KRAV MAGA USA - HISTORY

History of Krav-Maga in USA

The Early Years

In 1980, contact was established between various Krav Maga figures in Israel and Mr. Daniel Abraham - a Jewish-American businessman. Mr. Zvi Morik, who was serving as the first secretary of Krav-Maga in Israel, led the initial contact with Mr. Abraham. Further to this, Mr. Abraham decided to help disseminate Krav Maga in America.

In 1981, with the assistance and funding of Mr. Abraham, a group consisting of six of the top Krav-Maga instructors traveled to the USA to conduct demonstration visits in a number of cities. Mr. Peter Kramer, appointed by Mr. Abraham, was in charge of the visit and the various organizational details.

The visit participants were the late Mr. Imi Sde-Or (Lichtenfeld), the late Mr. Eli Avikzar, Eyal Yanilov, Shaike Barak, Rafi Algarisi, and Reuven Maimon. During the five week visit, the Krav Maga system was demonstrated mainly at Jewish community centers in cities such as New York, Miami, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, Baltimore among others.

One such demonstration was filmed for a local television network in Atlanta, and the film was then distributed among various TV stations across the USA, including stations in New York and California.

At the end of this program Mr. Yanilov and Mr. Maimon remained in the USA and conducted several Krav-Maga demonstrations in New York and Philadelphia, including at a local FBI branch office in New York and at the FBI's main training center. These demonstrations were organized by Mr. Peter Kramer.

In the wake of this visit, Mr. Daniel Abraham, aided by Mr. Kramer, organized a group of 22 people who traveled to Israel in summer 1981 to attend a basic instructor course in self-defense based on the Krav Maga method. The course duration was 6 weeks, with training for about 6 hours per day. The course instructor was Mr. Eyal Yanilov, with Mr. Reuven Maimon assisting him. The course was partly funded with the aid of Mr. Abraham, the remaining financing came from the participants themselves.

After the course, Mr. Eyal Yanilov wrote an Instructors Manual, which was translated into English by him and Mr. Peter Kramer.

First Activities in the USA

After the completion of the first instructor course in Israel, conducted by Eyal Y. and Reuven M., the course graduates returned to the USA, and most of them began training activity in various frameworks. Instructors like Alan F. (Philadelphia) Darren L. (Los Angeles) Rick B. (Miami), Catherine F. (Baltimore) and more started teaching on a regular basis, civilian groups as well as teenagers

During the years 1983-1985, while serving as an emissary in New Jersey, Mr. David Ben Asher (Col. ret. who was in charge on the Physical Training Department of the IDF), who at a later stage also served as General Secretary of the Krav-Maga Association, worked extensively to promote the system in the USA.

Together with Imi Sde-Or (Lichtenfeld), Mr. Ben Asher lectured before various groups at several locations along the east and west coasts of the USA. Mr. Ben Asher either brought in instructors from Israel or availed himself of the assistance of Israeli instructors who were already in the USA, studying or working, and engaged them to teach Krav Maga. Instructors such as Guy Cohen, Zeev Meirson, and Boaz Aviram were particularly active. At this time, Mr. Daniel Abraham founded an organization to coordinate the training activities in the USA.

Second Generations of KM Instructors

In 1984 and 1986 additional American students, trainees from branches that had been established by the first generation of Krav Maga instructors who were trained in Israel in 1981, came to Israel so they themselves could qualify as Krav Maga instructors. In 1984 a group of 8 students from the training center in Los Angles (under instructor Darren Levine) and Philadelphia (under instructor Alan Feldman) arrived in Israel to take part in an instructor's course conducted by Eyal Yanilov. In 1986 a second group came from Los Angles to Israel, to train under Eyal in order to become assistant instructors. During the late 80's until the mid 90's, Eyal Yanilov visited the USA (east and west coasts) several times to give seminars and educate local instructors.

Starting Teaching Law Enforcement

In 1985 Mr. Avikzar was invited to demonstrate Krav Maga to Law Enforcement officers in Los Angeles, In 1987, Mr. Avikzar and Eyal Yanilov visited the USA to teach Law Enforcement and civilian courses. In 1988, Mr. Yanilov and Mr. Barak, assisted by two American Instructors (Darren Levine and Daniel Sovetky) taught three one-week Law-Enforcement courses organized by the Illinois State Police. Eyal Yanilov was professionally in charge on the content and structure of the courses and the teaching. Although over the age of 78, Imi Sde-Or came for a visit at the Illinois State Police Academy, where the course was conducted. Most of these activities were initiated by the Krav Maga Association of America (KMAA), with the aid of the relevant Israeli instructors.

Up until the mid 90's, Eyal traveled to the USA to teach once every one or two years. Among others trained by him are officers from many law-enforcement units in the USA.

IKMF in USA at Present

In support of these fledgling activities of the KMAA it was agreed that Eyal Yanilov and the high level Israeli instructors would travel to the USA to teach and support the local KM instructors as well as be part of the organization there. However, many of the local instructors (our ex-students) have not abided by this arrangement.

The result has been that in the past 10 years or so, neither Eyal Yanilov nor any other high level Israeli instructors have visited the USA to teach Krav-Maga to the KMAA/KMWW instructors (the main group of our ex-students) and their students. Except for a small number of local instructors who are co-operating with the IKMF, no other person in the USA has received from us any teaching, updated material, monitoring or quality control. The system has evolved considerably in this time and so the majority of Americans with a legitimate interest in the system have been cut off from the source of updated information.

So as very few American instructors have had the opportunity to travel to Israel to IKMF-HQ, to other IKMF sanctioned events around the world, or to visit other legitimate instructors of KM, we have decided to re-commence operations in the USA and bring our advanced, updated, efficient and well rounded system and teaching to the USA and Canada. We will conduct seminars, instructor courses and open certified training locations.

Trade Marking the Term 'Krav Maga'

We are understandably opposing the attempt of the KMAA to trade mark the words 'Krav Maga' in order to monopolize the term and the system we originally taught to them.

We consider it to be a rather sad and ironic if not outrageous situation, that the KMAA (led by Darren Levine, who was one of Eyal's students) is now suing Eyal Yanilov and the IKMF for a large sum of money for using the name and teaching Krav Maga.

To make it clear, NO person or organization OWNS or has a Trade Mark on the term Krav Maga.

Most people may know that the words Krav-Maga are a generic Hebrew term meaning Contact Combat or Touch Fight. It is also the name of our system.

In 2006 the IKMF will conduct a program of activities in the USA, beginning with a series of seminars, as well as initiate intensive training for civilians, law-enforcement and other professionals.

Starting March 2006 we will conduct instructor courses around the USA and Canada.

Please look at our Calendar for the future events.

Owners of martial art schools and training locations and martial arts instructors are welcome to contact us in order to co-ordinate seminars in their schools/locations.

Publications

Early articles about KM in civilian newspapers in English appeared in the 1960's and 70's in Israel's Jerusalem Post.

In 1982, the first issue of Black Belt magazine to include an article about Imi and KM was published. During the following years, Mr. Ben-Asher arranged and submitted articles for various magazines in the USA

In 1983 Mr. Ben Asher, through Putnam Publishing Group, brought out a book called "Fighting Fit", which described some basic Krav-Maga techniques and also provided fitness-improvement exercises that originated in the IDF. During the same period numerous articles on Krav Maga were published in the USA, in both the general and the Jewish media.

In 1991, an abstract of the Krav Maga book by Imi Sde-Or (Lichtenfeld) and Eyal Yanilov, describing the system, was published by Mr. Zvi Morik. The book "How to Defend Yourself against armed Assault" was subsequently published in 2001, as a co-operative venture between Dekel Publishing House (Israel) and Frog (USA). This book has been translated into several languages including Japanese, Spanish, Czech, Dutch and German, and published in the corresponding countries.