Krav Maga 2.0

A few of my friends did Krav Maga for a bit, they talked about it like they knew what they were doing so one of my favourite games is to hit Hughes in the face when he isn’t paying attention and shouting where’s your Krav now! Hours of fun for the whole family.

A couple of times around 4am, after too much vodka, Frizzo has given me his padded headgear and gloves and he’s convinced me it will be fun to fight. He was correct! Drunken Frizzo is a great teacher, he goes over foot movement, how your wrist should be, different combinations etc over and over again until I think I’ve got it. I don’t but drunken Becki sees things differently.

So after a few drunken lessons I’m obviously going to be a pro at this. I googled Krav Maga Central. They have classes all over Birmingham and Doug Ellis was quite close to me so I chose that one. Who knew there was two Doug Ellis sports centres! Not us, so unfortunately we went to the wrong place.

The guy who I’ve been emailing, Steve, kindly agreed to let us go the next week so we didn’t waste our money. This time we turned up at the Aston uni one and found the studio upstairs.

One of my previous favourite friends, Squeak, came with me. She is now usually hibernating so I’ve had to down grade her down a bit however I’m so glad she came with me as it was great fun getting to hit her.

We started with a warm up which involved moving around and throwing a few air punches, this made me feel about silly but definitely warmed us up. We then broke into pairs and practiced hitting the pads in front of us and below. We then got to simulate pushing your attackers head down and kneeing them in the groin and running away.

This was when I figured out that Krav isn’t drunken fighting, it seemed like something you’d actually do if someone tried to attack you on the street to keep yourself safe. The main point that the instructor, Darren, kept stressing is you aren’t there to fight you disable them in the most affective way you can, while scanning for an exit and then legging it. It is truely self defence rather than just fighting.

We then did a circuit of 3 stages. First we did hand to hand combat when someone tries to grab you, which involved jabbing someone in the throat or clawing at their eyes and then running away. Then a fake knife where we slapped the knife towards them, punched them in the face/ kicked in the groin and ran away. Then a bat, which you sort of dived at it so the bat was close, punch lots then run away.

I was extremely good at running away! Squeak kept forgetting but she’s abit of a bruiser. She punched me in the face twice and got complimented for her aggression whereas making noises and running away was my forte.

After that we got to practice a lying down technique of turning your knee, kicking them lots and running away.

When Kitty came home I asked him for a hug, turned, kneed him, kicked him lots then ran away. He is very happy about my Krav Maga skills=)

Rankings in comparison to Roller Derby

Fun – It may have been because I was with Squeak, but pretending to attack her and getting to hit her was lots of fun. I think with a stranger I would have taken it more seriously.

Value for money – The first lesson was £6.47 if you paid online. Usually it’s £10 for an hour class PAYG or if you get membership £35 for one lesson per week or £45 for unlimited classes. I think this may be a bit too pricey for me at the moment unless I could commit to membership.

Join-ability – There are lots of classes every day of the week and the instructor explained it well for the newbies and gave harder moves to the more experienced guys so I could go with my experienced friends.

Spam-ability – I will be telling people to try and stab me with a knife for the next few days!

Total of 13/20 Excellent fun! If it was £5 an hour I’d probably go once a week.