Martial Arts Woburn

About Martial Arts Classes In Woburn
This section of the martial arts Woburn website looks at a variety of areas around the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga detailing a little bit about the origins and history of the system. Interestingly, Krav Maga isn’t even the first or only Israeli Martial Art. The first was a system referred to as KAPAP, an acronym standing for, “Krav Panim a Panim” (meaning “fighting face to face” in Hebrew). This martial art drew from existing ones, including Judo, traditional Japanese Ju-Jitsu, and Karate. Different instructors would pool their knowledge to integrate these different martial arts into a unified program of self-defense and fighting. Often the term “Useful Judo”, would be used interchangeably with the more formal title of “KAPAP” to refer to what was being taught. This martial art/system of fighting was used by the “Haganah” – the Jewish underground resistance who were fighting the British in Palestine to establish an independent Jewish State i.e., Israel. When the state was eventually formed on May 14th, 1948, the Haganah transitioned into becoming the IDF (Israeli Defense Force), and it’s KAPAP program and syllabus became a more formal and structured system. The first head instructor of the program was a KAPAP instructor, Imi Lichtenfeld. Imi had a background in several martial arts including boxing and wrestling and had witnessed practitioners of such martial arts fail to defend themselves effectively when attacked by fascist street gangs in his hometown of Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in the 1930’s; before he emigrated to British controlled Palestine. Over time Imi, along with others, adapted the KAPAP program to base its responses on more instinctive and reflexive movements and started to refer to this evolved system as Krav Maga, meaning “contact combat” in Hebrew.
To read more about what the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga is about you can click here. To see how Krav Maga deals with attacks and threats based on some of its concepts and principles we have created a set of short videos that demonstrate and explain why this system and approach is so effective compared with other more traditional martial arts and combat sports. To take a look at these please click here. If you want to learn more about the instructor team and Woburn Head Instructor, Gershon Ben Keren, please click here. Gershon has also written a number of books about the martial art of Krav Maga, and we have a page describe the subject matter and the approach that was taken in creating them. To learn more about these Krav Maga books, please click here. If you want to see for yourself why Krav Maga is such an effective martial art, you may want to attend one of our classes in Woburn. To see upcoming dates and book a place please use the button below.
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