What Does a Typical Class Look Like?
So, you've found Pentagon Krav Maga (excellent! That means I have satisfied the capricious Algorithm Gods that run Google), and you're interested in joining us. But you find yourself a little unsure of what to expect. Perhaps you've seen videos on YouTube of highly-trained man and woman in combat fatigues going ham on one another, or read articles extolling its ferocity, and find yourself thinking 'but I work a deskjob, can just about jog/walk a mile, and have never so much as raised my voice at someone! I'm going to fucking die!' Let me reassure you that the reality of training is not nearly as scary, by talking you through a typical class at Pentagon Krav Maga.
We will always line up at the start and I’ll do a quick brief of what the coming class will entail, and do a quick check-in with everyone to check for illnesses or injuries that we need to be aware of. We’ll then start with a warm-up, to get the blood flowing and the joints and muscles nicely loosened off. It’s not boot-camp - we’re simply concerned about injury minimisation here. Once we’re loosened off I’ll typically do a Trojan set with the group to get some strength and cardio development. The Trojan set is part of the Trojan Workout (check out the website here), developed by Martijn Bos in the Netherlands. Martijn is probably the single most senior IKMF instructor outside of Israel and he developed the Trojan Workout as a means to build strength in a time-efficient manner. An example of one of these sets would be a circuit featuring a hard-style plank, a punch-out on a pad, and a set of press-ups, repeated at your own pace. I had the great privilege to qualify as a Trojan Workout Instructor in September, and I love including these sets in my warm-ups.
From there, we’ll move into the class proper, nicely warm and with a light sweat on. For me, the bread-and-butter of Krav Maga is the stand-up striking, so every class will involve some kind of striking drill, be it combinations of punches to focus pads, to really focused work isolating, say, a particular kick, developing power and precision. Something that really sets Krav Maga training apart from more familiar martial arts like karate, and which I instantly fell in love with when I first started way back when, was this emphasis on actually hitting stuff, rather than striking the air. Quite aside from the developmental benefits which are difficult to really nail down without some form of resistance - power, proper targeting and range-finding, timing, and simply developing sufficiently good form so that impact with something doesn’t fold your wrist like a wet noodle - it’s also wonderfully cathartic. I’ve long said there’s no therapy quite like Krav therapy… Down in the dumps? Come to class and smash up some pads. Shit day at the office? Work the pad and imagine it’s your obnoxious colleague with the punchable face. Whatever ails you, Krav offers a great outlet, one that in my own experience has been a real boon for my mental well-being over the years.
Of course, we don’t just spend the whole 90 minutes hitting 1-2 punches on focus pads - that would get dull for all concerned, and your shoulders would not be pleased! I will gradually build complexity into the drills, adding some combination of trigger conditions (for example, a shove to the chest to model a precursor to violence that warrants a physical response), multiple attackers so you have to decide which problem you need to engage first, options for the pad-holder to make a first-strike, and so on and so forth, with us learning any relevant techniques as we go. We remain conscious of our ultimate self-defense objective throughout, remembering the crucial need to maintain awareness to possible or imminent attack, preventing the attack where possible, and safely escaping at the earliest opportunity. These elements will always be present in our drills, and if I’m feeling mean I will give penalties for missing these aspects, though, in the spirit of accountability and leadership, any penalty I give I will also serve - we grow together as one!
Underpinning our practice we have the detailed and well-proven IKMF syllabus that provides the technical bedrock to everything we do, and I will generally include a deep-dive into one of the syllabus techniques every class, such as a particular hand defense, or the solution to a particular grab or hold, such as the classic playground headlock that anyone who grew up with a brother has no doubt experienced! While the IKMF has a grading system, wherein students are tested on a set of techniques pertinent to their level, there is no obligation on the practitioner to grade, and no detriment to them of they choose not to grade. The most clear manifestation of this is in the fact that a practitioner will see the whole spectrum of techniques regardless of their ‘level’ over the course of their training. There is nothing that says ‘oh, you’re not a P3 yet so I can’t show you the bear-hug techniques’, and this is something that I have always really appreciated about IKMF Krav Maga - you can get a full array of vital knowledge without jumping through hoops.
I like to run my classes in a thematic manner, with classes building up to a crescendo of sorts over the course of a few weeks. For example, throughout November I’ve used a single strike combination (jab - cross - elbow - clinch for knees, then disengaging, scanning and escaping) as the foundation for a whole host of different scenarios including an attacker swinging a punch to your head, or a kick to the groin, or going in for a headbutt, covering each situation in turn over a number of weeks so that in the end we could do one big final drill at the end where the pad holder is free to do any of these attacks and the person doing the drill has to determine the correct action. To further increase the stress we started from an all-out onslaught of strikes onto a pad to get a bit of physical fatigue, and then starting working the scenarios from an eyes-closed condition, so you won’t know what’s coming. The whole point is to push the student to and beyond the limit of their comfort zone and force a situation where the technique will inevitably degrade, but first equipping them with enough knowledge and practice that they can still be effective under those sub-optimal conditions. I still obey the axiom of ‘Injuries Are Useless’, so the build-up is gradual, allowing students to really get familiar with the motions, but also each other. I’m very careful to foster a culture of cooperation and learning together, without ego or competition, and ramping up the pressure slowly so that no-one is thrown into a panic state where injuries and/or distress eliminate any benefit from the exercise.
Once the class is done, we will line up once more to conclude the session. Again, I will check-in and debrief, especially if I’ve ran a particularly challenging final drill. We will then bow (Kida, to use the Hebrew term!), the only ‘dojo etiquette’ we have in what is otherwise a very ritual-free and utilitarian style, and shake hands with one-another as a gesture of camaraderie and good-will. Again, it’s about having a culture of mutual growth and learning, and looking after one another. So, with all this said, I hope that, if you’re looking at joining us but a little anxious about whether it would be too much to handle, that this has provided some reassurance for you to take the plunge…!
All blog posts are reflective of the private opinions of the author, and are not to be considered as an officially-held position of any organisation, including the IKMF and Pentagon Krav Maga. Pentagon Krav Maga, the IKMF and the author will not held be liable for any action or inaction taken by a third-party as a result of this article.
