The Krav Maga we teach in Auckland is the perfect Self Defence training for adult women and female teenagers. While the average woman will have a disadvantage in physical strength, size and aggression compared to the average man, the way we teach ensures women learn how to overcome these disadvantages in realistic attack scenarios. As not every technique works all the time, even for strong men, every person at Krav Fighter, irrespective of their gender, size or age, trains within their physical parameters to find what works best for them against people of different physical attributes. While particularly useful for women, Krav Fighter classes & courses shouldn't be confused with women-only training offered by Auckland franchises of global Krav Maga organisations though. There is a very small number of self defence situations and techniques that are specific to women, and to be useful they need to be trained alongside other defensive techniques regularly, rather than at women-only courses and boot camps that last just an hour and only over a few weeks.
Mental toughness and conditioning is an essential component of our Krav Maga, because when it comes to dealing with survival it is not enough to simply repeat techniques practiced in the easy going, no pressure environment that most women-only classes and courses are run in. We, on the other hand, have a lot of experience in simulating the stress and pressure that occurs in violent scenarios and ensuring the women who train with us develop mental toughness as they progress through the Krav Fighter training programme.
According to one US study, 93% of all kinds of violence experienced by adult women and 86% of all violence experienced by adult men is perpetrated by men. NZ Police-published statistics shows that around 85% of those arrested for family violence offences in New Zealand are men, and for sexual violence, 98% of those arrested are men. When you put this into perspective regarding Krav Maga & Self Defence training for Women, the question seldom asked is 'how realistic is it to expect a woman to defend herself if all of her training was just going through the motions of the technique with other women?'
We believe that women need to be exposed to scenarios that are as realistic as possible where the “attacker” is a man, just as the statistics overwhelmingly suggest it would be. The positive psychological impact of women training with men should not be underestimated. The likelihood of failing to defend ourselves in real life is greatly reduced when our training closely mirrors reality in that we replicate the physical contact, behaviour and language in our training drills, combined with the general size and strength advantage of men. Providing the opportunity to repeatedly test what they have learnt under pressure against a larger, aggressive male “attacker” enables women to be adequately conditioned to defend themselves in a real life attack.
Another important aspect of our training is the development of physical (responsive) aggression; this has the huge benefit of improving the defensive ability of women in particular. There is a difference between 'going berserk' which implies a loss of control, and the ability to think through the situation, and executing Krav Maga forcefully, with intent, without ceasing, until their life is no longer in danger. When words fail and escape is not an option we train women to fight brutally, unleashing their fury on the attacker until the attacker is no longer in a position to attack, no ifs, buts or maybes. The action cannot last for rounds like in sport fighting; the longer we stay in conflict, the more rapidly the chance of leaving unscathed diminishes. In this type of situation, women are more vulnerable to suffering an injury due to the size and strength advantage an attacking male would have, so a fast and explosive physical response to the attack is essential to increase the chance of survival.
Ordinary people are not aggressive or violent by nature. Even our own instructors have had to overcome their own inhibitions in utilising aggression during their Krav Maga journey as students. The experience we have acquired and practiced at over the years means we know exactly how most people, women in particular, may feel when they are asked to step up the intensity during training to ensure it is as realistic as possible. This is a big point of difference between Krav Fighter and many global Krav Maga organisations and deserves special attention, so I'll write in detail about the meaning and importance of intensity in Self Protection & Defence training soon.
We hope that women who are seriously interested in learning how to defend themselves will consider the above points before making the important decision of where and with whom to train - for the sake of their own confidence and safety. The worst possible thing that can happen from women receiving a poor Krav Maga, Self Protection & Defence training, is getting a false sense of security, then encountering a situation and finding out that what they have learnt is inadequate; the worst possible time to learn such an important lesson. At Krav Fighter we train what works; we will not waste our student’s time with useless or ineffective techniques. Our training is focused on the development of efficient fighting skills and survival first and foremost, while the impressive fitness, entertainment and camaraderie are part and parcel of our training, rather than the point of difference that other gyms try to offer.
If you are a woman and the idea of training Krav Maga & Self Defence is still scary after reading this article, we challenge you to try one of our classes and experience our training first hand. Because if you think that TRAINING to defend yourself is scary, how frightening do you think it would be if you needed to defend yourself in real life?
We hope you will join us soon – click HERE to book trial a class.
