Krav Maga - An Essential Guide to the Renowned Method--for Fitness and Self-Defense Description:

Krav Maga : An Essential Guide to the Renowned Method--for Fitness and Self-Defense review:
4 stars (Good source of insight into Krav Maga.) - This book is a valuable insight into Krav Maga. I thought it was well written and considerably informative. Although the technique section wasn't very helpful because it is hard to get an idea on how a technique is carried out by looking at a small drawing of a person using arrows to show direction. If you want to learn about origins and history of Krav Maga then this book is what you want. But if technique instruction is what your looking for then I recommend the DVD set, or even better join a class.
2 stars (The first two levels) - Until now, there has not been a book on krav maga techniques that relates to a average practitioner. This book tries to fill that gap, but in my opinion, it does not do a very good job.



At the beginning of the book, Kahn explains why krav maga is so good self defense system. This section annoyed me a bit since Kahn is way too biased, and the text reminded me of TV infomercials. After that, he goes through the history of krav maga, explains the basic principles of krav maga, tells some basic principles of real world self defense, touches on the subject of avoidance, and so on. While it is a good thing that Kahn has covered these issues about real world self defense, he does not do a very good job about it. I even began to wonder about his expertise on these subjects.



Next, the book moves on to actual techniques. The book covers the first two levels of krav maga techniques, therefore the average krav maga practitioner can use the book as a reference book. Unfortunately, the techniques are instructed so vaguely that you really can't learns them from this book. There are drawings on every technique (usually 2 of 3 for every technique), but they are not very good, either. Therefore, you must seek an instructor to teach the techniques, and use this book to assist your training at home.



At the end of the book, there is a complete, 12-week training program intended for persons who have no previous krav maga experience, and are training at home. Unfortunately, as with the techniques, this training log is not detailed enough. For some reason, they have fitted the training program to a much too cramped chart, that has forced Kahn to keep the explanations to a minimum.



As a summary, I would say that the main accomplishment of this book is that it is the first krav maga book that is aimed for the average practitioner. Unfortunately, as a manual, it is not very good one.
4 stars (good intro to krav maga) - I did two plus years of krav maga pretty religiously, to green belt level. I got this book, and I would say it is very good. It is the only book out there that details basic krav maga techniques, and for that, I think we should thank the author. I was a bit surprised to hear the Israeli guy say it is not real military krav maga, because I trained several times here in the U.S. with Israeli Seals and paratroopers and I see no real difference between their system and what David teaches (plus, the krav maga I learned is the exact program designed in Israel by Imi for the IDF). Yes, there is a lot of "politics" in martial arts (!), and yes, it is very "par for the course". The author states that he travelled to Israel to learn krav maga, so I also found it odd that someone would say he doesn't know the "Israeli version of krav maga". I found this book to be a really solid intro. to krav maga. It is just, there is nothing like the intensity of a krav maga class. If you have been in a class, the intensity is just so real and important, and you can't get that from a book. I recall doing like 30 seconds of hard knees into a pad someone was holding, with 3 krav guys yelling at me to "stay in the fight". I recall being in a darkened room, with people with pads pushing in on me, with my eyes closed, and someone yells "gun !!", and you have to fight your way out past the people and find the gun guy and defeat him. I recall the adrenaline, the stress, the sweat. You of course can't get all those "military" things in a book, but you can at least see the krav maga program. I think this book is a good introduction to krav maga.