This self-defence system teaches you how to protect yourself in dangerous situations

Krav magá ( ‘contact combat’ in Hebrew) is a personal self-defence system that anyone can use to protect themselves in difficult situations.

It was devised in the 1940s in Israel, as a self-defence method that teaches individuals how to protect themselves in situations that may occur in the streets and other everyday locations.

Not a sport nor a martial art, this is a set of simple, easy-to-remember defence mechanisms. The idea is to prepare you for unsafe situations so you can deal with them with the minimum possible risk and the maximum confidence, ensuring your safety and wellbeing at all times.

Why learn Krav Magá?

1. Anyone can do it: you don’t need to be very fit, since the idea is that everyone can do it and defend themselves, with or without experience.

2. It prepares you for threats: to be able to defend yourself effectively, you must be alert to everything happening around you. This technique teaches you how to act and which resources you can use in challenging systems, keeping stress levels low.

3. Easy to learn and remember: these are intuitive techniques that you can use to protect yourself and emerge unscathed from extremely hazardous situations.

4. Use your common sense: much of what you learn is based on avoiding violent and dangerous situations. Resolving things through discussion and walking away from a conflict is always the best option.

5. Helps you to protect yourself: The basic idea is to immediately neutralise the attacker’s intimidation and to defend ourselves with our own bodies (shouting, kicking, elbowing etc.).

6. Training for rapid reactions: your defence mechanism must be as quick, powerful, and precise as possible, since complex movements are difficult to perform when under pressure.

This method of self-defence uses movements that have an element of surprise, to try to avoid injury and escape from the situation.

“It is better to retreat in time and admit defeat," Napoleon Bonaparte.

This post is also available in: Portuguese (Portugal)