lichtenfeld was a staff instructor.
In late 1948, the term Krav Maga (meaning contact combat) begins to appear in official documents, although it is used interchangeably with Kapap and “Judo Shimushi” until the 1950s when Krav Maga became the accepted term for hand to hand combat.
In 1953, Lichtenfeld is assigned to head a committee which is tasked to condense the hand to hand combat material into a short manual of two chapters. They were to base their work on “Judo Shimushi” and all other previous Kapap material.
By the mid-1950s, Lichtenfeld is considered the leading authority on hand to hand combat. The revisions in training protocols from this time period are recognizable as today’s Krav Maga.
Imi Lichtenfeld is generally considered to be the founder of civilian Krav Maga. However, in trying to track down the history of any fighting system, be it for art, sport, or combat, you will find a wealth of people, techniques and conflict that shape the development and philosophy of that system. In Krav Maga that development is heavily tied into the history and evolution of the Jewish State of Israel, or more accurately, the Israeli Defense Force.
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) was born out of the Haganah, which in turn came to being out of neighborhood watch groups who were tasked with protecting Jewish settlements in British Mandate Palestine. The Haganah based their hand to hand fighting techniques on jujitsu, boxing and stick fighting. As the Haganah matured, so did its fighting and training methodology.
One person, whose early influence can still be seen in Krav Maga today, was Moshe Feldenkrais. As a member of the Haganah and a proficient Jujitsu practitioner, he became frustrated with jujitsu’s ineffectiveness under real life combat situations. He found that students who performed techniques well in class were being injured or killed when trying to apply the same techniques under duress. Because of this, he set out to create a new training method. He wrote a book called “Jujitsu and Self-Defense”.
In this manual he wrote his concept of “first natural response” which had two components.
One, the idea that defense should be based off of our natural, reflexive reactions - “The first movement of each counter is the most natural movement dictated by the instinct of conservation or self-defense. It will always be the movement which is called forth in spite of oneself, almost as a reflex. And one has only to learn how to finish the counter, the choice having been made by nature itself.”
Two, the learning process will be faster if we start with those natural reactions - “Practice shows that a comparatively short period of training is amply sufficient to learn how to continue the counter which was already begun, and how to carry it out effectively. The contact between the part of the body which produces the first instinctive movement and the limb of the aggressor or his weapon calls forth the impulsion that urges you to continue. And one succeeds in carrying out the necessary counter in practice as well as in the training hall, if not better, owing to the greater zeal one puts into real defense”.
Between 1936 and 1940, a collaborative group began to pull together guiding principles and uniform methodologies for teaching the various hand to hand fighting techniques. This system was referred to as Kapap (which is an acronym meaning hand to hand unarmed combat). It included boxing, jujitsu, stick fighting, knife fighting, bayonet and throwing stones, and each course was taught separately.
In 1941, the Haganah held the first Kapap instructor training course. The chief instructors were Maishel Horowitz (stick fighting), Gershon Kofler (jujitsu), and Yitzhak Shtibel (boxing). From this collaboration, a unified approach to teaching the elements of Kapap was developed. Gershon Kofler wrote “Sport Magen”, the definitive document of Kapap.
Kofler was later killed in action and his position was filled by Yahuda Markus, who was the chief hand to hand instructor for the Palmach (an elite branch of the Haganah).
In 1946, Markus was killed in a shooting accident and his students gathered his teachings together into a book called “Judo Shimushi” (practical judo).
The stick fighting portion of Kapap was a mixture of the local cultural use of clubs and influence from the British police who used batons. Originally broken into two styles of stick fighting, the walking stick method and the short stick method, the short stick became more prominent because it was easy to conceal in the sleeve of a shirt or jacket. Maishel Horowitz oversaw the writing of a stick fighting manual and the short stick became the “trade mark” of Kapap. Stick fighting techniques have gradually been replaced by the use of long guns in close quarter combat.
In 1944 Imi Lichtenfeld was recruited into the Palmach and became a Sport Magen instructor. In 1948, Israel’s independence was declared and the Israeli Defense Force was created from the infrastructure of the Haganah. A physical training department was established and Lichtenfeld was a staff instructor.
In late 1948, the term Krav Maga (meaning contact combat) begins to appear in official documents, although it is used interchangeably with Kapap and “Judo Shimushi” until the 1950s when Krav Maga became the accepted term for hand to hand combat.
In 1953, Lichtenfeld is assigned to head a committee which is tasked to condense the hand to hand combat material into a short manual of two chapters. They were to base their work on “Judo Shimushi” and all other previous Kapap material.
By the mid-1950s, Lichtenfeld is considered the leading authority on hand to hand combat. The revisions in training protocols from this time period are recognizable as today’s Krav Maga.