Krav Maga History - Boston

Israel (and Israelis) have always had to learn to do things quickly. This is especially true in military areas. From the moment the state of Israel was founded in 1949 it was under attack on all sides from its Arab neighbors. If you're serious about surviving you learn quickly.

Israeli military preparations were being made well before 1949 and these included training in unarmed and close combat. Training in this area had been going on throughout the 1940's lead by a Slovakian immigrant, Imi Lichtenfeld. During this period Lichtenfeld was consolidating and developing his knowledge and experience as a street-fighter, boxer and wrestler into a simple system of self-defense/fighting that was simple to learn and that a practitioner could make effective in a short period of time.

From the 1940's through to the mid-1960's (Lichtenfeld left the IDF in 1964) Imi continued to work within the Israeli military developing and refining the system that he termed Krav Maga (meaning 'close combat' in Hebrew). After leaving the army Imi continued to develop the system (working closely with Eli Avikanazar – his first black belt student- who went on to develop his own system called Krav Magen) with an emphasis on civilian self-defense.

To read more about the system of Krav Maga and how it is taught in our Boston Krav Maga Classes please, click here

In the 1980's the IKMA (Israeli Krav Maga Association) was formed and by this time Imi had a group of senior belted students – including Haim Gidon, the current head of the IKMA, Eyal Yanilov the head of the IKMF (an association that broke away from the IKMA and took with it other senior belts l ike Gabi Noah and Avi Moyal) and Kobi Lichtenstein who now teaches in Brazil.

Around the same time invitations were made to martial arts practitioners in the U.S. to come and train in Israel. One of those that took up the invitation was Darren Levine who came and trained with some of Imi's top students for several weeks and took what he learnt back to the U.S. and formed the KMAA (Krav Maga Association of America).

Since this initial visit he has not returned to train with the IKMA and has been involved in several disputes with the organization over his attempted copyright of the name/term 'Krav Maga' in the U.S. and the use of the original IKMA logo (containing the Hebrew Kauf, Mem letters), which he uses for the logo of the KMAA.

Since the 1980's many other organizations and associations have formed each developing their own style/system of Krav Maga. Also many senior students, military instructors etc have continued to develop the Krav Maga that they were taught and combine it with their own martial arts and real-life experience to create other flavors and interpretations of Imi Lichtenfeld's original system.

This is not to say that everything that calls itself Krav Maga is 'Krav Maga'. Krav Maga contains many principles and a very particular approach to self-defense and fighting, which certain systems referring to themselves as Krav Maga don't adhere to.

To read about Gershon Ben Keren's involvement with Krav Maga and his history as a as a Krav Maga instructor in Boston please click here.

A timetable/schedule of classes is shown on the right of this page. If you would like to attend one of our Beginners Krav Maga Classes in Boston, please contact us by clicking here.