The Cycling Undies

As I’ve got older I’ve managed to pin down and identify many of the hang ups that existed in my life and sometimes even move past them. Most negative crap that we grow up with comes from incidents in childhood after all. Fighting, talking to girls, loneliness, fear of isolation & betrayal are all things that happened to me when I was little and I’ve more or less comes to terms with them and have now evolved past their control.

However….

Something I had always put down to a flinch response based on extensive bullying at school, turned out to be something very different. Far from being a psychological hang up my constant physical trepidation in nearly all situations stemmed from one thing.

The wrong underwear.

To elaborate….

Living on the coast of Rome (2 miles from Fiumicino airport in fact) I have found public transport to be a pain the arse so I invested in a bicycle. I cycle to and from work and on the weekends I can sometimes clock up 50 miles in a day. I approached a friend of mine for advice on how to keep healthy while biking and he listed the following things as essential.
1). Tubeless tyres.

2). A saddle with holes in it.

3). Padded cycling undies or cycling shorts.

I couldn’t afford the first two (the tyres mean that unless you cycle over a running chainsaw you won’t get a flat, the saddle means your arse and man bits get ventilated) and asked him if he really thought the shorts were necessary. After a pause he replied “Errr…how come you’re cycling 50-ish miles in a day and you don’t already know this?!”

I had noticed some discomfort with cycling but had adapted my micro postures in the seat to be as comfortable as possible. For some reason I never got saddle sore and never needed nappy cream after a long ride. My mate said “You’re telling me you’ve been cycling that far and you never considered this?”

So, I went up to the local Decathlon sports shop and spent €8.99 on a pair of cycling undies. After washing them and letting them dry (echoes of my grandmother warning me that “some dirty tramp might have had his tassle in that!” when the subject of second hand clothes came up) I put them on and went for a spin. 

Lo and behold. A much more comfortable and pleasant ride than ever before.

Reason?

I have very large testicles. I’m not boasting it’s just a fact.

The undies were so comfy that I wore them for the rest of the day and I realised about five hours in to having a foam lined crotch, that I was feeling a lot more secure and less vulnerable. On a sub conscious level I felt “safe”.

I realised today that the constant tentativeness I felt in daily life was through having to always be aware of not banging my junk on anything or sitting down and squashing one of my nuts. I had been this way for so long that I had ceased to think about it and it had become part of my muscle memory. Along with how to wash my hands, tie my shoelaces or even ride the bike. Things that we do without thinking because we’ve done them so often that they are just “stuff” we do. 

I never felt this way in Krav Maga training because, as anyone who’s trained more than once knows, the first time you get kicked in the bollocks/ fanny when you are unprotected is the very last time you forget your groin guard. My daily life however was full of “keeping safe” without even knowing I was doing it. Distance, positioning, even walking up a flight of stairs. Fact I was able to balance my balls on a mountain bike saddle for over 500 miles of riding without sustaining any type of injury or pain is truly a marvel.

I’ve also started becoming quite flexible through daily yoga and the revelation that my inability to kick high came from being tight in the legs was apparently obvious to everyone except me. 

Overall the simplest things are usually the ones that help us to see the flaws in life. By buying a pair of padded boxers for less than ten Euros I finally got not only a smoother and less stressful ride on my Leopard 500 but I also feel a lot more confident in public, solely due to having an adequately protected scrotum.

Sometimes what holds you back is right in you face.

Or not, in this case.

The Master Effect

In Krav Maga, like any self defence or martial arts system, there is a fear factor present. It sits up there on the shelf with fitness (or lack of), exhaustion, anxiety and adrenalin. Fear is ever present to some degree because, to put it bluntly, we are involved in a discipline that teaches the use of brutal, physical force and despite what anyone doing non-contact Karate may try and bluster, it is not normal to put yourself in that situation willingly. Every instinct of human survival screams at you to run away from trouble…but that’s why we train. To override the flinch response and hone our reflexes to deal more appropriately with aggression and violence.

Fear is a good thing in moderation. Fear can kickstart adrenalin and it can “show you where the edge is”. Fear can keep you sharp, keep your muscle memory active and stop you from becoming complacent or even lazy. Multiple attackers drill? I’d be lying if I said that fear didn’t show its face to some degree on that one. How about sparring with someone MUCH bigger than who’s at least a grade higher? Fear could be distilled from my veins from that. And let’s not forget the joys of Being Called To The Front To Help Demonstrate A Technique. Oh, my God! The fear.

In the end though we step forward, face the fear and move past it. Fear in training is normal and it is essential. Jon Bullock, head of KMG UK once said at a seminar that we are not afraid of getting hurt in training as we know that is probably not going to happen. What we are afraid of most of all is looking foolish in front of other people.

The biggest fear I have EVER faced so far in the 7 years I’ve being doing Krav Maga was in 2014 when I was chosen by Eyal Yanilov to fight what are known as the Bullet Men. Me and 9 others at Eyal’s World Tour seminar in Essex, were selected to go up against TWO guys in Predator suits…one at a time. I was the last to fight and I have seriously never been as scared as I was in the half hour leading up to the fight. Once we went hands on, I was fine though. It was my mind that was frightening me, filling my head with stories and fears and paranoia about what was, looking back on it, an awesome experience and a privilege. To sum up…I was hand picked by the head of Krav Maga Global to fight in front of everyone and over 100 other people in the room weren’t. I still remember very clearly just how scared I was and as Jon said, it was mainly due to fear of how I would be perceived by my peers, instructors and most of all Eyal Yanilov. I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt.

Photo by Anna Surowiec

Fear clouded my mind, got my palms sweaty and made me feel physically nauseous. Fear, that day, was a bit of a bastard.

Fear like that though, is useful. Now I’m not so scared in front of a room full of people. The fear can be dealt with, moved past and adapted to. Fear is a tool, like fire. You can control it but don’t ever get casual or lose sight of what you’re doing with it.

But…there’s another type of fear and it’s what I call the Master Effect. 

The earliest example of this was about 5 years ago when I was training in the UK. The club was fairly new back then and there was only one P5 in the club. We would all look at him with awe as he walked into training, silent and heavily muscled. A P5. Cor! Newbies asked me at least twice in whispered tones “Is he the P5?” and for some reason it seemed necessary to keep our voices down. I mean, what if he heard us talking and wanted to spar with us? Oh my God! The guy in question is actually a really nice bloke and a couple of years ago took the GIC and became an instructor. He’s now a G2 and his classes are well respected. 

In training you will see heaps of P zeros and a lot of P1s and P2s. The herd thins after that and finding a G level in normal training is not a regular occurence in a lot of clubs. The only people with G or even E patches that most students get to see are their instructors. 

And then you go to a grading and you get to meet a guy from the Global Instructor Team. 

Throughout my time doing Krav there are names that have sent shivers down the spine and made throats go dry. Names that make many a practitioner’s pupils dilate and struck fear into the hearts of those who are about to grade.

Stories I heard on hearsay could be summed up like this:

Eyal is the boss. Trained by Imi Lichtenfeld himself. Late 50s and still a badass. Master level 3 and has been doing Krav Maga for over five decades. Fights like a cross between the Terminator and a ballet dancer. Does Yoga every day. 

Zeev is the next most senior. A Master level 1. Invented the Kids Instructor Course. A former career soldier** and disciplinarian. Has failed people at G and E level gradings for being too injured to continue. Once failed an entire P4 grading after spending just 10 minutes watching them. The Gordon Ramsay of Krav Maga. 

Tommy Blom. Scary, with a beard. A man of few words. The first man behind Eyal and Zeev to make E5. Intense stare. Former MMA fighter. Doesn’t smile a lot

Rune Lind. Expert level 4. Smiling yet huge, hulking Viking of a man. Mild mannered yet strict.

Etc.

These images and impressions I had of these guys were based solely on seeing them from across a room, in photos and by heresay reputation.

Then I met them.

Eyal was a nice guy, quietly spoken and very friendly. When he offered me the chance to fight the Bullet Men he smiled and asked “Do you want to do it?” Has a sense of humour and puts people at ease in training. I have interviewed him a few times for my blog and he’s always got time to answer questions.

Zeev was also a nice guy. I did the Kids Instructor Course with him in Israel in 2016 and he was reassuring and supportive the whole way through. When I asked him about the story of the people failed after 10 minutes he simply laughed and said it wasn’t true. Gave me constructive feedback during and after the KIC and was clearly idolised by the kids in his club. 

Tommy was…another nice guy. Met him briefly in Israel and we had a chat about stuff, including his E5 grading. Smiled a few times and was very friendly.

Rune. Took my P1, P3 and GIC part 1. Easy going and…yep! Another nice guy. Reassuring, easy going and a great teacher. 

The ONLY thing that matched up with what I’d heard about these guys was that they expected us to work hard in training. 

In 2015 both Eyal and Zeev were at the P&G camp held in Essex. Being England in Winter the weather was its usual, dreary British drizzle and both of them left training to to back to their hotel wearing light waterproof jackets with the hoods up and looking nothing out of the ordinary. The two most senior Krav Maga teachers IN THE WORLD would have blended in to any crowd. 

Fear in training can be dealt with as it’s something you confront at least once a week if you go regularly. Fear of people you haven’t met yet is another thing entirely. You form images in your mind and kerosene is thrown on the fire by your anxieties. Failing people for being too injured to continue isn’t the actions of a bastard once you think about it. A driving test would be discontinued and rescheduled if another car drove into yours halfway through the exam….regardless of whose fault the accident was. 

The Master Effect is another barrier to being able to concentrate, and it’s only through having met the guys above that I realised that what you hear about people from other people should be taken with a pinch of salt. 

However, I have yet to meet Ilya Dunsky….

----------------

** Can't say just "soldier" as that would include anyone, male or female, over 18 in Israel.

KMG Auckland, New Zealand

Nomadic Kravver

KMG Auckland

Wednesday 1st &

Saturday 4th February 2017

After a glorious 3 months in Australia I decided to take in the delights of New Zealand and flew over to Auckland a few days before my Ozzy visa expired. 

I was happy to find out that the only Krav Maga club affiliated to KMG in the whole of Kiwi land was in Auckland**. Run by E1 instructor Aaron Moore it had several branches that were dotted around the city and I dropped Aaron an email after I landed, asking if I could come and train with them on the Saturday class as I wasn’t intending to be around long.

Turns out that the weekends of January 22nd and February 3rd are both three day holidays, meaning that there was no Saturday class on either week.

Boo! Hiss!

However, my Couchsurfing host offered to let me stay on a few extra days which meant I could attend the advanced class on Wednesday.

Hooray! Hooray!

KMG Auckland started just a few months ago in September 2016. In that short time it has gained around many members, including some higher P grades, a few of which had graded with IKMF before transferring over. 

When I got to the YMCA in Grays Avenue in the city centre, the beginners’ group was still going at it. I chatted with a few guys waiting outside in the foyer, including a lad called Craig who had emigrated to NZ with his wife and while new to Krav had done martial arts for much of his life. 

At around 7pm Aaron brought us in and we had an 18 minute warm-up (should have been 20 apparently but Aaron said he’d “let us off this time”).

After that we were doing some work that I hadn’t seen before including everyone grabbing a shield and running in a circle, before Aaron yelled “NOW!” and we then had to run across the floor, pile driving everyone in our way. Lots of fun provided you remember to keep your mouth closed for fear of losing lips, teeth or even your tongue. 

We then then had to do some forward rolls before coming up into a fighting stance. Not a big deal if you’ve trained for a while BUT I had never done this on a hard floor before. I long ago learned that “biting the bullet” and just doing something for fear of looking like a pansy is the wrong thing to do (a friend of mine did hard floor rolls on his P2 grading, and like me had never done them before, didn’t flag it up to the examiner and to this day has shoulder issues as a result). However I was confident it would be OK and after a couple of attempts it proved to be painless. Relief blossomed that I’d finally nailed the rolls to the point where a nice mat is now only a luxury.

Then we moved into 360 striking and defences with Aaron demonstrating the different techniques required and how you can defend with “right arm vs. right arm” if the attacker is too close or at too odd an angle for the “normal” counter measure. 

In groups of three or four we then had a pressure drill involving two guys striking and one with a shield against a lone defender. The shield guy would push the “victim” in the back who would roll forward or soft break fall and then come up fighting. This was tiring but again a lot of fun and the special treat was at the end when we moved to groups of 6 and one person lying on the floor. The others had to then try and prevent him or her from standing up, pushing down as the person fought their way clear. Knackering but less of a chore than I’d thought it would be, we all had a turn and then lined up for a final Kida. 

Aaron invited me to the stick defence seminar in Victoria Park the following Saturday and I was glad to accept, happy for the extra training before heading off further south to Wellington.

Saturday 4th November

The seminar kicked off at 10.30am and I got to the meeting point by the cricket pavilion at about 10 o’clock. The students began to drift in slowly and it was interesting that there were seasoned Kravvers there amongst newbies who’d only been attending Aaron’s class for a week or two.

When Aaron showed up we had a brief chat and then moved to a shady bit of the park. While we were strolling over, a young couple out jogging stopped to ask about Krav and, after a quick chat with Aaron, he invited them to join in the seminar with the rest of us.

We went straight into some partner work doing outside defences against punches. Then we did some stuff with inside defences before the training sticks were brought out.

One thing I was retested on after getting a conditional pass on my P4 was stick defences. While not hard as such, they are fiddly to get right and it takes a lot of practice, in my opinion this is because 50% of the technique is down to footwork as much as body defence and appropriate hand/ arm movements. 

The “fleshy foreram” defence was first up with a diagonal movement to the side of the attacker, in the path of where they are swinging the stick to. Once this is nailed it is straight forward to perform. Next up was the “one up, one down” defence, meant to be utilised when you have your hands down and are caught off guard.

After we drilled this for a while, Aaron then showed us a technique I hadn’t practiced in a while, what I call the “mill wheel”. This one involves an attack where the person pushes the stick horizontally against your face or chest and you respond my taking the blow against your forearms, preferably over their knuckles, and then grab the stick, doing a violent and sudden 360 degree circle with the stick in your grasp. Performed properly this will cause the attacker to not only let go of the stick but lose their balance.

We had some fun with that one and then Aaron found some actual branches off the trees (the huge kind that my dog used to find and insist on bringing home) and got us to attack each other with those. 

We then split into groups of three, and had two attackers with sticks going at the third guy, to see if the techniques had made an imprint on our muscle memory. The guy who’d just been jogging past with his girlfriend was pretty good for a novice and when a huge, hulking German P3 named Hendrick did the mill wheel release on me, I felt my neck whiplash.

Final drill was to chase a partner across to the trees and try and utilise cover, sticks or even loose dirt and leaves as something to prevent an attack.

Lots of fun had by all and after the final Kida I had a few words with Aaron.

“At the moment we have about 35 members and about 30 people on trials for the club. Today was a good day. It’s a long weekend so I wasn’t sure if many people were going to turn out, but good for a bank holiday. I was really pleased about how it went, being able to take it out of the gym and into real situations. It makes it much more real for people.”

I also chatted to Pia who was one of the couple jogging past who were invited to join in. She said “I’ve always wanted to do some self defence training. I’m pretty interested in joining, we’ll see about the nights. The techniques were useful but something I think I’d have to practice a lot. The sideways attack was the best.”

KMG Auckland run classes in Auckland Central and on the North Shore.

They can be contacted at their website KMG AUCKLAND.

** Another club has now opened in Wellington called New Zealand Self Defence Academy run by Andre Maritz. Originally with IKMF they migrated over to KMG in early February 2017.

Nomadic Kravver- Back & White

I recently trained & graded with SGS Krav Maga in Sydney, Australia. Top notch club and had a great albeit sweaty time practicing Krav and revisiting P5 with them. The head of KMG Australia & New Zealand is a bloke named Adam White, an E3 instructor who has a day job as a high school sports teacher. SGS’s instructors had mentioned his name a few times and I assumed, with Australia being so utterly, mind bogglingly vast, that Adam resided somewhere like Darwin or Cairns.

After a trip to Broken Hill to visit the Mad Max 2 museum out there (yep, there’s a museum JUST for the second movie) I came back to the east coast to couch surf in the town of Newcastle and my host plus a couple of German guests staying same time as me, expressed an interest in learning some Krav Maga.

I looked up local clubs and…lo and behold, Adam White runs a club in Newcastle. I took a trip out there just to say Hi in between sightseeing (ever been to a place called Bogey Hole? It’s an experience) and he was in the middle of some renovation. Had a chat about a few things and arranged the next night to take the German couple along for the beginners’ class (my host bailed).

We got there and a guy named Tommy was on reception. The class seemed pretty popular, with about 20 people plus the guys I’d brought along, waiting to join in. Adam was patient in his introductions to the class. Most were on their very first lesson and he gave a brief history of what Krav is and how it came to be, mentioning the founder Imi Lichtenfeld and why Krav Maga is so effective. 

A few questions were asked about reasonable force and Adam pointed out that as most women are, by nature’s design, weaker physically than men, a woman who subdues an attacker violently would be allowed more leeway on the definition of ‘reasonable’ than a man using the same level of violence. 

They then moved into the warm up and Adam took breaks every so often to explain what was going on and usually back this up with an anecdote. I initially wondered how the lesson would go, with a lot of talking from Adam taking place. It turned out that the lesson was the right balance of instruction and verbal reassurance plus tuition, and made it clear that Adam knew exactly how long to speak, teach and let the students practice for.

When the students split into pairs there was one group of three so I volunteered to help out. The students were working with striking, kneeing and scanning. This meant hitting a strike shield and then simulating a groin strike before breaking off to ‘scan’ (check the area around you is clear of further threat.

When they then moved to miming actual knee strikes on each other, I grabbed the groin guard I’d packed just in case (hey, go prepared I say) and Adam saw it, saying to my partner “That is now a licence to kick him hard there!”

My partner was exhibiting a classic case of Nice Person Syndrome, i.e. it is NOT natural to boot someone in the crotch. I invited her to have a free shot and after a couple of attempts and a blustered “Sorry!” she finally got into it. I’ve been there myself and it takes a leap of faith to believe that the groin guard really will withstand a hefty kick.

We then moved to choke releases and I let my partner carry on instead of switching. Adam had demonstrated the necessity of sudden, explosive movement when escaping the front choke with the primary focus being release of the pressure on your neck.

At the end there were groups of three with one person standing still with their eyes closed and a partner with a strike shield moving around them. The third person would randomly ‘choke’ the central figure, who then had to do the release before deciding whether to attack or bail out, when they saw where the strike shield was. This was simulating an attack by more than one person.

I was flattered when Adam then invited me to walk around the mats, checking that the groups were doing their techniques correctly, along with him and Tommy.

At the end after a final summary of what they’d covered the group did the final bow and began to move out. The nervous faces had been replaced by a mixture of sweat and smiles. My friends said they’d enjoyed it and found the instruction useful, especially as they are backpacking around the world right now.

Great to meet the head of KMG Oz & NZ like this and I’m now looking forward to the seminars with Eyal Yanilov in Sydney on the 22nd January.

Krav Thunder

Video I made for Krav Maga Midlands after the Armed Attacker Seminar, 16th Februay 2013.

Music courtesy of AC/DC.

Krav Maga, P3 Grading or...The Wet T-Shirt Competition

Krav Maga Global (UK)

Practitioner 3 Grading

Birmingham Gymnastics & Martial Arts Centre, Perry Bar

October 12th 2013

I had heard various rumors that, after the delights of P1 and its big brother, P2 the grading for my next level, P3 would be H.A.R.D.E.R.

It was big boys’ pants time, with 2 guys going for P5 specifically stating that P3 was the most difficult grading they’d taken. This was “the other side of the curve” with the first two gradings merely setting the scene for what was to come.

    So, with nerves a-jangling and my Sat Nav being a petulant brat and sending me the “pretty” way to Perry Bar, I set off on a rainy Saturday morning to face the baptism by fire.

When I got there the P1s were still on the mats and peering through the windows I could see them doing ground sparring under the supervision of Rune Lind, a KMG Expert 4 examiner who I met a year ago on my P1 grading. One fat guy was at the end of his energy levels and simply lay on the floor, on his back gasping for air. Well, he did until Rune poked him repeatedly with his foot and yelled at him to get up. There were 4 or 5 KravMaga Midlands students from my class in there and they looked knackered as they came out and shook hands with me and the other guys waiting for the later levels. All had passed which boosted my confidence and we wished the P2 guys well as they marched in to register.

Due to some undisclosed problem, the gradings for P4 and 5 had been moved forward to merge with P3. This wouldn’t have been a a quandary apart from the fact that it was decided on the day. Frantic text messages were apparently sent out. Scott sent an SMS to our Chief Instructor Bartosz saying “Not sure if I’ll make it on time” to which Bartosz simply replied “Drive faster!”

Everyone made it in good time and I watched some of P2 doing their stuff and chatted with Anna who runs Active Krav Maga in Cheltenham and suggested a twinning between them and Krav Maga Midlands. Time will tell.

            
    Two people failed P2 which put a slight dampener on the mood. Felt sorry for them but as Bartosz pointed out, there are Expert levels out there who failed at least one grading on their way up the ladder.

When we took to the mat we had a quick warm up and were then formally briefed on the differences that I’d heard about, from P2 to this level. The instructor said that they didn’t want people who “collect patches” and that he hoped we were all there as we believed we were ready for it. He then handed us over to Rune who said that the first time he saw us throw a technique he would regard THAT as the one he was assessing, so we’d best make it good. He pointed out that in his opinion a “pass” was something that would work “on the street.” He then split us into groups according to our levels, with the 4 guys doing P5 in one corner and us and P4 on the other side. He asked for slow fighting at the start and I was seriously worried about my energy levels after 10 minutes as I was feeling like shit and gasping for breath. We then moved onto techniques and worked through the various stuff we’d spent the last few weeks practicing. I had no problem with kicks and was quite pleased when my partner holding the strike pad went flying a couple of times. He could kick hard too and it was difficult not to end up sailing back into the chairs around the edge of the mats.

I guessed we wouldn’t be given formal water breaks so took the initiative to ask. Rune was a gentleman and said it was fine, cue much glugging of H2O, orange juice or Lucozade before we got stuck in to knife and stick attacks. Rune had us do the basic techniques then asked us to try and get the knife off the attacker. I took my partner to the ground and we were squabbling over the blade until it snapped and I sheepishly handed in the broken bits afterwards.

Forward rolls was something I tried briefly but my ropey right shoulder put paid to that. Krav Maga Global have a common sense approach to injuries and we were specifically asked at the start if we had any existing ailments they should know about. I got excused from “jumping over your partner while they kneel down as if impersonating the Pope kissing the airport runway” but managed a couple of rolls. After 2 and a bit hours of hard work, we moved on to the biggest bastard of the session.

Rune told us to put gloves on and said that those of us (including me) who’d only brought MMA as opposed to 16 ouncers, could only punch lightly, even if our opponent had the proper big jobs on. He said to slow fight to start with and then we would move up in tempo.

       We were all completely knackered by this point and I had to find reserves of adrenalin that I’d stashed in a hidden bank vault in order to continue. After a couple of minutes Rune then told us to spar at normal speed with a new partner, but said that as one had to be on the ground we had to do 10 push ups facing each other, with the winning presser upper getting to choose which one of the pair had to lie on the floor on their back. I won, let my partner go to the mat and then simply held him down in a body hold while he struggled to get up, until Rune shouted “TIME!”

    My next partner also lost the push ups, so he went down and again I held him, with Rune stopping by on his rounds to tell us to punch each other as well as just wrestle it out. The guy eventually said, “I have to tap out mate, I can’t breathe!” (so how did he verbalise that?) and being a gent I stood up and we then moved to stand up scrapping. I was ready to drop dead by this point and went hammer and tongs with the remaining energy I had left. I was reassured by a couple of instructors I didn’t know, who cheered me on saying, “That’s good, good job, keep going.” My partner caught me a right meaty smack in the chops and then muttered “I’m sorry”. I replied in a croaking rasp, “Don’t apologise, just fight!”

Finally the longest tussle of my life ended and I dragged my soaking carcass to join the others in a line. Rune and another instructor walked up with a big pile of certificates and smilingly asked, “So step forward anyone who thinks they DESERVE to pass!” Me and about 8 others stepped one pace out and they looked at each other and then back at us before Rune said, “Good start. But if you ever test with Eyal Yanilov never let him hear you say ‘I think I might pass the test’. That means you have already failed it.”

All of P3, 4, and 5 had passed and we proudly walked up to get our certificates, dripping sweat and in some cases limping. I shook hands with my technique partner and the guy I’d sparred with. The latter had  a busted lip where I’d hit him and when I pointed out that he was bleeding he replied, “Yeah, I hoped the instructors would stop the fight but no such luck.”

Finally a few photos and I peeled one very wet t-shirt off in favour of a fresher dry one, before driving home.

Tremendous yet gruelling day and all I can say now is….bring on P4.