Learning Krav Maga has excellent benefits for women physically, but can also greatly improve mental wellbeing. Empowerment is the key, and as a form of self defence, Krav Maga differs greatly from martial arts. The basis of Krav Maga is balancing out the power relations between the attacker and the person being attacked, and while this is by no means only relevant to women, it is certainly a massive factor why Krav Maga is the most effective form of self defence for women to learn. Let’s take a look at why.
Krav Maga is undoubtedly the most effective way for women to boost confidence and feel empowered through a combination of both physical and mental training.
As a whole, Krav Maga is about creating awareness, promoting strength and fitness, and providing an extensive skill set for self protection. For women, this combination of factors is the holy trinity of physical and mental empowerment.
Reality-Based Self Defence
The core of Krav Maga is learning skills for self defence in real life situations and scenarios. It’s about neutralising a threat as quickly as possible by any means necessary. For women, the skills learned in Krav Maga are particularly useful.
One of the key factors considered in teaching Krav Maga is controlling the ‘fight or flight’ response that the body has when placed in a potentially threatening situation. Students are taught to first consider the possibility of attack and then accept it, which is the first to step in making a rational and practical response.
When the body is placed in a stressful or life-threatening situation, a few things happen:
• Increased blood pressure, heart rate and blood glucose levels
• Decreased immune system and digestion functions.
• You lose the ability to focus on small tasks and brain processes – all your energy is centred on the task at hand.
• Veins also constrict blood in smaller muscles groups and redirect the flow to more necessary places.
Basically you go into panic mode and your fine motor skills become less refined. In Krav Maga, this process shapes the style of defence that is taught – the key being simplicity. The moves taught are extremely straightforward, with a focus on using the natural reflexes of the body to respond in the most efficient way possible.
These attacks are configured to hone in on the most vulnerable parts of the body – the eyes, the groin, the neck – with the aim of neutralising the predator as quickly as possible. Due to the physiological effects of the fight or flight response, complex moves are fairly useless in real life situations. Because of this, techniques that builds upon instinct are at the core of Krav Maga – attacking brutally without hesitation.
Empowerment
This style of self defence is extremely effective for women, because there is less emphasis on pure strength as the main necessity for being a ‘good fighter’. Krav Maga aims to balance the skewed physical power relations drawn from the contrasting body types of men and women.
Female students understand that there are a multitude of powerful attacks available that require more technique than pure power and can be devastating to a larger (male) attacker.
Jennifer Lopez trained extensively in Krav Maga for the movie Enough, whose plot actually revolves extensively around women utlising it as defence against physical abuse from men.
Speaking openly about the benefits of the system, Lopez expressed her conviction for its potential for empowering women:
“[Krav Maga] levels out the playing field between men and women…Where it doesn’t matter how big or tall or strong you are. You can actually manoeuvre around that. It’s about getting out of the way, counter attacking and using whatever you can to get the upper hand.”
This is an incredibly powerful statement because this sense of empowerment is the most important factor contributing to balancing out the divide between men and women. Confidence is a huge factor in mental wellbeing, and Krav Maga is an incredibly effective way to boost confidence and alleviate the stress drawn from fear of attack or abuse.
The reality is that these things do happen and are a huge contributor to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression for women (and men). Knowledge is power and learning the necessary tools for self protection can have an amazing positive impact on your overall mental wellbeing.
Fitness and Wellbeing
Your physical state and mental wellbeing are intrinsically intertwined. Aside from being armed with the necessary techniques for self protection, strength and fitness are huge contributors to mental wellbeing and empowerment. Skills are one thing, but the power to execute them confidently and precisely are equally important factors in improving overall confidence.
TACTFIT programs are unparalleled in building strength and fitness levels. Tactical training methods take your training level into account, meaning anyone can partake and build from any fitness level.
In TACTFIT, each exercise has a ‘regression’ that instructors will assign to be used before your technique fails. This ensures that you can continue the appropriate intensity levels without injury or extreme exhaustion. ‘Progressions’ are used as your performance progresses, providing more challenging versions of an exercise to keep you motivated towards self-mastery.
This formula of ‘regressions’ and ‘progressions’ helps build your experience to tolerate stress yet regain complex and fine motor skills quickly.
TACFIT works perfectly in conjunction with Krav Maga. This refinement of technique that use fine motor skills in high stress situations is extremely useful in real life situations where a threat is present. The ability to think clearly and react appropriately to a threat in a crucial contributing element to empowerment. If you are fit too, this is increased tenfold. Knowing your are able to react quickly and effectively, or run quickly if need be, will play a massive part in boosting confidence.
The mantra of Urban Kombat is to be Fit, Strong and Ready. These very same words are also at the core of empowerment. The skills learned in Krav Maga, combined with being fit and healthy, can have a tremendous impact on your physical and mental wellbeing.
Living in constant fear is incredibly detrimental to your quality of life. Learning how to control that fear, and to use it to your advantage will leave you feeling more empowered and confident than you ever have. Krav Maga is no doubt the most effective way to achieve this.
If you’d like to train to be Fit, Strong and Ready, book into a Krav Maga Induction class, or call Garth on 0408 864 851.
