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I Have Seen it Work
BY MOSHE KATZ
CEO
ISRAELI KRAV INTERNATIONAL
August 15, 2025, Israel
This technique is very secure, the weight and leverage of my entire body is upon his arm, It is my entire body against his wrist. I am in a very balanced position while he is now off balance, He is not in a position to strike at me, this is how Krav Maga should look, nothing fancy, no faith, just honest logic.
Buyer beware, A fool and his money are quickly separated; a sucker is born every day; these are terms I grew up with and have followed my entire life. I have always ignored advertisements, false, fake; owning a fancy car does not automatically give you the woman in the advertisement, drinking Coca Cola does not make you enjoy life more. I reject advertising totally. I have become immune to it. Despite being a business major, I rejected the entire field of advertising. Present your product honestly and people will find you. I never liked the psychological manipulation of advertising.
But these days it is much worse, far more dangerous that when I was a child, social media, the internet, dangerous. But when it comes to Self Defense, you may lose not only your money but your life, or your body, your dignity, your daughters' purity and innocence.
These days I see a lot of postings about women's self-defense. I can take each and every move/technique, analyze it, break it down step by step and show any reasonable person the many flaws in the approach. I will show you how and when the attacker can easily pull his knife away and stab you. I will show you why your grabbing the gun in a certain way will fail. I can prove it all logically, physically, and empirically. There is no reverence here for "masters", only for life and logic. I will convince you.
There was a woman showing a series of techniques so bad that it just upset me, and what upset me more where the legions of women not only praising her, You Go Girl! but actually trying to learn this stuff. So I respectfully offered my critique, as a public service. I do not want to see people trying this for real against a violent attacker.
The insults and personal attacks quickly followed, as expected. Of course, no one bothered looking up who I am and what credential I have. That would be too much trouble. I was even accused of being anti women (by promoting true women's self-defense? ) had they checked they would know that I was honored with a special award in Israel for the promotion of women's martial arts and I was one of the key players in the first Women's Martial Arts seminar in Israel, which lead directly to the formation of the Israeli Women's Martial Arts Associations. So much for stupid personal attacks by clueless people.
But I digress.
One of the individuals criticizing my critique offered the following words of 'wisdom', "I saw a case where this actually worked!"
So there! I have been proven wrong. :)
Or not.
Even if his words are true, which I highly doubt, a single chance success of a bad technique does not prove anything, other than - anything can happen.
Years ago, during a seminar in Ottawa, Canada, a female college student told me she is attending my course because she was held up at gun point, from behind. I asked her what she did, as she had clearly survived. She said she turned around and quickly grabbed the gun, in a very awkward way.
Lessons learned:
1. In any give situation, anything can happen, it does not need to make sense. Perhaps you told a guy a joke and he laughed so hard he dropped his gun. it can happen. But that does not prove that this is the most effective defense vs a gun threat.
2. In most real situations, the attacker is confident that the intended victim will not react, or try to defend him/herself. While we cannot count on this, it does give us a certain hope, and advantage.
3. The fact that the defense worked did not convince her that it was a good technique, thus she came to my course.
Conclusion: Anything can work, but very few techniques will work on a consistent basis, on a reliable basis, for most people. Our goal is to improve our chances for survival.
And now a story from a comedy, and there is much one can learn from comedies. Larry David, on "Curb Your Enthusiasm", he is wearing a pair of sneakers with shoelaces that are simply too long and awkward. He goes to the bathroom, as he comes out there is a very rude drunk man abusing a woman. No one is able to take control of the situation. Now Larry David walks out, trips on his very long shoelaces and accidently knocks down the drunk man and is on top of him. He is immediately hailed as a great hero, and the pretty woman sitting next to him, who previously ignored him, becomes his new girlfriend.
Now, my point, this "technique" of tripping over your long shoelaces and toppling the bad guy, should we start teaching it to counter-terror units? After all, someone could say, "I saw it work!"
Clearly the logical answer is, no. The fact that this "Long Shoelace Kung fu" technique worked once in a real-life case does not a system make. A technique must be proven, logically and empirically, tested again and again, against resisting opponents. Yes, anything can work once, by chance. So the fact that one can say, "I saw it work", is truly meaningless.
Our system was carefully crafted over many years, with input from many people all over the world, it is not flashy, it is simple, and it works. Proven. All over the world, not on social media.
Moshe Katz, 7th dan Black Belt, Israeli Krav Maga. Certified by Wingate Institute. Member Black Belt hall of fame, USA and Europe.
Understand the Israeli Fighting Mentality - Israel a Nation of Warriors by Moshe Katz
What is the cultural background of Krav Maga? What makes it unique? What makes the Israeli military so effective? Why are Israeli security systems used all over the world?
What are the Biblical origins of Krav Maga and who was the first Krav Maga instructor?
What weapons and military strategies did our Biblical ancestors use?
How has Krav Maga developed in Israel and what are its goals?
All that and more in this unique book.
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