EMT
Yellow Belt
Krav Maga vs Muay Thai. What are your opinions? I stand on the ground that Krav Maga is a good martial art with one major weakness: the training method
Krav Maga vs Muay Thai
Krav Maga vs Muay Thai
Headhunter
Senior Master
Since you do obviously do Muay Thai it's obvious you pick the other. Do we have to do another one of these silly threads. There's no such thing as better martial arts there are better teachers and better practitioners but not better styles
My Krav Maga is terrible to behold.
My Muay Thai is terrible to behold, as well, but with a totally different definition/homonym inherent in the statement.
The reason being, I trained Krav for about 5 minutes with an old aikijutsu student who went off exploring it and came back to talk to me about it. *shrug* It worked as long as I stood there and let her do it to me. I did the Muay Thai with a young, dumb testosterone-laden intensity for about 5 years, training about 4 times or so a week, for about 3 hours a time.
My Muay Thai is terrible to behold, as well, but with a totally different definition/homonym inherent in the statement.
The reason being, I trained Krav for about 5 minutes with an old aikijutsu student who went off exploring it and came back to talk to me about it. *shrug* It worked as long as I stood there and let her do it to me. I did the Muay Thai with a young, dumb testosterone-laden intensity for about 5 years, training about 4 times or so a week, for about 3 hours a time.
So, you'd say that if one wants to wield skills terrible to behold, there's a short path and a long path?
Verily you scry my thought with clarity.
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
Yes sorta kinda it is the training.
The further you move away from krav the better you get at it. And I think that is kind of the point of krav.
So If you did years of boxing(as an example) got good at that. And then did krav. you would be better at krav than had you trained straight krav.
And this is because the basic ability to move punch and defend. Makes you better able to apply krav techniques. Than specifically training those techniques.
So that when it comes time to throw that street killer eye gouge. You have the mechanics and timing to back that up.
This isn't krav. But I cant be stuffed rooting around for a video. And it shows my point.
This may be impressive eye gouge. But it is fundamentally terrible striking technique. If you boxed like that. You are going to have a bad day.
There is no reason that just because you are hitting with a thumb rather than a fist you have to abandon everything that is good about hitting.
Sorry the point of krav. Is to take these good fundamentals and then apply them to situational defence. So you take good boxing and use that to apply eyegouges. Good limb control and use that to create disarms.
And so on.
So Muay Thai in isolation is more effective. because it teaches more important lessons. Muay Thai and krav is more effective. Because the combination teaches more important lessons. Krav in isolation is less effective.
cage muay thai. For a bit of fun.
The further you move away from krav the better you get at it. And I think that is kind of the point of krav.
So If you did years of boxing(as an example) got good at that. And then did krav. you would be better at krav than had you trained straight krav.
And this is because the basic ability to move punch and defend. Makes you better able to apply krav techniques. Than specifically training those techniques.
So that when it comes time to throw that street killer eye gouge. You have the mechanics and timing to back that up.
This isn't krav. But I cant be stuffed rooting around for a video. And it shows my point.
This may be impressive eye gouge. But it is fundamentally terrible striking technique. If you boxed like that. You are going to have a bad day.
There is no reason that just because you are hitting with a thumb rather than a fist you have to abandon everything that is good about hitting.
Sorry the point of krav. Is to take these good fundamentals and then apply them to situational defence. So you take good boxing and use that to apply eyegouges. Good limb control and use that to create disarms.
And so on.
So Muay Thai in isolation is more effective. because it teaches more important lessons. Muay Thai and krav is more effective. Because the combination teaches more important lessons. Krav in isolation is less effective.
cage muay thai. For a bit of fun.
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And what's to stop Krav from being trained with good fundamentals? That's my point. If Krav is trained with poor fundamentals, that's not a problem with Krav, it's a problem with the instructor.
As for the combination of styles, IMO that's a nearly universal truth. Someone with some experience outside their art will usually bring some refinement that doesn't show up natively in the art. I was actually commenting to Tony earlier about an NGA instructor who also teaches BJJ. I love to watch his entry to some of the NGA techniques - the BJJ influence is clear, as he "slips" into some of them like passing a guard.
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
Same question i ask often. Why do the fundementals go out the window as soon people teach street?
My theory mostly involves shallow ponds.
If problem instructors are the norm. Then it is the system.
D
Dylan9d
Guest
What do you guys mean with fundamentals? Like basic techniques? Or what?
Don't think this is always the case....
Fundamentals in my usage are things like good punching, solid protection (especially of the head), weight control, structural control of the attacker, etc.
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
It is not that it is always the case. It is that there is no correlation between krav and ability.
So you can have good krav guys. But there is no requirement for them to be good.
To keep this idea simple. A muay thai guy that cannot strike. Cant thai. Because at some point he will be required to fight a guy who can.
A krav maga guy who can't strike can krav. And that includes someone who has been in the IDF. You can fight in an entire war without any technical striking skill.
So as far as fundamentals you have to look outside krav to find them. Now some krav instructors have those fundamental skills and teach them as part of krav. But it is not something that automatically goes together.
Or is it that those who don't teach them aren't fully teaching Krav? I dunno, maybe it's a point-of-view thing. I don't know how common "good" or "un-good" instructors are in Krav, nor whether the system (as designed) contains the foundations for those fundamentals or not.
It sounds like the difference you're pointing to is just whether folks are testing their stuff in some meaningful fashion. I don't know if folks in Krav do that routinely or not. No reason why they couldn't.
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
Correct there is no reason why they couldn't. But they either do or they dont. So it boils down to at what point and at what level are people forced to use their krav before they become top level krav instructors?
I mean just the idea that we dont know whether or not the method produces the intended effect. Puts some serious doubt on the method.
Do avacados cure cancer? I dont know. So I reasonably wont use avocados as cancer treatment.
D
Dylan9d
Guest
Well good punching is taught by certain Krav instructors, but I do feel that the whole Krav Maga system revolves around mass producing instructors for ridiculous amounts of money. So I do think there are good instructors that can teach fundamentals in a good way but those are rare......
I do feel that the scenario based training that organisations like Krav Maga Global does comes out of a fairytale.
To make a long story short, I would go for Muay Thai..............and in an ideal world for Silat
punisher73
Senior Master
When KM started to become popular, one of the big main organizations offered week long classes to become certified as an instructor. It became very widespread in a very short time. So, a person's mileage may vary on what type of training they are getting. You could get a person who took the week long course or someone who spent years going through the ranks before teaching.
Even then it's not necessarily the system it is the organization and their standards.
I think the KM community bought into their own marketing too much. They say you can learn these movements quickly because they are based on instinctive reactions. So, why can't an instructor learn them in a week and then teach others? Rubbish. Perhaps if the techniques themselves were common, and the week-long training taught experienced martial artists (who already know the techniques well enough to teach them) how to teach them differently and how to organize them into the KM curriculum, that might be reasonable. But that's not really what's happening.
I can't speak to their scenario-based training - not sure what they do there. I keep meaning to go to a weekend KM seminar to find out what they do, but that costs time and money I'd rather spend elsewhere.
FriedRice
Master Black Belt
Krav Maga is basically MMA Lite with the added bonus of good weapons tactics. Krav also employs BJJ, so if the KM takes a pure Nak Muay to the ground, it can be big trouble for the NM.
Depending on the schools, some do bang pretty well. The school I trained at, had legit pro MMA fighters and amateur MT fighters, although they didn't bother training Krav. Also had legit MT, BJJ and Wrestling programs. Their Krav program attracted mostly the newer, older, female, and/or people who couldn't handle the rougher combat sports program, so Krav worked for them. Some do transitioned to the MT & BJJ side, at the higher levels.
KangTsai
2nd Black Belt
When is it ever the case you have to punch somebody in the face during a war? Even if you did, it's far from a reliable way to incapacitate somebody.
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