October

Oct. 2010
KOMBAT MASTERS
®
of Long Island IF YOU HAVE LOST TRAINING GEAR, CHECK THE LOST & FOUND—IT MAY STILL BE THERE!
REMEMBER TO GATHER UP YOUR GEAR BEFORE YOU LEAVE. THE LOST &
FOUND IS A LONELY PLACE FOR GLOVES, SHIN-GUARDS, HEAD-GEAR, ETC.
KMLI – KOMBAT MASTERS™ of Long Island (516) 935‐KRAV The Island’s KRAV MAGA Training Center This Just In…….
KMLI
They showed up ready to rumble— and now “Loco” Dan
DeLuca, Jessica “The Bick” Bickman, “The Amazing”
Randy Seider, and Chris “The Pastry Maven ” Anastasiadis
can call themselves Krav Maga Orange Belts.
With just four people testing on September 26th, it took
“only” four hours for these fighters to get through Bill
Primavera’s sturdy warm-up, all the Level 1 material and
then Level 2 techniques. The last ten minutes of the test
were spent in light sparring—the perfect way for Chris,
Jess, Randy and Dan to end their test and begin their new
training level.
With family and friends watching (and cringing), the three
men and lone young woman choked, kicked, punched,
arm-locked and ground-fought each other, keeping up a
high level of skill, mutual encouragement and support, and
enthusiasm. With KMLI co-owner Mozelle Blitz cheering
“Don’t mess with Jess!” the three big guys discovered that
being a diminutive teen girl meant nothing to Jessica as
she held her own admirably against the guys.
Congratulations to all four outstanding Krav Maga students--we’ll see you in Level 3!
KMLI Participates in
“Saving Promise”
Tour Event
at
Roosevelt Field Mall
nd
On Saturday, October 2 , KMLI
was one of the featured presenters
at the “Saving Promise” Tour event
held at the Roosevelt Field Mall in
Garden City. The event featured a
number of organizations including
Safe Horizons, the largest victim’s
services agency in the United
States. Also on hand were
representatives from the Nassau
County Coalition Against Domestic
Violence. KMLI had been invited by
the organizers in recognition of our
efforts to teach reality-based selfdefense to women as well as men.
Speaking on behalf of KMLI, coowner Mozelle Blitz talked about the
need for women, in particular, to
refuse to be victims, to learn to
defend themselves and to fight back
against those who try to victimize
them. She said, “If it sounds like
Krav Maga is a violent system,
that’s because it is. It has to be so
that women can stop someone
before [the attacker] can harm them
further—or at all.”
As always, we were honored to
have been invited to participate in
an event like this. In the coming
months, we will be conducting
workshops at local synagogues,
youth-groups, and we will be a
featured presenter at the two-day
Long Island’s Women’s Expo in
April, 2011.
All Krav Maga
Training is Not Alike
New Comic by Paul Benincasa!
Learn more &/or purchase at:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/spitfacedcomicworks
Questions come up about whether all Krav
Maga programs, courses, and schools teach
the same curriculum. No, they do not. There is
an acredited Krav Maga curriculum, as
developed by Founder, Imi Lichtenfeld and
refined by the Master Instructors certified by Imi
himself. (continued on Page 3)
YOGA
Quote of the Month:
“I have very high
nipples”
Knuckles Rosenberg
& Wednesdays at 9:30 AM Now, at KMLI’s Front Desk… On September 30th, Jullia Talusan joined the KMLI team. Julia
will be responsible for the Front Desk and for Member Services
such as contract-renewals and extensions, questions about our
unique membership plans, and more. If you have not already
done so, introduce yourself to Julia—she’s great with names
and already seems to have learned more than half of our
members’ names as well as a few nicknames!
Perhaps only Instructor Frank Pomara
could get away with saying that a fractured
cheekbone
(his
own)
is
‘mostly
psychosomatic.’ But for most, a fracture or
tear, a severe muscle sprain or strain, or a
wound requiring stitches feels real enough.
On the other hand, what about those
“injuries-that-are-really-not-so-much”?
Like it or not (and obviously we like it!),
Krav Maga training entails getting “nicked
up” on a regular basis. This can include
black and blues, a “mouse” on the shin or
forearm, jammed fingers, a bloody nose,
the occasional black eye, bruised ribs,
even those tell-tale scabbed-over pellet
wounds from the Airsoft Guns. No
problem, right?
The problem isn’t so much being on the
receiving end of these relatively minor
insults-to-the-body; the problem is trying to
train with a partner who may be a bit
overly concerned by having one of these
aches or pains—or about the possiblity of
having one “inflicted.” The result of this
concern is, too often, that the training
partner will have little problem banging up
his or her training-mate while, more or
less, avoiding having any of the same
‘badges of honor’ bestowed upon him or
her.
One of the toughest parts of Krav Maga
training is the discipline to “get” as good as
you “give.” If you want your training
partners to hang in there while you dish
out (controlled) counter-strikes, you must
realize that your partners expect the same
of you. Happy bruising!
Tuesdays & Thursdays at 9:00 AM Before coming to KMLI,
Julia worked for several years
at a busy real-estate office.
In addition, she has done some
training in Muay Thai and looks
forward to being able to join
KMLI members on the mats to
learn Krav Maga. When she is
not working at KMLI, Julia is
studying to become a Physical
Therapist.
Julia Talusan
Flashback! Summer 2009: Michael & Cory Blitz unpacking and setting out new mats in the new space. Which
Weapons?
We are frequently
asked about Krav
Maga’s
weapondefenses and about
which weapons we
practice with.
Starting in Level 3,
students work on
defenses against
attacks with sticks,
lengths of pipe, and
similar objects. In
Level 4, students
are required to
learn many of Krav
Maga’s defenses
against knife threats
and
attacks,
handgun threats,
and
multiple
attackers who may
or
not
bear
weapons. Also in
Level
4,
and
extensively in Level
5, students defend
against a wide
variety of objects
used as weapons:
chairs and stools,
chains,
axes,
baseball
bats,
broken
bottles,
rifles, sharp pieces
of
metal,
and
miscellaneous other
things that an
attacker
might
deploy.
News from Ena
If you were a member of KMLI between 2004 and the end of 2009, you
knew Ena Jain, who ran the Front Desk so gracefully for those five
years. Now, completing nearly a year of work and travel in India, Ena
plans to return to the U.S. some time in January of 2011. Among her
many accomplishments while in India, Ena started up a new business
(!) involved in providing overseas-interns with a more comprehensive
experience during their internships. Upon her return to the States, Ena
plans to fine-tune her company website (www.leaveUrMark.com), build
up her business, and of course, come see her friends at KMLI!
3
All Krav Maga Training is Not Alike
Hmmm…How can I know if class has been canceled? (continued from Page 1)
While the approved Krav Maga curriculum may have undergone minor modifications between
Israel and the U.S., the basic principles, and the step-by-step instructional methodology have
remained consistent for six decades. This is not to say that Krav Maga has not evolved; it has.
It has always been a dynamic system that adapts, when new circumstances, weapons, and
types of attacks must be met with updated defensive tactics and responses.
There are a number of schools on Long Island that began as Karate, Tai Kwon Do, or Kung
Fu training centers that have added a couple of Krav Maga classes to bolster their
memberships. KMLI has, over the years, ‘inherited’ a large number of the students who began
their Krav Maga training elsewhere but found that they were learning a kind of hybrid system
combining one or more of the traditional martial arts with a loosely organized Krav Maga
component. None of these schools has succeeded in keeping current with the Israeli Krav
Maga curriculum, as evidenced by what their former students had been taught. Self-defense
programs that teach a hodge-podge of “various arts” and them claim, somehow, to make
them all cohere “through” Krav Maga are, simply, not authentic Krav Maga programs.
At other locations, Krav Maga may form the basis of the instruction, but the curriculum has,
for the most part, been scrapped in an effort to prematurely “front-load” advanced techniques.
In this way, some schools have attracted students who want to be taught, for example,
weapon-defenses long before they are truly competent in hand-to-hand defenses and fighting.
Such schools then ‘certify’ instructors who are in no way adequately prepared to teach such
techniques. (This has been the downfall of the Hagannah system; students were being taught
advanced techniques like neck-breaks, joint-locks and knife-defenses within just a couple of
weeks of training. After around 30 days of training, Hagannah students were, typically, given
teaching ‘certifications’—and encouraged to open schools and programs so that they could
pay affiliation dues to the Hagannah leaders. As students of these “instructors” increasingly
began to suffer very serious injuries—broken necks, dislocated knees, ankles and shoulders,
and worse—Martial Arts Liability Insurance companies simply stopped insuring Hagannah
teachers and schools).
It is always up to students to decide where they would like to train, and KMLI has never
pretended to be the only game in town. We encourage prospective members to try classes
with us as well as at other locations. When they do, many return to sign up with us. KMLI
stays current with the Krav Maga curriculum as established by Imi Lichtenfeld, refined by the
most senior Master Instructors of Israel and the United States. We could abandon this
curriculum—and our principles—and market ourselves to those who want to be taught highlevel techniques without going through the required foundational training, but we won’t.
Besides being unethical—and unsafe—to do so, we see no reason to abandon the very
system that has been proven, time and time again, to be one of the most effective and highly
respected throughout the world. For these reasons, KMLI is recognized here and in Israel as
being Long Island’s premier Krav Maga training center. We were honored when International
Krav Maga Chief Instructor Gabi Noah observed after his KMLI seminar, “This is a real Krav
Maga school. This is a great place to train.”
Huh?! Even I know to check the the “School Closings” link at www.KMLI.com OR to check the FORUM, OR to sign up for an up‐to‐the‐
minute text‐message by texting “KMLI” to 69302 It’s—like—sooooo obvious! New Class at KMLI:
“Kombat Circuit Training”
Every Wednesday at 6:00 PM Kettle Bells, Indian Clubs, Hand & Long‐gun Strikes, Weighted Shadow‐
boxing, Calisthenics, Plyometrics, Hand & Leg Strikes, and More! Michael Cohen—triathlete, Israeli Defense Forces veteran, and certified Krav Maga instructor—will be your teacher, coach, and “drill‐sergeant.” Kombat Circuit Training has been designed specifically to enhance your fitness, strength, and your Krav Maga training. Like your Krav Maga
training? Tell a friend to
become part of the KMLI
family!