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History

 

The art of Krav Maga was founded by Imi Lichtenfeld (Sde-Or). Imi was born in Bratislava to a famous police officer and circus acrobat. As a child, Imi excels in various sports such as wrestling and boxing and practices several martial arts. When anti-Semitic riots began to spread in her hometown, Imi and her family were forced to immigrate to Israel (Palestine at the time).

In 1948, once Israel had declared its independence, Tsahal (Israeli Defense Force) officials approached Imi and asked him to develop a self-defense and combat system based on his experience and work with the units special forces like Hagana, Palmach and Palyam.

Over the course of his 20 years of service as a chief hand-to-hand combat instructor, Imi carefully refined the methods of Krav Maga, making it the official combat training for all military personnel, Israeli police and security forces. Imi developed a doctrine enabling both soldiers whatever their physical form to practice it successfully. Rather than rigid movements and techniques requiring years of training, like all academic systems, Krav Maga incorporates instinctive and simple movements accessible to all.

 

Over the course of his 20 years of service as a chief hand-to-hand combat instructor, Imi carefully refined the methods of Krav Maga, making it the official combat training for all military personnel, Israeli police and security forces. Imi developed a doctrine enabling both soldiers whatever their physical form to practice it successfully. Rather than rigid movements and techniques requiring years of training, like all academic systems, Krav Maga incorporates instinctive and simple movements accessible to all.

In 1964, Imi retired from Tsahal and continued to teach Krav Maga to civilians, as well as law enforcement units and military applications. The Krav Maga Association was founded by Imi and several of his students in 1978, in order to promote the unique techniques of Krav Maga locally and then around the world.

When the teaching of Krav Maga began to spread beyond the borders of Israel, there was a need to establish an international organization. Imi hopes to form a new international Krav Maga federation with the support of her most loyal students and respected instructors. In this dynamic, the organization and development of the discipline has gradually moved away from the initial goals as taught by Imi: to effectively train civilians so that they can survive an aggression by adopting a "closed" academic system (as a "kata") and a superficial access see random (By negotiating for example the content and therefore the result of the test or by imposing on the experts who evaluate the candidates to make them all successful...) to the different grades.

Faced with this alarming finding since the purpose is to satisfy a "client" finding from the inside with more than 25 years of experience in the organization and with its status of highest ranked French and member of the world team of trainers, Stéphane Constant gradually broke away from these training systems and evaluation in order to train its own students and instructors with a unique dynamic as taught by Imi:

 

Instinctive reactions versus violent aggression