Curriculum breakdown

Loki

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Here's a brief run through of how Krav Maga is structured. Curriculum is made up of two parts: combatives and self-defense.

Combatives
Sparring and everything around it. This part is usually covered in the warm-up, where we abstract a few concepts (i.e. defending by evasion alone, marking weak points on an immobile partner's body) and then move on to a few rounds of sparring. Probably nothing new to any martial artist that's sparred before. Combatives are learned as individual techniques as part of belt progression, and are usually incorporated fast as they are a must for sparring. As the ranks progress, there is less combatives in the curriculum and more self-defense.

Self-Defense
Self-defense techniques divided between the ranks of yellow and black. The higher the rank, the higher the need for technical ability, coordination, dexterity etc. Some techniques are only reserved for higher ranks because they're more dangerous. As the ranks progress, self-defense becomes more dominant than combatives.

Belt Curriculum
Yellow Belt
Comabtives - Covers the basics of combatives, namely the stance, closing of the fist, jab, hook, uppercut, front kick, roundhouse, sidekick, push kick, elbows.

Self-defense - This rank focuses on releases from chokes as well as the basic roll and fall-break (I'm not sure about the name, when you slam your arms against the ground to break your fall).

Orange Belt
Combatives - Advanced striking with the hand, instep kicks, defenses against kicks and punches and more advanced rolling and fall-breaking.

Self-defense - Bear hugs.

Green Belt
Combatives - Slap, scissor and spinning kicks and defenses against roundhouses and jabs.

Self-defense - Defenses against a knife at leg distance, one defense against a stick, hair pulling, bear hugs when lifted off the ground and an arm-choke from behind.

Blue Belt
Combatives - Some of the fancier kicks (Spinning slaps, scissor side and scissor roundhouse), ax kick, outer defenses against jabs, defenses against sidekicks and three defenses aginst front kicks to the head.

Self-defense - Releases from chokes on the ground, wrist grabs on the ground, full nelsons, shirt grabs, wrist grabs and wrist lock techniques, as well as two more stick defenses.

Brown Belt
Combatives - Kick combinations and sweeps.

Self-defense - Knife VS knife, empty-handed knife defenses at close range, two outer stick defenses (ending at the attacker's blindside), three bayonette techniques (a relic, true, but good against any long weapon used in a stabbing motion like a heavy lead pipe), drills against two armed attackers and neutralizations of gun threats.

Black Belt
Combatives - Impossible kicks like jump spinning roundhouse, jump spinning mule kicks and so on, two kicks defenses with takedowns, and counter attacking drills.

Self-defense - Agressive bear hug releases involving throws, releases from wrist grabs from behind, stick VS stick, quarterstaff VS quarterstaff and neutralization of knife threats.

Black II - Black V
Mostly LEO and military curriculum, things like use of a rifle as a striking weapon, takedowns, neutralizations with armbars and wristlocks, defending a third party, defending against a chain, binding, use of police riot gear, application of choking (air and blood), takeovers, Judo techniques, Aikido tehcniques and more.

 

mantis

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sorry Loki for making you type all that stuff
that's really good info
I did some search last night as well and bumped into a nice site that covers some of the moves with what is required for belt progression.
the site is http://kravmagaoc.com
I think this would be the closest school to my place, so if I decide to switch to KM for a while this is gonna be my school. and you're more than welcome to tell me what you think.
thank you
oh, there's one question that I cant get anybody to answer. how long does the whole thing take? i heard KM is the fastest system in terms of finishing the whole curriculum, which makes it specially efficient. how long does it take from a belt to the other, and how long is the whole thing to reach the 2nd black belt?
 
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Loki

Loki

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The don't provide too much information on who, but there's a lot of what. I found it a bit disorganized, but the curriculum pretty much parallels what we teach here.

As for the place, there's no info on who runs it, but I did see it's associated with Darren Levine, who I was told is McDojo, but he covers most of the US. Since it's in Cali, it might actually be a KM instructor and not someone else, so it might be ok. I say give it a shot.
 
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Loki

Loki

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arnisador said:
Bayoents? Police gear? This is some militarily oriented and up-to-date stuff!
Speaking of bayonettes, my understanding is that the Geneva Convention outlaws bayonettes since it's combining a cold weapon with a hot weapon. Does anyone know why that matter or has heard differently?

Did some neutralizations today (oh yeah!)... that we stole from Judo!
 
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Loki

Loki

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mantis said:
oh, there's one question that I cant get anybody to answer. how long does the whole thing take? i heard KM is the fastest system in terms of finishing the whole curriculum, which makes it specially efficient. how long does it take from a belt to the other, and how long is the whole thing to reach the 2nd black belt?

Wow, am I overdue...

Krav Maga belt progression is similar to most MA's, 7 years or so to 1st black belt. 2nd black is at least another two years. Minimal times between ranks are:

White-Yellow: 4 months
Yellow-Orange: 6 months
Orange-Green: 10 months
Green-Blue: 1 year
Blue-Brown: 1 year
Brown-Black I: 1 year
Black I-Black II: 2 years
Black II-Black III: 3 years
To Black IV and up: 4 years

Sum up the times and you get about 5 years. This is the minimal amount of time a person with a moderate amount of training (relative to his rank) and high motivation would take to reach black belt. This rarely happens, and most people take 8 years or more. There are exceptions in the other direction as well. We have a highly motivated guy who trained all week and reached black belt in 4 years. So 7 years more or less, exceptions aside.

As for covering curriculum quickly, there are some techniques from higher ranks that can be taught to a lower ranking student or someone with no KM experience, since one principle of KM is simplicity, but repetition is the only path to muscle memory.
So yeah, while you could probably cover the curriculum faster than, say Karate, where you have a lot of katas to memorize (we did it in two and a half weeks in my instructors course), you'll forget it soon after.
 

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