Money makes the (martial arts) world go round!

[singularity6]

OneKickWonder, why do you think that Krav Maga is not a style?

Because it's not formalised as one. It's quite literally close combat. There is no lineage of former masters that dictated what it means. It's literally just the Israeli army close combat. Every army has its way of training for the eventuality that a soldier mat fund himself unable to fire a gun to neutralise an enemy. They all call that part of training various things like unarmed combat, combatives, hand to hand combat etc. The Israelis call there's krav maga, which just means something like close combat in their language.

So based on your definition Karate before the Japanese took it and made it what it is today is not a style but rather just close combat. So close combat makes it what?

Too many view fighting as a long distance engagement when this couldn't be further from fact. All fights end up in close quarters and turns into close range strikes, clinches, grappling, submissive/controlling techniques or throws. Just because Krav Maga has these elements it's not a style? What then is Judo, Jujitsu, or a 100 more styles/arts.

If it teaches one to fight effectively then it's an martial art and thus is constituted as a style.

I have never taken Krav Maga (so I'm no expert) but I have watched it in a few seminars and I just looked it up on google and to be honest I'm not sure why you are saying it's not a style.

Like Sensei8 points out it basically has the makings of every style I've ever taken. Whether its an all around effective art or not, well... I'll leave that to those that study it. But style or no style? I think it's a style.

Something happened in that lose last few sentences that solidified my opinion of what's happening, here.

I think the word "style" should be replaced with "art." Krav Maga doesn't have forms, that I know of. They also don't use a special uniform, or etiquette. Like any other martial "style" that was adopted by a military, it was meant to be make relatively effective soldiers as quick as possible, and thus was pruned of forms, uniforms, etc.

Is it a hand-to-hand combat style? Sure. Krav Maga will probably always be referred to as a martial art... We can just assume they lean more toward martial than art, though.

Just my thoughts.

[OneKickWonder]

OneKickWonder, why do you think that Krav Maga is not a style?

Because it's not formalised as one. It's quite literally close combat. There is no lineage of former masters that dictated what it means. It's literally just the Israeli army close combat. Every army has its way of training for the eventuality that a soldier mat fund himself unable to fire a gun to neutralise an enemy. They all call that part of training various things like unarmed combat, combatives, hand to hand combat etc. The Israelis call there's krav maga, which just means something like close combat in their language.

So based on your definition Karate before the Japanese took it and made it what it is today is not a style but rather just close combat. So close combat makes it what?

Too many view fighting as a long distance engagement when this couldn't be further from fact. All fights end up in close quarters and turns into close range strikes, clinches, grappling, submissive/controlling techniques or throws. Just because Krav Maga has these elements it's not a style? What then is Judo, Jujitsu, or a 100 more styles/arts.

If it teaches one to fight effectively then it's an martial art and thus is constituted as a style.

I have never taken Krav Maga (so I'm no expert) but I have watched it in a few seminars and I just looked it up on google and to be honest I'm not sure why you are saying it's not a style.

Like Sensei8 points out it basically has the makings of every style I've ever taken. Whether its an all around effective art or not, well... I'll leave that to those that study it. But style or no style? I think it's a style.

Something happened in that lose last few sentences that solidified my opinion of what's happening, here.

I think the word "style" should be replaced with "art." Krav Maga doesn't have forms, that I know of. They also don't use a special uniform, or etiquette. Like any other martial "style" that was adopted by a military, it was meant to be make relatively effective soldiers as quick as possible, and thus was pruned of forms, uniforms, etc.

Is it a hand-to-hand combat style? Sure. Krav Maga will probably always be referred to as a martial art... We can just assume they lean more toward martial than art, though.

Just my thoughts.

Exactly. It's very much martial art. More so than anything most of us experience. It's just not a style. It's the ultimate martial art because it's about fighting and enemy that wants to kill you. There can be no yellow belt in krav, because you can't really have 'sort of shows some ability to not get killed'. You can either fight or not.

[bushido_man96]

Again, the word style here is being used differently by us.