Silat vs. Krav Maga & MMA

[rshively]

I'm curious if anyone has had any experience with using silat against Krav Maga? Or MMA? To me it's just a hybridized form of western & eastern martial arts: boxing, wrestling, judo, jujitsu, etc. Or an early design of Jeet Kune Do, and/or world war II combatives. Many of the Krav Maga training manuals are laid out identical to Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do series...I've touched hands with some krav magaists. While its not bad on a basic street level, it didn't have the polish-the energy of much older styles of martial arts. My opinion is that it's far too eclectic; made up of a lot of different styles of martial arts, but only in a general or superficial sense. And, like most western combative arts, it doesn't have the depth, the many layers of advanced training/knowledge to make it a complete system.I have found that some krav maga stylists already rely on previous martial arts training: i.e. MMA, kick boxing, western boxing, etc to round out their training. It's like sport karate people learning some form of rudimentary combatives in order to give their martial arts the "teeth" it lacks. What works in the dojo or the ring doesn't work in the street, hence the need for a close-quarter fighting method.

[Steve]

Greetings GentlePeople,I have actually had considerable experience with the "styles" and "systems" mentioned herein. I could elucidate the particulars in greater detail, but for brevity's sake I'll discuss the generalities, since there are quite a few and one similarity in particular. Most of my experience with these, let's refer to them as "marketing schemes" since there is an obvious commercial aspect to each of them. I cannot address exactly how "silat" would have fared in these numerous encounters, simply due to the fact that I do not practice silat alone and I'm not sure the silat I've seen would have produced the same result I have experienced . . . but, from a KunTao Silat perspective I can tell you that none of those "marketing scheme" adherents have performed very well in my presence. There was a time, back in the days that Willem insisted that I teach publicly, where I encountered at least a couple of the afore-mentioned adherents every week of these various marketing schemes who appeared at the school in Lakewood, Colorado where I regularly taught and would "show up" saying that they heard about me on the internet and wanted to know what I would do in various attack scenarios. When I invited their attack, it became painfully obvious that they were not prepared for KunTao Silat and each and every one of them departed like a whipped puppy although I had never attempted to harm them, other than perchance their inflated egos. It turned out that the vast majority of them were copsuckers of some ilk, with some sort of diabolical agenda. I'm sure that they were part of a gaggle of demonic sick-o-phants who join various police forces in order to dominate and oppress the Free People by virtue of their corporate gangster affiliation with the Lucifarian corporations while posing as "government" officials. Of course demon-infested people like that prefer to gang-up on the weak and unwary ~ neither of which am I. Pity the poor unsuspecting sick-o-phant who kicks in the wrong door.Interestingly, I found the same thing in prison whilst I was a political prisoner. My first experience was with a bunch of huge gansters, I don't recall if they were Crips or Bloods, but the encounter brought me a half dozen wonderful students. . . for a while, until the guards moved me to solitary confinement. Although I was always in the "detainee" sections (not-convicted of anything) - when not in solitary confinement, visiting felons from the various prisons were always housed in my overcrowded cell during their stay at the county jails. Unfortunately for them, none understood "phone-booth" fighting, and in a 10 X 7 foot cell they didn't stand a chance ~ and each and every one of them were immediately transferred out upon their dismal failure.I've had very few fights on the street since I discovered what caused "bar-fights."

[Steven Vance]

Most of the Krav Maga schools I've seen around seem pretty big on the marketing, very commercial…much like MMA.

[SigungAric]

GentleMen, It's been some years now, but I once had a couple of Krav Maga Students who were in my class.

[Elijah Gartin]

I think the posts have really said what needs to be said on the topic.

[Kuntaoer]

Krav Maga and other 'combatives' focused arts can be useful for people who need a crash course in VERY basic self defense skills. The biggest variance I see is that unlike KTS it is simply not holistic. Krav Maga prepares you for a fight against an untrained aggressor. KTS trains you to fight multiple, highly skilled assailants. While you may never have to face such a scenario, the side benefit of KTS training is that it prepares you to face enemies you cannot avoid – age and injury. This whole body/mind approach is claimed by many – but very few arts exhibit it. KTS serves it to you on a silver platter.I came from a pretty serious combat sports background. With plenty of ring experience and experience live and bare knuckle with other skilled martial players. KTS is the answer. That's all I have on this subject.

[Andrew]

Krav Maga is something i trained in for awhile before i got interested in the arts of South East Asia. My personal opinion and perspective of the system echoes what everyone has said to a certain extent.Krav Maga is a hybrid system that incorporates techniques from many different martial arts. It sole intent in its creation was to be a quick and effective way of teaching the Israeli soldiers Hand to Hand combat. Real IDF Krav Maga, which is pretty hard to find is very basic. Its emphasis is on simple techniques that require only gross motor skills. Reason being is that the effects of adrenaline, fatigue and heavy combat equipment make elaborate techniques useless to soldiers in the field. In the IDF version of Krav Maga you are taught the basics of pressure points and anatomy as well as Sentry removal, knife defense/offense, baton ect.. It's a pretty basic yet complete system that effectively does what it was intended to do.. which is to make people competent at fighting in a short amount of time.With that being said its depth of learning is very limited. Compared to the vast amount of stuff to study and master in arts like Silat and Kali where your journey is seemingly endless its not so with Krav Maga. Krav Maga will get you good at basics and you will master them but thats all you will have is a basic understanding and approach to fighting. Silat is advanced level fighting knowledge that surpasses Krav Maga as a combat art in many ways but requires a lot more devotion, time, study and practice.

[Tim Nichols]

Greetings, all.I'm a couple months late to the party, but I thought I'd throw in my $0.02 for what it's worth. I did a little MMA back around the time the UFCs were in the single digits. My combatives experience -- which is what Krav Maga was designed to be -- is a bit more extensive. I trained in WWII combatives for some years, certified as an instructor for a while, and still teach combatives when the need arises. I can't speak to what gets taught in a commercial Krav studio; never been in one. I wouldn't be surprised if they've drifted away from their roots quite a bit, but I really don't know.Good combatives training is designed to use the student's existing gross motor movement capabilities and existing attributes to give him something effective to do in combat this afternoon. That is the defining element of combatives -- it's useful, as you are, right this minute. Combatives simply does not contemplate making the student stronger, faster, or better coordinated -- it has to work as he is, right now, or it's no good. It's meant to be taught in a matter of hours -- days, at the very most -- and deployed immediately. That is its strength. Of course there's a point of diminishing returns. When your technique is clean, and you're delivering the power of your whole body into the blows, there's not much else to do. You can't train more sophisticated material in combatives because, by definition, there isn't any.The very strength of combatives is a crippling weakness in classical martial arts training. In martial arts training, we don't take deficits in attributes for granted. We train to be stronger, faster, more enduring. We develop the specialized coordination it takes to execute useful skills under the pressure of someone trying to tear our head off. We do specialized conditioning that takes months or years to cultivate. And the technical expression of the art takes time to develop -- a minimum of several months, and often longer.In other words, combatives is an express elevator, and martial arts training makes you take the stairs. But the elevator only goes up to the third floor of the skyscraper, and the stairs go all the way to the roof.KTS has the advantage of having some good stuff that's instantly useful, but a whole lot of the really, really good stuff relies on body set and certain habits of hand, foot and body position -- none of which comes naturally, at least not to North Americans. It takes a while. I went into combatives because the storefront TKD I started with just didn't work all that well. I added KTS to my combatives training 14 years ago because combatives had taken me as far as it was going to, and I wanted much more. In KTS, I found it.

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