Find your Krav Maga Trainer / Krav Maga School

We live in a digital world. We rely on Siri for recommendations and trust her answers. We swipe right for the next date and ask our phones to order us food. No one has time to spare anymore, especially in a great city like NYC. But, would you trust Siri’s answer to the question: “Who is the best Krav Maga trainer around me?”. Probably not. I wouldn’t. Same way you would not trust her to find you a reputable heart surgeon.

Finding a good Krav Maga trainer takes more than just a quick “Google places” search. The results might provide nearest Krav Maga locations, but you’d need to read up on the school before paying them a visit. You will be surprised as to how many of them aren’t self defense schools, but in fact, Jiu-Jitsu, boxing or other martial arts gyms run by practitioners who took a weekend-long course and got insta-certified. Or got certified by watching a DVD. Or even worse – certified themselves! Sadly, this is not a (bad) joke, but the reality of the field. A diploma on the wall doesn’t make one qualified to teach, nor does it grant them real knowledge in self defense.

Read the trainers’ bios and find answers to important questions, such as: “How many years have they been training and teaching Krav Maga?” and “Who certified them?”

The first thing you’ll notice when you walk into a Krav Maga facility is the training area. But don’t confuse a fitness class for Krav Maga. Hitting a heavy bag doesn’t make it a self defense class. Jumping jacks, push-ups and burpees will make you break a sweat, but none will teach you even the basic elements of self defense.

Training in full-contact fighting can hurt; you want to do it with a pro. Especially when you want to obtain self defense skills, you don’t want to waste your time learning techniques that won’t work against a real attacker.

So be smart consumers of the Krav Maga method – do the legwork, find a reputable school, an experienced instructor and gain efficient self defense skills.