Lovin' the Krav

So, when I was in Seattle, I dabbled in about eight martial arts.  Sadly, I didn't spend enough time to get actually good at any of them:  some were for a month, most were for a semester; the longest was about two years.  In order, they were:

• Aikido
• (long break)
• Karate
• Shaolin five-animals kung fu
• (short break)
• Hung-Gar kung fu
• Judo (there was a semester where an evening class conflicted with Hung-Gar)
• A different Aikido (one summer, instead of Hung-Gar)
• Mantis style kung fu (two or three weeks, visiting Australia)
• Tae Kwon Do (another summer, instead of Hung-Gar)

(Note:  If I don't specify the style of Aikido, Karate, etc., it's because I don't remember.)

During the period that I was dong Hung-Gar, I also observed a friend's fencing session, and did a session of archery.

(I also did wrestling in middle school for a season.  It was OK; I think I'd get more out of it now, given my broader martial arts context.)


Then, since moving to Australia about ten years ago, I've intermittently shopped around for martial classes (roughly once every two years).  I've observed a class session of:

• Zen Do Kai (met at a local community hall)
• Aikido (at the university gym where my wife worked)
• Capoeira (also at the university gym)
• Lei Quan Gong kung fu (also at the university gym)
• Jeet Kune Do + Escrima/Kali (a few neighborhoods away)
• Black Crane (a few neighborhoods away, in a different direction)

...and, nothing panned out.  For a variety of reasons. But essentially, they all had good points -- but also had aspects that I didn't want. 


So:  My kids are taking a Tae Kwon Do class once a week at the local gradeschool.  About two weeks ago they had their first belt testing.  And as I sat in the bleachers and watched them going through their moves -- I got the itch again.

There's a local Ju-Jitsu class (traditional style, not Brazillian) that I'd been considering over the years.  I e-mailed the instructor, asking if I could observe the class.  No reply.  OK, then -- never mind.

I also did a web search on local Wing Chun and Krav Maga schools.  All the Wing Chun classes I could find were too far away from where I live.  Conversely, I found two Krav Maga branches ten minutes away from home:  each in a different direction, and both part of the same organization.


I went and observed an "Intermediate/Advanced" session of Krav on Thursday night, March 13th.  Very promising!

The Krav webpage said that Thursday, March 20th was the start of the new term at the other branch -- and the first class is free.  That was tonight.  So I attended.


I'm sold, I'm in.  Signed up.


Krav Maga won't suit everyone.  Different people do martial arts for different reasons:  fitness, spiritual development, sport, sociability, self-defense -- the groovy katas ("forms").

But so far, at least, Krav has everything that **I'm** looking for -- and none of the things I want to avoid.

We'll see how things go.


--GG