If you want to progress quickly in your Krav Maga training, here are our top 6 habits that will see you move more speedily towards proficiency. Pick them up now.
1. Practice at a suitable speed.
Always work through techniques and movements at a speed where you can self-observe and self-correct yourself. It facilitates your brain to absorb and embed the movement properly in procedural or implicit memory (what is commonly called muscle memory). It always permits you to see a ‘picture’ what your next move should be or use proprioception to feel it, enabling you to do the most correct motion based on the situation you’re in - and internalise it for next time.
2. Work with fluidity and purpose.
Although you learn new things in steps or stages, as soon as these are covered, try to make the full technique as natural and fluid as possible. Still working slow, it aids you to getting used to the continuous motion of what will happen in real life. Your strikes must still be technically good, delivered with the required depth of range and sequencing, even if slow. You need to be ‘in the zone’ to do this, so 100% focus is needed as you train. This goes for the full exercise, from the movement you take prior to the technique to the solution you choose after it, e.g. escaping, scanning the area or running away.
3. Once comfortable, gradually pick up speed.
Once you feel familiar with the technique (meaning you actually should ‘feel’ it), start to do things faster - but not faster or stronger than your training partner can handle it. You still need to work safely. The movement of the techniques should not be compromised for speed at this point. If you do, you’re working them too fast. If so, slow down and work on it again, before speed is again elevated.
4. Trust your training, not your thinking.
At some point you’ll need to work fast and under pressure, maybe at the end of a session or after multiple sessions. Now is time to trust your skills, relax, don’t panic or worry about what to do - but do what’s needed to ‘survive’, even if parts of the exercise isn’t quite right yet. After all, real-life survival isn’t about points or perfection, but just that; staying safe and protect life and limbs. If you screw up, it’s not a big deal, you fix it and proceed - within the exercise itself. That’s how it will have to work in real life. Better get used to it now.
5. Practice! Practice! Practice!
This is a must if you want to progress faster and faster. You only need a smaller space to work in, whether at home, in the garden or at the gym (or anywhere else). A mirror is a good friend to have, so is a phone to record videos from. Review and self-correct everything you do. Dedicate some time daily or on most days, even if it’s just 10-15 minutes. If you do it properly, you can schedule a daily area to work on, e.g. hand strikes, kicks, grabs, chokes, weapons, rolls and falls etc. on dedicated days, just like an avid gym-goer will have their fixed routine. Or, simply, you can make a note of the class content that week and work on that. Any workout is better than no workout. Repetition is everything.
6. Work the basics!
I’ve been told by a world-leading Krav Maga Master that ‘Krav Maga is boring’. That’s not an insult to it, it’s just the recognition that a lot of movement and techniques come from the same basic foundations and these must be mastered to do almost everything in Krav Maga. Good footwork, movement, a even a few solid hand and elbow strikes and kicks go a long way. Some schools are very advanced in simplifying techniques to be applicable across various attacks, making choices - and training - even easier for students. It’s great to learn advanced assault rife take downs or how to deal with a pitchfork, an axe or a spinning kick, but reality is that 99%+ of all violence will not involve these. Focus on the basics. The basics will make everything else you do either good, bad or ugly.
That’s not all that hard, right? Remember, you train for yourself - and when you need to, just by yourself. No one will judge you when you do so - and you and others will see your progress speed up exponentially as you dedicate time to it.
Train smart. It doesn’t have to actually be all that hard, just fun. Enjoy.