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I do have ideas about this. I own a small commercial gym (little over 200 students) I teach the majority of the classes myself. I have a number instructors teaching the kids classes in our own program for children. The instructors only teach 1 class a week or every few weeks. They do not get money but I do give them free instructor training and get them to do courses such as first aid etc that builds their resume and are usefull in their daily life. Most of all they enjoy working with the kids. Sofar it's not hard to find volonteers They are not a very big cost for me. When the gym becomes bigger I might need to hire 1 instructor for a few hours an evening and someone to help with facilities such as cleaning, answering telephone, manning the counter selling drinks etc. In my case it was helpfull to start small and grow into it. I hope it works for you as well. In that way you can start without taking extreme financial risks. If you want to start as a big commercial gym I think you should get some solid advise on finances and marketing etc before you start. Good advise is a good investment to start with.

My oldest student is 76 . he's doing okay.

as said before, it depends of the goal if self defense is the goal then yes, but be aware that you should try to adjust your training to the group as much as possible witch is more important. anti rape class is different than a self defense class for security guards etc. these kind of factors come into play as you have to decide how much you get into each stage of the fight. So you cannot simply put every scenario in stages like standup, clinch and groundfighting. those are only 3 out of many options in a streetfight. in a mma setting it's more likely to use these terms but still make sure that you can blend the stages. if you get seperated classes in groundfighting, standupfighting and clinching (hypothetically) than you miss out on a lot of technique and stategy

well, krav maga has exercises to simulate pressure, so you should be working on that too. and please do keep us posted i'm happy you had a good experience on your first km lesson.

http://www.mmablog.com/files/tma.wmv check this. pressure points have their use but please be sceptical towards your training.

i think krav maga is great for self defense. It does depend a lot on the instructor though. don't just look at the techniques, a lot of krav maga is training concepts to teach you to respond under pressure etc. Personally when it comes to self defense i like to learn from people with practical experience in self defense. I've learned more from my boxing and mma instructors than my jiu jitsu instructor just because they had professions that put them in situations (police and bouncer) I also have to use it for real in my job sometimes and don't believe people who learned it just from a textbook and dojo training ,when they talk about what happens in real life. A thing to look for is a lot of alive training. There should be exercises where you get to test if the techniques work. Examples are sparring sessions where your opponent(s) can suddenly draw a knife and attack anyway he feels like. Or you do completely different and somebody comes up to you with something you don't expect so you have to use instinctive reactions. etc. etc. ask the trainer about methods used. just learning a bunch of techniques will not do the trick.

I think most people will agree that self defense techniques and concepts should also work in other places than the comfortable dojo/gym My question is to people who train mainly for self defense reasons: Who actually trains in places that simulate real life surroundings? I mean a bed room, living room, dance floor office, toilets, corridor, car, public transit etc.? can you describe how it's done? I do not mean just go train in your own living room cause you don't want to break your own stuff. Second of all it should be suitable for instructing groups of people. So people should be able to see your demonstrations and have room to practise etc. I wonder if you can create these type of environments and if this is worthwile to do so. If you don't have any of this, how do you try to create a more realistic invironment in your training?

I'm a very big fan of krav maga. I do believe in the techniques and I believe in the drills. I think what you should do is check out the classes. There is a lot more to it than just the style. You can have great and not so great instructors in both arts. It will come down to what your instructor knows and his abillity to teach it to you. You will probably not the only one in the gym/kwoon . you can learn a great deal from your fellow students. you will train with them so their knowledge and attitude etc is also important to you. take that in account. To get a good self defense training I prefer to have people around me who get to deal with it in reality. cops, security people, cassiere in a shop that gets robbed every weekend, whatever. You can go to them with your questions etc. It's good to learn from reality rather than principals in a textbook. I'm an event security guard myself and find myself in critical situations quite some times. If a martial arts instructor without any streetfighting experience talks to me about how it all goes down in real life it often sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. It's too bad because the art could be good but your instructor would still have you do all kinds of suicidal stuff in real life. You can look for these things both in WC as in KM as in other arts. I believe the aim of the instruction should be self defense always. not competition, not style etc. just how to save your *. You get the best impression by just trying.

I've done an instructor course run bij the IKMF. I was quite impressed by a lot of the techniques an drills. Most of the trainees on the course were already instructors in various martial arts such as muay thai, (brazilian) jiu jitsu etc. All were very impressed by the style. The thing is we had very great instructors (Eyal Yanilov, Amnon Darsa) I think like any other style having a good instructor is the key here. krav maga is a very basic self defense style. The techniques are usually very simple and short. That said, don't expect any fancy stuff. When it comes to trapping with knifes. It works if done right. It's not the ideal situation in witch you perform those techniques. If someone attacks you from extremely close range with a knife stab into your belly area you have no time to get away or out of the line of attack. So you trap the arm while you counter attack. As soon as you have enough space you do other things. Krav maga in our organisation is devided roughly in civilian, law enforcement and military self defense/ combat courses. You can also take VIP protection courses etc. So if you like to get more advanced it is possible. Only maybe you should look beyond your own instructor, or even consider a trip to Israel. It's also up to the instructor how they teach. Techniques should be pretty much the same however when it comes to sparring, inducing stress , real life scenario's etc. it's up to the instructor. You can have training sessions of 1 hour with 30 minutes warm up/ cardio and 10 minutes cooling down, leaving 20 minutes for techniques etc. You can have 90 minutes sessions with 10 minutes combat oriented warm up and more combat/ technique training the rest of the class. So you can make it as effective or ineffective as you please. so go check it out, and if your instructor is not so good,, well maybe you should consider something else with a good instructor.

what if you find out too late?

The best style as said before is a very personal thing. I mean,, give a definition of 'best' in this context and even then people will come up with different things. I'm interested in fitness, competition , self defense on the street and some applications in my work. i haven't found 1 art that has everything i'm looking for. currently i crosstrain in boxing, jiu jitsu, krav maga (and some mma) when it comes to self defense you have to look at your situation i guess. your shape, your work , where you live etc. Where I live guns are not common. No single weapon is allowed to be carried for the purpose of self defense. (well there are some options of improvised weapons) An art would have to be unarmed self defense against all kinds of attackers. I'd be especially interested in defenses against knifes so if you have anything worth while to look into, be my guest. I hope to check out escrima kali anytime soon.

MOst martial arts schools provide a few hours training a week. This is nice as a hobby besides work. However I mostly work a lot at night but I'm very enthousiastic about martial arts. I wonder if there are any courses that are kinda 9 to 5 . Or maybe an extended number of seminars in a row. That way I can take one or a few weeks off and train a whole lot. Ive done an instructors course in krav maga for this purpose witch was 24 long days of training. That was nice. They offer more courses that I will look into. However I would like to check out other martial arts this way as well. Do you know any options like these in any other martial art/ combat system?

I'm busy doing an instructor course at the IKMF. If you have questions feel free to ask. When it comes to full contact sparring. I think it fits great in krav maga. Some instructors like to spar a lot and full contact. I guess some instructors don't do it, but that would be a school issue, not a style issue. I think it is up to you to try it and then to decide if it's worth the time and the money.

Okay , it's really about recognizing the threat, assesing it and reacting to it. in my opnion running like hell can be a good reaction so it's okay to be afraid and stuff hehe. I hope we can think of ways to improve these initial stages of responding to a threat. Well first of all awareness should be good to spot a problem in time. Well practise it anytime while moving somewhere or even at home. assesing,, maybe a bit harder to practise. This is something that has nothing to do with sparring etc. This has to do with people making the right judgement in time about a real life situation. I think if you train for self defense you should absolutely include scenario training. i think scenario's should be selected carefully so it's not just a bunch of technique training outside the dojo. it should be really about simulating real events. violents may or may not be the proper reaction. people can react strangely when put under a lil bit of stress. So this is a vital issue. do stress drills to get used to stress etc. sparring, multiple opponent drills, train with eyes closed, lights out, hitting pads or punching bags with someone trying to pull you back etc. etc. ofcourse i'm eager to get more ideas

One thing I like personally is putting as many fighting techniques in a warm up as possible. I'm not sure what all the options are in taekwondo but use your imagination. In krav maga for example I like to combine soft breakfalls with push ups and also kicking from the breakfall+push up position. You can do this with punches too, can be in the air or have them pair up and use pads. make sure the person with the pad moves around a little Situps facing eachother keeping their legs in a way that they hold eachother, one kid attacks with the hands,, the other one makes defenses. You can put in all kinds of games such as have the whole group walk through eachother in a pretty small space so it's hard to not touch eachother, but they cannot. Then put in games such as have them tap the head or shoulders or knees with or without defenses. You can vary with this. keep safety in mind, make sure they don't poke eachothers eyes out while they try to tap a head . Some multiple opponent drills can be great too as a warm up game. Just don't start with punching and kicking. Have 3 or 4 kids push 1 kid around a lil and make the defender move around in the proper way and deflect the pushes a little. That should make them sweat and still have fun. have fun