Krav Maga & KAPAP

Krav Maga Books By Gershon Ben Keren

Krav Maga Yashir Boston Head Instructor

Krav Maga & KAPAP in Boston

When Imi Lichtenfeld arrived in Palestine in 1942, there was already an Israeli Martial Art in existence. This system of hand-to-hand fighting was known as KAPAP. An acronym standing for “Krav Panim A Panim”, meaning fighting face-to-face in Hebrew. This system was taught to members of the Haganah, the Jewish underground resistance movement that both provided defense to Jewish settlers, form Palestinian Arabs who would attack Kibbutzim, as well as working to undermine British rule in Palestine, in order to push for the formation of a Jewish state. The Haganah, including the Palmach (an acronym for Plugot Mahatz, or “strike companies), its elite wing, would later form the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). Imi took part in the two-month long instructor program and became a KAPAP instructor. Although a respected hand-to-hand fighting instructor, who had previously studied boxing and wrestling in his native Bratislava, at this time, he was simply one of many instructors, and junior to those, such as Gershon Kopler (who excelled at Japanese Ju-Jitsu and Boxing), Yehuda Markus (a Judo specialist) and Maishel Hurwitz, who had developed a system of fighting using a short stick, similar to the truncheon used by the British led, Palestinian Police Force – in which many members of the Haganah served in order to receive training in British law-enforcement methods and tactics.

It is worth noting how British military methods, influenced Haganah tactics and training, and the Israeli attitude to fighting, especially on acting pre-emptively e.g., Ord Wingate, a British intelligence officer who arrived in Palestine in 1936, convinced the Jewish Agency (who represented politically the Jewish people in Palestine), and the leaders of the Haganah, to form special night squads who went out and actively searched for and confronted Arab saboteurs, and other groups that were targeting Jewish settlements. This was a dramatic change in attitude, and response to Arab aggression, which had before been very much about minimizing damage, rather than engaging with the aggressor.

The KAPAP system wasn’t initially formalized and was a mix of Boxing, Judo, traditional Japanese Ju-Jitsu, with some wrestling and stick fighting etc. Instructors had their specialties, with not every instructor being versed in all aspects of the approach e.g., some instructors may have been skilled in and instructed knife fighting etc., whilst others may have focused on grappling and/or striking. The emphasis was on using existing martial arts systems such as Judo and boxing, to develop applicable fighting skills, rather than on developing a standardized and integrated curriculum that could be recognized as a distinct system. In many ways this is an approach that the Israeli Martial Art, Hisardut takes. When the IDF was formed in 1948 – in response to the state of Israel being declared – KAPAP was the hand-to-hand fighting system that was taught and used. Imi was one of eight KAPAP instructors that taught the newly formed military hand-to-hand combat. Over the next ten years as Imi’s experience saw him become a more influential instructor, the term Krav Maga (meaning “Contact Combat” in Hebrew) started to be used alongside the term KAPAP. Another term that was still in use from the 1930’s was that of “Useful Judo”, that was the title of the IDF’s first manual of unarmed fighting. Perhaps Imi’s biggest influence on KAPAP, and which saw its transition into what is known as Krav Maga, was to codify the syllabus into a set of distinct techniques, which included the 360 or Outer Defense, which is taught to all Krav Maga practitioners.

The conceptual element of KAPAP can be seen in the framework of fighting “ideas” and “principles” that define Krav Maga. Both approaches didn’t want to be defined or limited by techniques, and instructors such as Dennis Hanover, continued the approach of using other existing martial arts such as Judo, Ju-Jitsu and Karate, when teaching members of the IDF (Israeli Defense Force). If you are interested in taking a class in authentic Israeli Krav Maga please use the button below.

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