I looked at a syllabus for a Krav maga class and it seems to defend against a lot of possible threats. How good is it overall for self-defence? Would you prefer ju jitsu, karate etc?
Quality varies wildly. My experience of Krav was mostly positive. Good for fitness and pressure testing simple movements under adrenal stress conditions. If the place has hard sparring/a fight club/animal day type stuff then should be a good way of developing simple effective skills that work under pressure. Knife defence stuff is mostly garbage. I can see how you develop a false sense of security without regular heavy sparring though (make sure your club has that). Also you wont develop skill in any range to the same degree as combat sports such as judo, bjj, boxing, muay thai, MMA etc. Oh and 'Commando Krav maga' is fake as fake gets by the way. Although you still might get good training there. Above all don't buy into any deadly military skills nonsense and see it for what it is.
It doesn't defend against anything, its just a tool to help you defend against things. In terms of the quality of the training, I think it varies massively.
IKMF is the most reputable Krav org.. although there has recently been another split I think. Do you have a school in mind? Do they have a website?
IKMF is a branch of Krav. Krav Maga Global broke away from this due to politics. They currently share same syllabus though.
You could ask this question about ANY art. In reality it all comes down to YOU. You can train day and night and think you are ready for ANYTHING...but simple fact is some people are like oragami..they fold under pressure. Others don't. All comes down to you and what works best for you. That being said, from what I have seen if you get hooked up with a legit trainer you should be good to go in general.
Although I appreciate what you're saying with respect to the practitioner and their role in making an art work, you've placed to much stock in that alone IMO. You could ask this question about any art but the answers would be different and it's not just about the individual. For example 'how effective is yellow bamboo?' or 'How effective is boxing?' two totally seperate answers based on the methods, theories and practices of the two respective arts. The fact is that some arts flat out do nothing to prepare you for physical conflict through either imparting workable physical techniques and/or cultivating mental attitude and others do. On top of that you need a decent and effective teacher to impart the art to you and maximize it's intrinsic benefits. If you aren't experienceing a certain amount of physical pressure, physical contact and your art is giving you a flase sense of security then what you are training is redundant. I don't mean to discount the role/temperament of the student at all, just saying that folding under the adrenal stress of conflict is an issue that some arts will address better than others. The whole it's the individual not the art is a crock in my opinion as there are demonstrably superior arts out there.
I currently train with an IKMF club though I'm still a newbie, however I'll give you my opinion. Krav is good for self defence. The techniques involved are simple and direct, they allow you to use it in a way that is comfortable. The techniques are continually pressure tested and we train everything against multiple attacker scenarios. We also (after P1 grading) spar heavily and also have multi opponent sparing. All good stuff in my opinion. However it lacks the same technical finesse of most Kung Fu styles, or the defined stances of most traditional martial arts. It does away with these things (as far as I can tell) for teaching you simple techniques that can be immediately applied. That being said, I think its a great art for self defence purposes.
You are right, some arts are demonstratably better then others in regards to street/real world use. My point was less then all arts boil down to the individual and more of that the individual does play a large part in any arts usefullness. Of course if you start with a better art in regards to real world applicability and add someone that can really handle the stress of any situation then you will end up with a better result then if you add the same person to an art with less street use behind it. Which is why I added the portion at the end about KM being a good one.
I'm training in KM with a KMG club. This is the fifth KM club I tried before finding one that I believed measured up. The standard varies greatly as does cost. Be very careful of some of the clubs that charge an arm and a leg for training. So its an idea to try a few clubs and see what you think before parting with your hard-earned cash. The system itself is good and training is a good workout. I have previous MA experience in jujitsu and karate (amongst others) and prefer KM as it is a no frills basic training course in doing enough damage to get yourself out of trouble. It won't make you into Chuck Norris, but if all you want is something functional and effective that won't take you 5 years to become proficient in, then it may be for you.
I looked at the instructor, how competent they seemed and how they imparted knowledge, the senior students and their level of ability and how useful and realistic I found the training. Also things like, did the club use sparring and pad/bag work. I fail to see how anyone teaching self-defence can do so without teaching students how to punch and punch hard. I'd studied up on KM and liked the system as a whole so was keen to give it a fair chance. However though the syllabus is the same throughout the IKMF/KMG, there's a world of difference in how its taught from what I can see, and even clubs in close proximity vary wildly. I was also mindful of how motivated by money a particular school was, with one in particular effectively just saying money up front with no flexibility in training and everything tailored to suit the instructor who told me it was 'his business'. Fair enough, but don't try mug me off. Needless to say I didn't go back for a second visit. I found with the TMAs I studied a lot of time was spent on areas that were of no interest to me personally (my interest being self-defence and applicability to work in the security field) so for me KM was more relevant than some other styles.
I would, if I had to do it all over again, and aikido was not among my choices, probably check out Systema before I considered Krav Maga. Just my oppinion.
Not in my experience. My club trained in various strikes from the off. I found jujitsu to be a good style but I would train (and have done) Judo now were I looking to take up a traditional grappling style.
