Anyone heard of Danny Hazan or Luke Noce? I'm planning on checking out a Krav school today; the head instructor is Luke Noce and from what I can gather he's primarily trained under Danny Hazan or at least in his org. I didn't look super hard but I didn't find any videos of either of them moving live, just demos. Has anyone had experience with either of them or with the AIKMA? If so, what was the training like? Any sparring or scenario training? What about pre-fight or weapons?
Hi, I signed up for this board just to reply to you. I recently moved from Southern California to Philadelphia area. I was online looking for krav places near me, trying to see if organization I had been going to has place near me and saw your post. While I have no idea what level you are, or experience or what your goals are, I CAN tell you what my experience was, and if that helps you, great!. As I had indicated, I lived in orange county California and had looked at two or three krav places and written them off. I had found Beach cities krav maga, with a gym in Costa Mesa and another in Huntington beach. I arranged to meet the manager of Costa mesa, who was Luke. After having spoken to a couple of other managers at other places...let me tell you that Luke was friendly and unpretentious, and right off the bat I told him about the issues I had had even signing up at other places and wasn't interested in attitudes or annoying payment issues etc etc. Signing up was very easy, no hassles. It was something like $100 a month which was pretty much the norm for that area. The classes are very intense cardio, followed by immediate striking on first class. No bs. They DONt do belts, or GI, so you don't have to play along with that stuff. Instead they use a color coding leveling system with four color groups. You start in beginner group, and you have to attend a certain number of classes to be moved to next group up. Second level requires fight/sparring class as well as regular class. I really really enjoyed my time at beach cities, I had health issues which caused me to have to stop after about a month..but would have loved to have continued. Basically, all if the staff at beach cities, including Luke were very friendly, worked you very hard and you will be learning from the first class you attend. Beach cities is part of American krav maga foundation, akmf, which is really just about 10 schools under Danny, but continuing to grow. I do know that Danny is frequently training in Israel and bringing new material back..so you won't be learning two year outdated, or stale material. I'm not an expert by any means, but for a beginner/intermediate I would say that I highly recommend Luke, assuming that he has continued what my experience was in orange county. Feel free to pm or let me know if you have specific questions. Cheers !
Oh..and yes, they do give you a lot of scenario training as well, and later levels you do learn defense against weapons/disarming. I didn't get that high, but when arriving early, I would watch the higher level classes training and the multi scenario gun disarm techniques... (gun to front, gun to rear/at back/at head etc)
Great. Well I'm looking forward to trying it out. I appreciate the input. Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Let us know your thoughts afterwards..lol. Also, if anyone can recommend a place in North Philadelphia for me, that would be appreciated as well...
I knew a guy in west Philadelphia who fought a few times but I think he moved in with his family in L.A somewhere.....
Also, for reference for any one who might be interested...although Luke was a manager and instructor, between him and Danny, the main daily instructor is/was Beau Durocher. Here is some vid of Beau, I think he's in South Carolina currently? but not sure...But Luke has similar training although not as lengthy experience if I remember correctly. You should likely learn quite a bit an enjoy yourself as well, tell Luke to start one here soon...lmao. [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLVrCygJlso"]Master Durocher's 5th Degree Tang Soo Do Black Belt & Krav Maga Demo - YouTube[/ame]
I'll be honest, the video has me a bit concerned. I understand it's a demo but there was a lot of flash, which is pretty much the opposite of what Krav Maga is advertised as. The "bad guys" jumping to assist the performer to finish the throws makes me wonder a little bit too. Staying square in front of the bad guy on the disarm makes me wonder if there's too much focus "doing a move" and too little on the angling and strategies that keep you alive when your opponent may resist or surprise you. But again, I understand it's a demo and may not be representative of what goes on in class. Do you know if Luke has the same Tang Soo Do influence in what he's doing as Beau? That might be where the issues are coming from. IIRC Tang Soo Do can get pretty dramatic.
THE STEEEEEEL CHAAAIIIR!!!! [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST1aAYYJdaY"]30-Second Fury - Superstars’ steel-bending chair attacks (Extended Cut) - YouTube[/ame]
No..Luke isn't into that...and not in the same vein...hence no videos of him on the internet... trust me, he's not about flashy gimmicky stuff..hence not really any videos of Luke online. Meh, go and meet him...see for yourself, and please do share your experience. ..good or bad.
Well, I just got back. Looks like a solid class from the bit that I saw. Warmed up to exhaustion with body weight exercises with a focus on the core and lower body. Then went to some skill building drills done at a high tempo. (Some bag work and a beginner tag type drill. Not a fan of it. It was basically continuous point sparring where the goal is to open hand strike the opponent's shoulder, at which time he does some PT. I get that it's to get beginners used to throwing and avoiding strikes but it penalizes shell type covers or rolling the shoulder. If it was supposed to account for knives that would make sense, but then you should be concerned about the centerline too. But I'm nitpicking) Then he went over some defenses against a bear hug and waist lock from the front. They were okay. Solid positional work, some rabbit punchy type strikes that I probably would spend the time doing something more effectual, (maybe knees, which he also included; more likely harai makikomi or uchimata) and parting shots on the way out (which I liked) It was a super basic class technically speaking but the instructor said that resistant scenario training and more advanced technique absolutely do come in at higher levels. It was a class geared toward beginners and while you can do skill building games and PT the hell out of them, you have to build basics to get to resistant training and involved techniques. Also there's an emphasis on aggression and fighting hard until the lights go out and the training methods definitely engender that. I was impressed; I bought some classes to spend when I can get out there. We'll see how it looks when I get to see some more technical instruction and some live, unscripted movement.
