TRIED & TRUE : Sissy’s Self-Defense Instincts Kick In With Krav Maga

The first hint I got of what was in store came when the instructor told us to touch the toes of one leg while sitting with the other leg stretched out behind.

“Ouuuuccchhhhh!” I groaned, my thighs aching even though my fingers had stopped several feet short of their goal.

I hate physical exercise of any kind. Always have. If it involves sweat and muscular strain, I’m definitely not your man. My idea of a good time is an evening spent watching the fish in my aquarium grow. When I was a kid, I always got picked last for any team in P.E. class. Captains would take one look at my sedentary eyes and run the other way.

So it was with some trepidation that I recently decided to take a class in Krav Maga, the Israeli self-defense system. Not that I’m against self-defense, mind you. I’m as unwilling to get rolled as the next guy. It’s just that, well, I’ve always sort of considered myself a coward. When other guys were volunteering for military service, I was conjuring up medical excuses. Instead of watching football or the fights on TV, I generally prefer curling up in my favorite chair with a magazine.

And Krav Maga is not exactly a hobby for cream puffs. For many years, in fact, it has been the official martial arts system employed by the Israeli Defense Forces, anti-terrorist units and various branches of the Israeli National Police Force.

The system has its roots in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, of the 1930s. It was there that Imi Lichtenfeld, a champion wrestler, boxer, gymnast and son of the chief martial arts instructor of the Czech national police force, learned during skirmishes with Nazi youth gangs that fighting by the rules doesn’t always work, especially when you’re badly outnumbered.

Lichtenfeld later escaped the Nazis, immigrated to Israel in 1948 and has spent most of his life developing and defining Krav Maga, which is pronounced krahv ma-GAW and in Hebrew means “contact combat.” Eventually he became the chief instructor for physical fitness and hand-to-hand combat of the Israeli Defense Forces and author of the government’s manual on self-defense.

The method arrived in the United States in the early 1980s, imported by followers convinced of its applicability to the situation found on many of America’s streets. What they liked about it, they said, was its practicality--the fact that it focuses entirely on winning at any cost without wasting one iota of energy on show.

“We don’t grade you on style,” one of our instructors told us on my first day in class at the Jewish Community Center in Costa Mesa. “If you are attacked in the street, we expect you to kick to the groin, scratch at the eyes, pull out the hair--anything to get away and avoid being hurt.”

I think it was that last bit that really reeled me in. Avoid being hurt. Now that was something I could relate to. I mean, heck, I may be a sissy, but I’m sure not dumb. I read the newspapers. I watch the tube. I know that my chances of surviving the streets of Southern California without being attacked are about as good as those of my 8-year-old daughter getting through childhood without a cavity.

So I found myself decked out in black sweat pants and white sneakers one recent evening, facing a middle-aged lawyer from Orange with murder in his eyes. His name was Ron Cole--a guy with a definite purpose in mind.

“The next time my wife comes up from behind and tries to choke me,” he quipped when the class was over, “I’ll just grab her.”

In fact, believe it or not, it was the chokehold maneuvers that were the most difficult to perfect. Harder than the simulated groin kicks, applied smartly to a pad held tightly between your partner’s knees. More difficult than the elbow slugs, shot deftly into the gut of an attacker approaching from behind. And more challenging than the gut punch sent screeching into the midsection of a practice foe amid bloodcurdling screams of “keeeeeeeyyaaaahhh!”

Simply put, the idea regarding the chokehold is that to break it you must move swiftly and suddenly, catching your enemy by surprise with a deft, almost dainty, pluck of his wrists from your neck, followed by a deadly blow to the tenderloin.

“For practice, divide your movements into parts,” we were instructed. “Mount your attacks in slow motion to give your opponent time to react.”

The problem was that good practice required the application of a real chokehold, one that depressed the Adam’s apple of your opponent just enough to evoke the proper measure of gut-wrenching panic and, thus, the correct physical response. Only neither Ron nor I could bring ourselves to actually do it. Guess we just liked each other too much.

“That’s not a choke,” the instructor taunted us repeatedly throughout the evening, “that’s a massage !”

Gradually, however, we persevered. By squinting our eyes at each other, affecting a sort of grimace and pretending to be real mad, we were finally able to muster up at least the suggestion of a choke or two between us. Thus we crossed over one of the first barriers to Krav Maga nirvana: the belief that inflicting pain on a training partner is undesirable.

“If your partners don’t defend,” the instructor told us, “give them a smack! We want you to learn what it feels like to get hit.”

Ron and I learned a great deal that first evening. So much so that my arms and shoulders ached for a week.

But there was a message in the pain, and it was this: In the wilds of Southern California, it’s not so bad to be able to defend yourself; learning to fight requires a tremendous amount of time and energy, and such skills are not completely inaccessible to nerds or cream puffs.

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Krav Maga is taught at the Jewish Community Center, 250 E. Baker St., Costa Mesa. The eight-week course costs $75 for JCC members and $95 for non-members, with classes held each Tuesday and Thursday from 7 to 8 p.m. and 8:15 to 9:15 p.m. The next session begins June 15; for information, call (714) 751-0608.