SDTS is NOT Krav Maga

Don't believe the hype. Sure Krav Maga "says" a lot of things similar to the SDTS but you can't judge a system by its marketing. Even though there are some good techniques in Krav Maga, a few good techniques or concepts does not mean it's effective.

In order to evaluate a system you need to look at it from a complete learning perspective. Most people will go through a curriculum technique by technique and judge each individual reaction to a situation as a good or bad, this is the wrong approach. In order to look at any system as a whole you need to look at it from the training experience perspective.

Take mathematics for instance. You learn basic principles and then you discover how to apply those basic principles to more complex equations. The same holds true for self defense. You need to see the same, viable concepts running through every situation. A viable concept must work under the conditions it's intended to work.

The problem with martial arts and most self defense systems is that they are based on the same formula: block, catch or grab the initial attack, strike, then finish with a wrist lock, take down or another controlling technique. They require a set of motor skills and reasoning that are not available under fight or flight circumstances.

Martial arts also attempt to provide different reactions to each individual type of attack. They look at each assault as an isolated incident from the attacker's perspective instead of looking at it from the defenders point of view. Meaning, here's the attack and if I were to disable this guy I would do X.Y.Z. the defender's point of view its about development of muscle memory and your ability to recall those actions under stress when you least expect it. Martial arts focus on your attacker while The SDTS focuses on what you will be able to do when you're attacked.

For illustration we took three attacks, a double collar grab, a collar grab with a knife to the throat and a collar grab with a gun to your head and compared the Krav Maga defense to the SDTS defense. Now we couldn't find any Krav Maga defenses for a knife with a collar grab or a gun with a collar grab either. Maybe they don't grab the shirt a lot in Israel, who knows, but we did manage to find a few to illustrate our point.

At first glance the the primary difference between the Self Defense Training System (SDTS) and Krav Maga are:

Krav Maga uses both gross and finite motor skills
The SDTS uses only gross motor skills
Krav Maga requires you to learn different, unrelated skill sets for each individual scenario
The SDTS gives you only one skill set for hundreds of possible scenarios
Krav Maga requires you to shift focus from weapon to attacker than back to weapon again
The SDTS has no real shift focus, after you clear the weapon it's attack, attack attack
Krav Maga assumes that you're only going to need to strike your attacker once (with the exception in Scenario 2 b)
The SDTS knows that not all strikes hit there mark and trains you to continue your counter attack until the threat is gone

Considerations
We know that under extreme stress you can not use fine [finite] motor skills. Fine motor skills are the coordination of small muscle movements which occur e.g., in the fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes. In application to motor skills of hands (and fingers) the term dexterity is commonly used. When applied to the theory of human aptitude this is called manual dexterity. Twisting the wrist, catching or grabbing an opponents hand, small movements and manipulations are all fine motor skills. On the contrary, gross motor skills involve large muscle groups and body motion.

Under stress you will only be able to focus on a single purpose. We know that once you decide to act you will continue to do that act until it's complete. If you decide to train a wrist lock, under stress you will continue to attempt that lock until you succeed. People fleeing a burning theater will burn to death trying the same locked door over and over again and will never look for another way out. Since you can only successfully focus on one purpose it must be to disable your attacker as fast as possible. Anything less will cause you to focus on something less critical, like a disarm. Look, if you hit him until he's unconscious, you won't need the disarm but if you try to wrestle the weapon away from someone who's has fight left in them you're leaving yourself vulnerable.

Scenario 1 Krav Maga defense against a double lapel grab you see a wrist lock (finite motor skills), and elbow strike and a cross stomp (finite motor skills). Shifting focus from hand strikes to kicks at close range is a little dicey. Why bother when you can just crack him in the head continually.



Notice the "stiff arm attack". When someone does grab you in this manner they do it to intimidate. That means they will jack you up and get eye to eye. Now the instructors does mention this type of attack but refers to a completely different set of skills to defend it! Adding another defense you have to remember.

Scenario 2 A Krav Maga defense against a knife to your throat clears the weapon (good), kicks him in the nuts (good), does a wrist twist (shitty). Here we see only one strike and then a useless wrist twist take down. Also, why does this technique differ so much from scenario 1? You could easily clear the weapon and elbow strike him.

Also note that this is another stiff arm attack. Look, if someone is mugging you in the street they are going to get in your face in intimidate you. They're also not going to want to draw attention to themselves. That means they're going to be as discreet as possible. Coming in close not only is more intimidating, it conceals the weapon from the rest of the world.

Scenario 2 B Krav Maga defense against a knife to your throat requires you to clear the weapon (good), punch him in the face (good), then go to the elbow hook and start stabbing him with his own knife (ridiculous). Again, this starts off great but then get's ridiculous. However, it's good that he repeatedly bashes his attacker in the face, but then he goes for the cutesy, make him stab himself bullshit. Again, more stiff arm attacks from the bad guy.



Krav Maga Scenario 3 starts off great, clears the weapon (good), cracks the guy in the face (great) and then goes to some ridiculous disarm. You have the guy on the ropes, the gun pointing away from you, why not continue to bash his head in?!?!?

The beginning of this defense is similar to scenario 2 defense. What they really should do is use the repeated face punch for ALL scenarios. Heck, guy jacks you up, punch him in the face, the guy sticks a knife to your throat or a gun in your face, clear the weapon and punch him in the face repeatedly. That would be splendid. But they don't, they chose to get fancy and do the same martial arts BS.

A final note on Krav Maga defense 3. Punching your opponent in the head runs the risk of breaking your knuckles on his jaw or skull. Try grabbing anything with a shattered hand and squeezing, let alone performing a wrist lock-disarm, securing the weapon, taking aim and squeezing the trigger. This defense assume two major "what ifs" 1. That you can hit him hard enough once to enable you to disarm him and 2. That you didn't break your knuckles on his skull.

Krav Maga uses the typical martial arts formula is this, grab or block the initial attack, strike and then finish with a fancy wrist lock, take down or controlling technique. You know what the problem is with teaching fancy moves, when you teach them, that's all anyone wants to practice. They gloss over the strike and focus on the harder tasks, the block, grab and fancy finish. It's only natural that you do this, you can't help it. The obvious problem is this: you pay no attention to the most important part, the strikes that will disable your enemy. The result when your stressed is that you will focus on the thing you spent the most time on...the fancy shit that your body has no physiological chance of pulling off (remember the finite motor skill issue?). The result will be some gross motor skill interpretation of what you practiced and it will be neither effective or fancy.

Another glaring problem is that only 1 defense (2b) showed any sort of repeated striking. All of the other defenses assume you're going to knock your target silly with one strike!!!! Those of you who have been there know one thing's for certain, in the street you miss...a lot.

That being said, here's the SDTS reaction to ALL of these scenarios:


That's it, one technique for 3 different scenarios. Sure it's not completely sexy, but it's brutal and it works. It trains you to use one set of techniques. Do you realize what happens when you train similar techniques over and over again? They become awesome. No one got into the hall of fame for knowing a lot of moves, they got there from doing a few things really well. Bruce Lee said it himself, I don't fear the man who's done 1000 kicks one time, I fear the man who's done one kick a thousand times.

Conditioning for combat requires you program a behavior that you will do subconsciously. SAYING that you will remember to hit him repeatedly is not the same as practicing to hit him repeatedly. Once you start to injure him you need to continue it until he's no longer a threat. You can disarm him when he's unconscious. This business of taking a firearm away from a man who's will to point it at you is stupid, movie, Hollywood bullshit.

At the end of the day Krav Maga is like any other martial art. It teaches you separate techniques for each individual situation. It follows the "block or grab initial attack, strike and fancy finish" formula of martial arts. Let's call that the B.G.S.F.F. formula (look another fucking acronym is born!). It also assumes that every strike you do hits it's target with devastating power. The only difference is between Krav Maga and other martial arts is the lack of sparring!

A final note: training to hit and destroy requires that you actually hit something repeatedly. Hitting the air, pulling your punches or striking soft cushy pads doesn't do the trick. We suggest you train to hit things as hard or harder that all the surfaces of the human body have to offer...oh and don't forget about belt buckles, helmets and anything else kids are wearing these days.

I lied...I have yet another final note.

There's another reason why the SDTS doesn't punch and why I highly doubt that Krav Maga was ever anything but a commercial attempt to market the Israeli culture. In a military application, punching is useless. Punching with a closed fist will run you the risk of shattering your hand. When you break the knuckles of your forefinger you can not use that finger. Try squeezing the trigger of your UZI when your hand is smashed to bits. Try gripping a knife or anything for that matter when the for knuckles of your hand are crushed. In the SDTS you learn to use the heel of your hand or the edge of your hand as your primary strikes. You may dislocate a finger or two with the edge of hand, but your primary gripping fingers will not receive any damage. This will still enable you to grip a firearm or edged weapon. Any military system that uses a closed fist is highly suspect. Considering that most of your targets will have helmets, firearms and other gear that will turn your fist into oatmeal.

At the end of the day Krav Maga is really no different than any other martial art. It's just marketed better.

Train Honestly,


Damian Ross, CEO The Self Defense Company


Damian Ross is CEO of the Self Defense Company and developer of The Self Defense Training System, the most lethal and effective self defense system in the world, The Guardian Defensive Tactics Police Combatives Program, 60 minute Self Defense and the Family Safe Program. Mr. Ross also founded the Self Defense Instructor Program that helps people develop their self defense careers from the ground up. Mr. Ross is originally from Ridgewood, NJ where he was a High School Hall of Fame Athlete in football and wrestling as well as a varsity wrestling coach. He then went on to Lehigh University where he was a varsity wrestler and football player. Mr. Ross has 3 black belts, 4th Degree in Tekkenryu Jujutsu, 2nd Degree in Judo, 2nd Degree in Tae Kwon Do. In addition to his martial arts experience, Mr; Ross spent 8 years in the professional security and personal protection business. He is internationally recognized as one of the foremost authorities in reality based self defense.