Quote History Originally Posted By PBIR:
There is very little real KM instruction in the US and it is not suitable for sport use.
View Quote
Old thread but in case anyone's interested still...
Can speak a little bit to differences - "learned" krav involuntarily in the IDF late 2000s (in an airborne infantry unit, non-SOF - I'm sure they learn more intricate things), and went to a few classes and seminars in the US. I'm by no means a professional in any way, in krav maga or any other martial art...
In Israel you did a couple types of krav maga - krav maga "techni" (technical) and krav maga "aggresivut" (aggression training). Nearly all of our training was the latter. In terms of technical training, it was much different than US classes that focus on unarmed and disarms. There was some *VERY* basic stuff on disarms but most of that focused on parrying knife attacks with your rifle. Why? Because you're a Soldier and you carry a rifle. There was also a smaller amount of emphasis on unarmed strikes...most strikes were performed with the rifle against a sleeping bag held by a partner. Occasionally in the technical classes you would spar with a partner but it wasn't like technical sparring - usually had an objective (pull the other person across this line, push across that line). Occasionally we'd pad up and go at each other 100% force but the padding was hilarious and honestly it was a bit much. In the aggression training classes, a krav instructor takes turns either beating on you or making you beat on yourself through stress positions, sprints, crawling on a gymnasium floor covered in bird shit, tells you to tense your abs and gives you a bunch of kick, that kind of thing. That training was designed to get you used to getting hit. It definitely worked pretty well.
I can see why people think it's basically the Essential Oils of martial arts...it's not really a martial art. Is it useful? Probably better than nothing. I do think though that the aggression training portion is critical if not more important from a mental resiliency standpoint. I don't know if they do this in the US, but I have a hard time thinking anybody would pay to sign up for it...it is not fun.