Martial History Team

   Welcome to the January 2023 book survey, part one. I decided to break this month's survey into three posts. This is the first, and the others will follow shortly. Introduction In January 2023, I (Richard) continued my reading plan. This month I surveyed the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga, military combatives, and mixed martial arts. (I know, Krav people, "it's not a martial art.") Fighting Fit, David Ben-Asher, translated by Miriam Schlesinger, 1983 I bought Fighting Fit because it may be the earliest English language book on Krav Maga. My copy is a 5 5/16 inches by 8 3/16 inches paperback with 220 black and white pages. You can borrow a copy for free from the Internet Archive . The author was a colonel in the Israel Defense Force who was head of combat fitness. He acknowledges the work of "First Segeant Major Emi Lichtenfeld and Lt Col Shaike Barak for the Contact Combat (Krav Maga) section." The book covers physical fitness on pages 15-72, "self...

Recently I was looking at books on judo by Moshe Feldenkrais , and it made me wonder if he had any connection with Krav Maga. I studied Krav Maga for 3 1/2 years in the Krav Maga Global system, and had never heard a word about Mr. Feldenkrais, or anyone of his generation, or earlier, beyond Imi Lichtenfeld, who was always cited as the founder of Krav Maga. When you speak with those in KMG, or almost anyone I've encountered who studies Krav, their story of the system always begins with Imi. It's basically the same tale: Imi was a boxer, wrestler, and gymnast who learned self defense techniques from his father, a policeman, in 1920s Bratislava, now the capital of Slovakia. In the 1930s, Imi helped defend other Jewish people during the anti-Semitic violence. In the 1940s he migrated to Israel, where he invented Krav Maga and taught the Israeli Defense Force. He later brought the system to the civilian world, from where it has now flourished across the globe. It turns out th...