Krav Maga

In this day and age, a woman needs to know how to protect herself. There are big bad men around every corner, just waiting to attack you or worse.

So when a new class promising to teach you easy to learn moves that you can actually remember in the heat of the moment started up on my patch at work, they decided I would be the ideal person to test it out and pose for a series of stupid photographs (okay, I admit it, I sort of volunteered I just wish the pix weren't necessary).

Krav Maga comes with impeccable credentials, having been devised as a simple form of combat for the Israeli army in the 1950s. It takes inspiration from martial arts such as judo, karate, tae kwondo and jujitsu - but focuses on how to use it in real situations, apparently.

My session didn't get off to the most auspicious start after being told to pair off with someone of a similar height and build. The only person left once those who had arrived together had arranged themselves was a strapping man at least a foot taller than myself.

Oh well, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Our main instructor told us that every time we defend ourselves, we should always follow with a counter attack to "take out the nervous system". From what I could see, for the most part that involved a sharp kick to the groin area.

Hmm, sounds like fun...

The session got straight in to the action and I was shown how to defend myself against my opponent, as he attempted to throttle me both from in front and from behind (behave), how to escape if someone was holding a knife to your throat, and a series of punches and kicks.
As most of the counter attacks involved me pretending to kick my "attacker" in an area he really would prefer me to avoid, he seemed quite relieved when we waved goodbye to get into groups of three.

This time we learned how to defend ourselves when being attacked from both sides, all the while using protective pads to ensure no-one got too good at defending themselves.
It was all good fun and, despite making you a bit breathless after a while, did not seem to require a particularly high level of skill, agility or flexibility (although obviously I have all of these things in bucketloads).

Apparently the system, which relies on natural instincts, can be picked up within about two sessions. Two of the blokes taking the class told me about actual examples of people who were set upon managing to use the Krav Maga techniques to escape.

The other instructor, who has a background in amateur boxing and I suspect received a few too many punches in the head in his day, had this to contribute:

"My mum accidentally kicked my dad in the nuts when she was practicing defending herself the other day and she said it was worthwhile just to do that."

Nice.

Fortunately no-one has set upon me since I took the class so I don't know for sure whether it's up to much but, several days later, I can clearly remember the few simple moves I picked up during the session.
And when I invited my colleagues to attempt to set upon me, they seemed strangely reluctant to do so...

That said, I'm well-known for my vicious nature around the office and I demonstrated my impressive upper body strength the other day by doing a few clapping press-ups.

More on that story later.