Episode 7: Krav Maga’s Blueprint

Joel Ellenbecker: Hey Everyone! Welcome back to the Krav Maga worldwide. Podcast. I'm 1 of your hosts today. Joel, allen Becker. I'm excited to be joined again by Cj. Kirk, and we're going to dive into a recent crabology article titled Krav. Maga's Blueprint, operating in chaos through simplicity. Thank you for writing such a great article. Cj, and I'm just curious as to what what had you want to write it? What? What got your thought process going here.

CJ Kirk: Yes, it's good to join you, Joel. And I'm glad we're talking about this. I think a a longer explanation might help some people. I think one of the things that was sort of bothering me was, this the constant critique of Krav Maga on the Internet by by people who have a very shallow understanding of what violence is and how to prepare for violence. And the reason, I say that is.

If you're critiquing a technique or defense, self-defense of some kind and the critique revolves around something superficial like, oh, the attacker won't stay there that long or the attacker would never do that you're really illustrating. An ignorance about violence. No, no one's saying that the attacker is going to stay that long. That's why you, in some cases like, turn into the fight, and when you turn into the fight you're ready to hit them if they're there, and if not to defend yourself. And I think that the average person who sees this doesn't understand what they're looking at because there's such an asymmetry of information between someone who's showing a defense and someone who's interested in learning self-defense. And then in the middle, there's somebody jumping in saying, Oh, this will never work, because the attacker won't stay there, and it's like that's not even a relevant comment. So I wanted to write an article and ensure that there was some information somewhere out there that allowed people to to understand how Krav Maga was developed, why it was developed that way, and to help them better get their arms around, how to prepare for violence.

Joel Ellenbecker: I think it's such a relevant topic. And you know, for crop students, instructors, school owners out there. We're constantly hearing, you know online or on the Internet, different critiques of techniques. And we've kind of covered it on the podcast before with the systems, 1st approach and also the difference between fighting and self defense. But I really like how you package this together. And I think actually, in conversation, you had just like a quick analogy about like, you know, if a soldier was going to battle. What would they choose to bring with them? Do you want to elaborate on that like that kind of thought process.

CJ Kirk: Yeah, we were talking about this. I think Tamara was with us, and I was. I was saying, the the bottom line is that if you if you're going into battle as a soldier, for instance, as a as a metaphor, proxy and you know you're gonna potentially face violence. But you're not sure what violence, or what range, or or how many, and so on and so forth, and you can only pack so much stuff in with you right. What are you gonna pack in with you? You're gonna pack the tools that are highly useful multi tools, are you? Gonna take the very best thing that you can for every potential scenario which would have you trying to drag a pack you couldn't carry into battle in the 1st place, and that's sort of a way of looking at how people need to prepare for violence. I think the number one thing that people don't recognize when they think about violence outside of and a misunderstanding about the human condition, and how you know we're flooded with adrenaline and cortisol and norepinephrine. And what that does to your body, the impact on your body and your ability to perform. There's a whole other, a whole other conversation to be had around doing a technique in a dojo or a school or facility where, where the violence is known and responding to unknown violence and and having to respond to any number of a myriad of different attacks. And so the point is that you want a tool that is as versatile as possible and you want to be able to pack in as few tools that are as versatile as possible into what ultimately is unknown violence. The alternative is to try to optimize, not a system which is what we do, but to optimize each sort of  incarnation of violence. For instance, if someone's choking, you are their arms straight? Are they bent? Are they really bad? Is it one hand? Is it 2 hand? And when you get into that kind of thing. your approach to self-defense expands to the point that you create, you virtually guarantee cognitive overload in most people. And so I think there's just a fundamental misunderstanding of what Krav Maga is, what it was designed for, and why it was designed that way.

Joel Ellenbecker: Yeah, I think, too, you know another. Another way of looking at another analogy is like, if if you go to an ice cream shop, and there's like 50 different choices for some people that's like super overwhelming. It's like, Well, what what do I choose here and now? Imagine that you know this is the worst day of your life. Someone's trying to kill you, and you have to recall back to like. Oh, I have 50 choices on how to defend this depending on certain variables, or you know what what's happening. Versus having a fewer amount of choices that work and cover multiple different scenarios. I don't remember if it was if it was Houston, or if it was somewhere else in the United States. But I remember quite a while back, hearing a story about a crop student who hadn't really trained a ton, and then they were mugged at gunpoint right outside their house probably hadn't even done handgun from the front in our system yet, but had done inside defense. So they executed inside defense, was able to punch the person in the face. There's a scramble with the gun bottom line is they got home safe. And it's like they didn't have to know the exact specific technique and the tools in the system worked for various amount of things in the worst possible time in their life. When you know someone's trying to order them into their house with a gun.

CJ Kirk: Yeah, I heard that story, too. I don't think it was Houston, but I did hear it. There's stories like that virtually everywhere at this point the way I try to explain this to people when I say a principle based system 1st approach. And it's not my idea right? Amy developed it. Darren brought it to the United States. 2, very, very, very intelligent, thoughtful people. What people don't understand is principles allow you to operate in uncertainty. Right? So you can't do something rote. And the way I explain is this, if I had, if I had 40 Legos that I all knew were really really good Legos and I put him in a box, and I took the box, and I emptied on the floor. and I said to someone, All these are vetted Legos. There you can use them to protect yourself, or you can use them to build things. And then I said to them how many things do you think you can build with these 40 Legos? Well, the answer is, you know, some astronomical, you know, amount of stuff or buildings or structures. And that's really what the problem is. Problems guy is looking at the way that humans respond to danger. The fact that you won't always have access to fine motor skills. The fact that your IQ falls by up to 50 points, 50 points, right? The fact that you're overwhelmed with these chemical cocktail in your body and so capturing instinctive responses that can be leveraged into powerful gross motor skills to address danger is one of the hallmarks of Krav Maga, and these, these Legos are akin to the movements that were designed to address danger primarily, and also to work through the principles of Krav Maga as they put the 4 principles as they pertain to to self defense. Right? And I think that there's a ton of principles. We're talking about, address the danger and so on. I'm talking to people about this. And they're beginning to understand, like, okay, so I can build something that I need to build with 40 Legos and have it done quickly, and know that that structure is solid. Or I can put 2,000 Legos in the ground and try to build the prettiest structure. But time expires before I'm done, even sifting through what Legos I want to use to build the prettiest structure. A principle based system. 1st approach is the only viable approach for men and women, big and tall, short and small. that there is when people say, Well, I do. You know 2 on one, or I do wrestling, or I did it this way, or I changed the technique. I don't care what Pardon me, I don't care what you did.

I'm not even saying you can't do it. I'm saying you don't understand. Krav Maga wasn't built just for you. It was built for everybody and for those people that think well, probably got. You know it doesn't evolve, you know, when you think of the kuf mem in the circle that's open on top and bottom. I try to tell people on the bottom. Things are being fed in the system and you could think of the bottom opening of the circle as every potential or conceivable martial response to danger

right and the top is whether or not it makes it through that stage gate process of ensuring that

 the movements that make it into Kramaga are accessible, for everyone are usable, are leverageable, and can be found in several different responses to various types of danger. That's why we're working on the Krav Maga essential movements. That's why we're building the Krav Maga family tree, which may end up being, you know, a web or some other sort of analogy that that's pictorial and visual. But people need to understand that a lot of what is going on in the Internet is absolute nonsense.

Joel Ellenbecker: Yeah, I think for me, training in Krav Maga. And even as an instructor watching my students train the Aha moment when people are when people identify those set of Legos when they're like, Oh, these these mechanics here, this position here! Oh, my gosh! That's the same thing as 360 defense, or that's over here, and that light bulb that happens.

 I think, gives students, gives practitioners, gives people fighting for their lives the confidence to act. So if they know what to do, and it's simple and they've done it hundreds or thousands of times in various positions. It's gonna come out of them more readily under that extreme stress.

CJ Kirk: Yeah, I would even say in regard to what you're referring to, that the defenses are quote sort of designed to fly from you, right? So because they're designed in the way that they are designed. it's almost it's almost, and in some cases is initially an instinctive response to danger. I had a student ask me one time, well, if my response to the choke is to put my hands here. then how does the pluck work. And I said, Well, the pluck works because the motion of putting your hands on the choking hands starts the pluck right? So your instinctive response reminds you of the motor skill you need to defend yourself right? So even connecting those types of instinctive responses to the motor skills themselves, is, it is imperative for people when you, when someone's trying to break your windpipe or squeeze the life out of you right? And a lot of people don't recognize that. And if you have someone sort of gently massage your windpipe with their thumb, you get the idea real quickly that you go from 0 to 150 real quick when that type of danger emerges, and when it does that instinctive response is an inspiration, and it flies from you and that, and inspires you to make that defense or that response to danger.

Joel Ellenbecker: Yeah, let's talk through. I think this example that I'm gonna bring combines some of these things that we've been seeing online combines some of the concerns and things that students and instructors and stuff have brought. So let's talk through this. So for me, when I went through the system in Krav Maga. I've had very limited ground fighting experience and the tools that were given to me. Through Krav Maga I felt like did a good job of getting me safe and getting me back up to my feet, you know, versus someone who like didn't know what they're doing. But then, as soon as I started doing jujitsu against other people who knew how to hold me down, I felt like the techniques that I learned in Kramaga weren't working there. So this is something, I think, that happens to people when they start to cross train. Or this may be what people online are are the experience that they're drawing from. It's like, well, that technique would never work. So let's talk through like, why are we then teaching it that way? If quote unquote, it wouldn't work.

CJ Kirk: I think context is a huge issue, right? And I think jujitsu is fantastic. I trained jujitsu after esc one, I think, for years. But what I want to do is I want to be able to have this small bag of tricks, is the wrong phrase. But these motor skills, these movements that allow me to perform under stress. And if you're on a street and you're on concrete or block, you know, yard somewhere. The context often changes as well. Right? And so it's not so much that if you're on the ground with a jujitsu expert. don't expect to be as good as the jujitsu expert. That's not the point.Then you have to be. If you're going to look at it that way, you have to be as good as a jujitsu expert on the ground. You have to be better than a judo guy. If you're going to be thrown, you have to be better than a Thai boxing or a great boxer. If you're going to throw strikes, it's like no one can be all things to every discipline. Right? And so the question is, how can I prepare for the widest swath of violence in the shortest amount of time? And if you get through. Probably gone. You're like, Oh, I did that already. Then if you want to specialize in something, go ahead for sure. And you can specialize either in things like not being taken down or being on the ground context matters if if I'm on the ground and in fact, my middle son learned this lesson allegedly. Learned it twice, I guess. But I told him, you know, and he goes to sort of a rough school. And kids are pretty aggressive. and it twice he slammed a kid to the ground, once in the schoolyard and once in the gym and both times he mounted the Kid. and while he mounted the Kid the 1st time he was stomped from behind in the neck in the schoolyard, he was kicked multiple times in the face. and people tend to think about violence in the context of Oh, it's mano a mano, or you know, woman versus woman.We have a poor grasp of what violence really looks like when it burst out of what we think of as like a social context, meaning this isn't how we act right. This is counter to how civilized society works. So if you're one on one, that's 1 thing. But what if there's 2 people right where there's 3 where there's a weapon. I had a instructor of mine go in. She does jujitsu. Frequently. she went in with the instructor of her school and she said, You know one of the things that's that I see about jujitsu that I want to bring to you is that it You're too focused, and you're not aware of what's going on. There's too many assumptions that are layered into the way that you train. And her instructor said, I'm not sure what you mean. And it was a weekend, and she said, Well, let's put it to test I'm gonna put a towel in my around, you know, stuck in my belt, and If I pull a towel out it represents a knife, and she would quickly get to a position where she was at disadvantage, but she'd be able to with one hair, another pull the towel out and start hitting with the towel, and she came back and said, You know I'm 1 of the people who love jujitsu, and I see it for what it is, which is amazing. But it's not everything, and I just had this experience with my instructor, and his eyes are starting to open that But not one thing can fix everything. So prepare for as much as you can. And that's usually a system. 1st principle based approach to self defense.

Joel Ellenbecker: And I see it. I have a couple of thoughts here, but I see it, you know, as like a a life skill where it's like learning to swim like. If we learn to swim, then we're going to be safer. If we're ever around the water, and same thing with self-defense and Krav and gods like. If we learn how to protect ourselves, and we have this base set of knowledge that fits and is simple and can be used under stress. Then, like you said, specializing is great.  And I love jujitsu. I train it frequently, and that's the reason I brought the side mount thing is this week I've been working side. Mount escapes all week, and I'm starting to connect the dots from like. All right. Well, if they're if they're leaning slightly this way on my hips, or if this arm is around my head this way, or if this arm is over on this side. It's all different movements and I also have the. I also have the benefit of. I teach jujitsu and crab at my school. So I get to see the juxtapose where it's like I do a golf class and people get done. And after that one class they feel confident they feel strong. They're like man like I could do something here. And honestly, sometimes, after a jujitsu class, it's like, Oh, man, I gotta keep learning. I don't even know what I I don't even know if I got it down yet, which is great in the long term. If they train 10 or 15 years, they're going to be so deadly in a 1 on one fight, and they're going to be so effective. But the movements are all different decisions for different things, and it just takes so much more time to learn. Which is another reason why Krav Maga was developed. Right is like, let's get this information to people as quickly as we possibly can if they don't have a great amount of training time, like military and law enforcement. Specifically, where law enforcement doesn't have a lot of time to train.

 This is the most effective thing that they can do. If we asked all the law Enforcement officers to learn jujitsu, it's going to help them, but they're going to have to spend so much more time, and I don't know about you. The reality is for me that a lot of officers have crazy schedules, and they don't. They don't have as much time to train as they would like.

CJ Kirk: Yeah, I think that's true. I think the other thing that's important that people don't always think about when they just. You know the average layperson is. If the martial science that you're training in is dependent upon weight classes then that in and of itself is telling you something about that martial science right like let's just say I'm 260 Let's just go with that if if I if I had a hundred 40 pound woman who was really good at jujitsu and I just laid on her. It would be, you know, it would be an issue. I'm only saying that because this has happened before. Look, you know you brought up. We're not taking anything away from jiu-jitsu, jujitsu is fantastic. It's intricate. It's it's sort of the chess of the martial world, right? And if someone wants to change a jitsu, I say, Hey, more power to you. My point is you have to have more training than just one sort of very focused style to go into battle when you just don't know what the attack's gonna look like.

Joel Ellenbecker: I think another great example here, too, and I'll call myself out on this when so I've been doing martial arts my whole life. You know, I started out as a kid, and I feel like I'm pretty athletic, and I'm quick. And so what started to happen over time with my inside defense. So defending it's someone trying to punch me in the face. What started to happen with inside defense is I would bring my shoulders forward over my hips, and I'm leaning forward, and then my hands would come out further from my face, because if I knew that they were throwing a straight punch. I was now setting myself up to be able to defend that straight punch much easier, because I'm closer to them, and my hands are way out here, and then I can make the motion. But I was making most of that defense with with my hands, and I think, just because I'm I'm fast, and you know I can do it. Well, it looks relatively well. I understand how to shift my weight. It didn't. I didn't get called out on it for quite a long time and then, you know, I trained with you at Houston last year, and we started to go. Okay, look like inside defense is what? What is it on the family tree like? What is it? The Lego like? It turns into straight stab later on. And so I was setting. I was specializing in defending against straight punches by putting myself in a position where I could be successful. But then, later on, when somebody had a knife in their hand, and they're trying to stab me. I'm way out of position to make the defense properly.

CJ Kirk: Yeah, you're you're now. You're kind of getting into the second layer. If you have many layers of Kramaga. And one of the things people often don't think about is if I make an optimal defense, or even cheat the cheat the drill, for that matter. With the right straight punch and an inside defense is this gonna cost me later, right? And there's 2 issues to this. The 1st one is how you train and why you train that way. But the second issue is, if you don't understand when you're training a martial art or martial science, that the Legos are going to be with you the entire time, and where this Lego is going to show up again and how your performance in one defense will either hinder or enhance your performance in another defense. Then you don't have enough information to have an impetus or an incentive to train the way that you described, which is to is to move more from the elbow in the in in the forearm. So what you're describing is hinging from the elbow and reaching with the hand right? Which you lose your wall right. There's a redirection there but the redirection for the head is far smaller than the redirection for the shoulders if you're getting stabbed in the chest. So there's some implications for understanding how the motorcycle is going to be utilized throughout the system and the other implication on the other side is this, that people just don't seize on all the time. If you have one defense for a right straight punch and you have another defense for a stab like a straight stab that comes down that same channel and you choose the wrong defense. You get stabbed. So in the moment you have to decide. Is this a punch? Is it a low punch coming into my collarbone, or is it coming into my face? You have to decide. There's a there's sort of like a straight looking punch coming down essentially the same channel. What attack is it? And of course we know that most people that are attacked with knives never saw them. Right? You go to the hospital and say what's like to be attacked by a knife, and they say I don't know. I never saw it. I only knew afterwards I was stabbed then that automatically tells me, well, our inside defense and our defense to a straight stab need to be very, very, very similar. They need to operate from a similar place. The initiating movement to address the defense has to be the same, and so on and so forth. And that's we're getting into how the system is built. Now, right like, I didn't invent that. I just noticed it.And because the system's built that way we can use that one motor skill to defend 2 different attacks, 2 different levels of danger on the same channel that can be indistinguishable. And I think if you just seize that question or I'm sorry that sentence, that comment it will become clear to you that there are many layers to this, and to try to optimize each defense is to create failure when when attacks look similar.

Joel Ellenbecker: Yeah. And I think we'll probably, as we continue to go deeper with the central movements and the family tree and things like that, we'll probably start to know exactly how many unique movements there are in Krav Maga, because, even using that example of my hand coming out too far away from my face. It's like, where else is that in Krav, Maga? It's I don't think anywhere it shouldn't be anywhere right.

CJ Kirk: No, there's really not anywhere. It's it's no does. It doesn't really exist. Joel.

Joel Ellenbecker: Well, thank you, but keeping the elbow close to my body and coming across, I mean this. This structure in this motion is really the same structure as a 360 defense and that position of my arm shows up in many places in Kramar.

CJ Kirk: Yeah. And so now you're getting into like, okay, what is a 90? Why is a 90 degree defense, a 90 degree defense? What are all the benefits of that does it work for men and women, short and tall, big and small? Yes, I did a big seminar a couple of weeks ago I had people reaching through their shoulder out, their elbow with the forearm being the table where the defense was made in a 360, and and attacking them with both hands, leaning on them on the body weight, and no problem even because the structural integrity of the way the defense is made, and the way the initiating movement sets that up for you in training. So you don't have to really think about it. So if you think about the way that you did inside defense, which is common. I mean, I've even seen some high level instructors do this peep. The the thing that's akin to that in 3 60 is sort of the chopping at the at the attack as it comes down on, you say, from overhead, right? And so, if we can learn to isolate and understand in Krav Maga what the actual movement is right, we we do that if we can encourage our students to think of the initiating movement coming from a specific place and help them to understand. Okay, this angle shouldn't change this much in your arm and give them physical cues and markers and ideas, and you know, touch, turn shop. But like memory minders these things begin to pile onto themselves. People begin to understand that they can do that defense well and then they begin to pick up. Oh, I know this motor skill, right? So now we have a common language which we do  and we can use that language to make our help. Our students learn and understand more quickly and more effectively.

Joel Ellenbecker: Well, let's go back to now, Sidemount. I was doing a video to show, you know, like how we how we do a side Mount escape in Krav Maga, and as I was doing it I was thinking to myself, I was like, Oh, man, I have all these other thoughts in my head about how I've been doing this in jujitsu. And then I paused, and I thought about it. And it's like We're telling them to do 360 frames on the neck and the hip, because they've already learned that motion. They already have those Legos. It's gonna speed up their ability to not only defend themselves, but also decide what to do, because if they get to that spot on the bottom, they're like, Oh, where do I put my arms. Oh, I put it like this like I do for everything else versus like. Oh, well, actually, now, I gotta do this. I do that. And all that time is being wasted while they're being assaulted or attacked or injured. And it just takes so much more time to develop knowing multiple decisions under stress.

CJ Kirk: Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I always come back to when I think about you said making frames. 90 degree frames is, your performance will be degraded under stress to some level and to the extent that it's not 2 critical factors come into play. One is recognition and response. In other words, I recognize I need to do something, and having the response fly from you. Right? The response flies from you. And is similar or the same, structurally and effectively because you've trained the Legos over and over and again. So you've created essentially myelination or muscle memory. You know, Bruce, I think Bruce Lee said. And maybe man and some of his other instructors before him had said, You know, fear the man that trained one technique 10,000 times, not the man that's trained 10,000 techniques. And what he really was saying was, this guy's gotten really good at this one thing. And if you're kind of good at defending lots of things, then you're going to get punched in the face. And so I my personal view Outside of all the great things. That a system 1st approach and a principle based approach offers is that myelination. Is one of the most important things we can do to ensure self-defense, you know, flies from us, and that the integrity and and the efficacy of the defense is intact.

Joel Ellenbecker: And I, I think, you know the the people online, or on the Internet, or critics or skeptics who are asking these questions. I mean, it's clear to me, and I think you said it earlier. They just haven't spent as much time analyzing and practicing and testing things out under stress, you know, that's that's a big part of problem. One of our principle principles is to train from a position of disadvantage. allowing ourselves to be out of position a lot like putting ourselves in the worst case scenario, and then being able to practice and train from there as well.

CJ Kirk: Yeah, I think position of disadvantage is something we've done for a long time, and I think other other martial arts might do it as well. For instance, if you, if you let somebody mount you in jujitsu and you're working, you know, escaping them out.

Joel Ellenbecker: Exactly.

CJ Kirk: But I think that there's a a bigger implication here. You know that I'm I'm writing a book, and some of the book is about Krav maga principles, and some of the things that I've noticed throughout the years, and how successful people who have really deep success and and contentment, and not the people that have this artificial success, whether it's money, or fame, or or power whatever. And then they end up, you know, circling the toilet. How do these people operate? And I ran across I'm gonna get it wrong. So I apologize. But Josh Watkins, watch Watkins, I'm I'm saying the name wrong, the last name wrong. But he was a chess prodigy. I think they even made a movie about him but he went on to do lots of things, and one of the comments he made recently he made recently on Huberman. He said that chess masters and and people that are very, very good at chess. Some of them think 50 to 100 moves ahead and he goes. I don't know if that's realistic or not right. But, he said I, I might think maybe 2 moves ahead And what guides my thinking in those moves. And that thought process is something that he calls Miq. And Miq stands for what is the most important question that I can ask myself and answer right now to put me in a position to achieve what I want to achieve right. And so I think what people fail to do in the Marshall community is is understand how to ask the most important question right and the most important question isn't, do you? Can you show me 2,000 defenses right? Or can you show me how cool something looks? Or can you tell me why you think this would or wouldn't work. The most important question is, how do you, as a system, address the uncertainty and the complexity and the effects of sudden violence and human beings. How's that woven into your system? So people can respond? And when you ask that question, you're no longer talking about any one particular defense or technique And that shows me okay. You've asked the most important question now because all the other questions, whether they're answered or not ultimately to to failure or cognitive overload, or things like that.

Joel Ellenbecker: Yeah, I like that. Did you say, Miq, most important question.

CJ Kirk: Yeah, that's that's not mine. Now for us… for us in Krav Maga, that translates to something like addressing the danger and asking the question, What's the danger? And if you ask a new person on a 2 hand choke what's the danger? They're going to tell you? The hands on the throat, or they're going to say being choked or being choked out, or him killing you. And these are all generic answers, and most of them are are results based? Well, that's what's going to happen if I don't do anything. But what's the danger? Right? And so, a long time ago, Amy was asking the most important question, which is, what's the real danger? And, as you know, for a 2 hand choke, it's the thumbs.And when we talk about. I go. Okay, take your thumbs away. Just stay up under your hand, so to speak, metaphorically, and then try and choke somebody, and they'll they'll laugh at you and walk away you take the thumbs on the side and you grip on the opposing sides, and you've got a hold of somebody. It's a totally different situation. But if you don't know how to ask the most important question about the danger that you're training against, and you don't know how to apply a system first mentality to that danger by looking at all the other danger You're gonna you're going to fail And it's when you think about it in that context the kind of elegance and genius that went into the simplicity of Krav. Maga really can't be overstated. It's it's incredible.

Joel Ellenbecker: Yeah, I think that's awesome. And I think, too, that with the rise and the popularity and the spreading of the many different martial arts and you know people in the media starting to do them. I think it just It may become a pride or an ego thing where it's like, well, I'm doing this thing. So the thing that I'm doing, you know, has to be better. And then people are are being loud about that, and there's a lot of education out there about jujitsu and mma and some of the other martial arts, but I think at the end of the day we just have to remember, like, what is the purpose of what we're doing, you know, and for Krav Maga, the the purpose is to save lives and to protect ourselves in in a violent encounter, whereas, you know, mma, the purpose is to get into the octagon and fight one on one with another person, and see who's a better fighter. You know. And Jujitsu definitely has a lot of self-defense application, and it seems like that's you know, where it or originated, but with the popularity a lot of it is is transferred over to. This is a sport, and this is, we are going to compete against other people and see who has better jujitsu versus jujitsu, where, when we're protecting ourselves, it's like we're not trying to have better martial arts versus the other person. We're just trying to get home safe.

CJ Kirk: Yeah. Somebody asked me the same question. One time I did use an analogy like yours. And I said, imagine that you're training for a fight in the Octa, and they're like, Okay, got it. Okay. Now you don't know who your opponent is. They're like what it's like. Well, you don't get to know ahead of time, so it could be anybody could be somebody much bigger. You don't have any weight classes. They go well, wait a minute. And I go now. Imagine that they can bring weapons if they want to and they can hide them. And they're like, well, this doesn't make any sense like. Well, that's the point, and I said, and now imagine that their buddies, their wolf pack, can jump into the octagon anytime they want to and attack with this person this unknown person? And I said, Would that change the way you're prepared for that fight? And of course, the person was like, Yeah, I wouldn't even begin to know how to prepare for that fight. And I said, You know, well, welcome to Krav Maga.

Joel Ellenbecker: Yeah. And inside the octagon there's gonna be cars and curbs and flats on the ground. Or you know, whatever else I love that analogy. That's really great.

CJ Kirk: Yeah, I I think that there's a huge amount of information on the on the Internet. That's just it's unreliable. It's wrong. It's based in ignorance, and I think that you touched on something that bothers me, and I think is true, which is that people want to make the system that they're training their own. And so what they do is they go. Oh, look at what Crumbaga is doing. I know a better way to do this, and it's like. Well I'm not saying you can't do the way you're doing it. I'm not even saying that your way might be more optimal. I'm saying that if you do it your way for every incarnation of danger you will fail right? And so a lot of times people get the sense of like, oh, I want to do something better. It's like, well, self-defense is binary to a large degree, right. You either survive your attack with your quality of life intact, or you don't. And as long as you're teaching something where people surviving with their quality life intact, or that's the expectation. That's the goal for men and women, big and tall, short and small. Right then you should keep teaching what you're teaching. But most people don't know how to get to that answer. And so what they do is they're like, well, look at. Look at me for for me. For the last 25 years I haven't really cared to try to make Krav Maga like to to tinker with and go. This is my Krav, Maga. What I've tried to do is peel back all the layers and understand it at a much deeper level, and from a system mentality from top down and bottom up and from the side and what that leads to is a more firm understanding of why you're doing what you're doing, which leads to more confidence in doing that thing which leads to more training in that thing which leads to more myelination, which leads to more effectiveness. which takes us back to Bruce Lee, you know, do fewer things more times when you're sure they work and quit trying to create, quit trying to create a defense for every shade or flavor of the same attack, or the same danger, because cognitive overload will will meet you there pretty quickly.

Joel Ellenbecker: Yeah, and there's so many ways. I mean, I I get it. I wanna learn new things. I want to experience new stuff. And I think that may be what sets people on that path to try to tweak it and make it their own and change it. And there are things that I think people stumble upon, or they make connections with, that could work for them as an individual. I know you mentioned it earlier, like 2 on one, and things with knife. No doubt there are times where that might might be an option for an individual, for a certain circumstance. But I go back to? You know my wife, Tamara. She's she's 5, 2 and if she tries to wrestle your arm while you have a knife in it. I mean, you're gonna just pick her up in the air and like it's not gonna work for the big and tall, short and small. So I think that's an important thing for instructors to remember is like, even as we learn and experience more things, we have to deliver the the simple, effective thing that is gonna work for everyone. 

CJ Kirk: That's the goal of the system, right? And so if you want a system for people are over 250 pounds that can bench, press so much, or squat so much, or run so fast, or you can make that system. There's nothing wrong with that. But just be clear about what that system is. It's not a system for men and women, big and tall, short and small. or your defense. Your defense is not a defense for men and women, big and tall, short and small. Your defense is for people like you. and I think when people begin to think of it that way. I think it'll help them a lot. It brings me to the sort of maybe one of the most important issues with people tinkering, tinkering with Krav Maga, and that is. people like to tinker with crime, personalize it, and there's nothing wrong. If you have a trick shoulder or a chronic injury with personalizing or individualizing the motor skill. So it can work for you. That's different than changing the motor skill. because you happen to be fast or you happen to be big, or you happen to be strong. And what I said last night is. you're not the biggest, fastest, strongest person in the world, and until you are, those aren't the criteria you can use to create your defense. Right? So last night I was in class, and I was demonstrating with a guy who's really fast and much lighter than me, probably 70 pounds lighter than me. And I said to him, you know what if I did this. He's like, Oh, that really works. I said, no, it only worked because I was 80 years, you know 70. Let's say, let's say 40 pounds separately. Let's just call 40 right? It only works because I'm leaning on you in a way that you can't lean on me so we can't do this. It's not that I can't do it and so I can't teach it. And so we get into this idea of what's your philosophy of Prav Maga and your philosophy of Krav Maga can be thrown into a couple of different buckets. One bucket is what do you do to give yourself more accessibility to the system based on some limitation, that it's personal right. That's 1 thing. Do that, and then another bucket is when you come to a place in a defense where you have to essentially choose between 2 different responses that sit upon 2 different principles. Which principle do you prioritize? And why? Now we're into the 3rd layer of problems right? And as we peel those layers back. people begin to go through a thought exercise they haven't gone through before. And as we begin to understand more about what we believe and why and test it. It creates more confidence, it creates more training, it creates more elimination. And down that same path. So I see the the genius or the brilliance, or the truth, really the truth. And you know, Bruce Lee's statement, I you don't need to learn 10,000 things. Personally, Joel, I've counted the motor skills and Crab Mega, and it's we're we're right about 40, depending on how you how you, you know, divide them up. And so if you think about 40 40 Legos, 40 blocks, 40 skills that you can utilize and have been vetted, and you know will help you against, you know, countless innumerable types of danger. I mean, that's what you want, because you don't know what danger you're going to face. and I would just say this along that line, and I'll be quiet for those of you listening. The idea of having the system fold onto itself and making the system smaller to deal with more. More violence, more uncertainty  is the only way to go to the point that if we could just have one thing we did that was effective against all types of violence. That would be sort of their Nirvana of the system. I don't. We're never gonna get there. It's just not possible.That's the question you want to ask somebody to juxtapose the 2 ends of this question. Do you want a Marshall system that's optimized for every conceivable version of every threat. And you have 2,000. Or do you want to have a monomartial system that has one defense that's effective against everything not optimized but effective. They're gonna say, give me the one thing and I go. Well, I don't have one. But I got 40. Will that do?

Joel Ellenbecker: I don't know. I think we should put some effort into research and development. Get some cool AI tech thing on our right arm, and it's just like right straight. Punch solves everything. It doesn't matter where you are like. You throw the right straight punch and like a rocket comes out, or you know, whatever it is, it's just the right straight punch. Cj, I think that's what we need.

CJ Kirk: I mean it would be great if that's what it is. I think you know that brought one other thing in with me. I I did. I taught a class. It was probably right after Covid and I had a 2022 people stand around me in a big circle at the end of class, and I was explaining a few things, and I said, Hey, but let me let me say it this way, and I said, raise your hand if you have a knockout punch, and that's a loaded question because of who am I punching? But, generally speaking, you know whether you have a knockout punch or not. and like 6 people, raise their hand And I'm I'm a pretty upfront sort of matter of fact person when it comes to grabbing off, and I said, All right, put your hands down, I said. None of you have a knockout, punch and I said, there are 2 people in here that have a knockout punch, and neither one of them raised their hand.

Joel Ellenbecker: Right.

CJ Kirk: So the point is on top of all the things people are dealing with on the Internet and trying to understand. Is it the is it the defense, or is it the system? And what are principles, and what are the layers mean? And how do I interpret all this? On top of all that we have, the stories they tell themselves about their capability, good or bad. And we have the stories that people are telling them in an asymmetrical environment, information, environment about what works and doesn't work. And it's no wonder people are wildly and hopelessly confused.

Joel Ellenbecker: And that brings me to exactly what what I was thinking here, and and maybe what we can wrap up on is. It's really hard to to say or to criticize, or to judge, or to know without experiencing it. I can't tell you how many times I've you know, encourage someone to try out Problema, and they had all their own stories in their head about what it was or what the training was going to be, and maybe they were nervous or afraid, or thought they would get hurt, or whatever it is, and overwhelmingly, almost every single time they try the class. They experience the system and they're blown away. They're like, this is amazing. This is incredible. I I had no idea that this is what it was. I can't believe I didn't do this sooner, and that's what I would encourage people to try is like, if you, if you, if you don't know or you don't believe it, go to your local Krav Maga School, find a Kramar worldwide licensee or affiliate and experience it before judging or asking all the questions and keep the questions coming, because we'll keep answering.

CJ Kirk: Yeah, I think I think the thing that you're you're alluding to that that I wrote in the article is the only way to really judge a defense online. For most people who don't have a debt. Real depth of knowledge is is what the person's doing making the defender safer or less safe right that initial response to danger. And I have to. You know I've trained with Boss written before I was in Phoenix with him for a week. It was a crazy week. He's a crazy guy and I've I've been around Amir, who's a fantastic guy and worldwide, and was with the Israeli defense forces and did all sorts of cool things for them. and Amir held pads for boss and helped him get ready for one of his big fights in the Ufc. And Amir tells this story after after training one day, Amir says, you know you should check out and bosses. What is it? He explained it to him, and he goes. See if I had it. Pulls out a training gun out of his, you know bag his training bag. And he says, what if I hold this gun and you like this? What did you do but what we gonna do, boss? And he goes. I'll punch you right in the face and Amir's like, wait a minute. If I pull the trigger. You're trading, you're trading, punching me, which clearly would hurt for getting shot in the chest, and that's the kind of like you can judge that you can go. No, no, no, that's not safe. Right? So when I look at things online. I don't actually look at them in terms of like, whether I like them or not, or whether I think they fit my system or my philosophy, I just think to myself, is this defense making this person safer or not? And I would say 9 out of 10 times. it's just not.

Joel Ellenbecker: Well, I really appreciate the time, and being able to talk through this and and jump into this with you. Cj, I think that I get a lot of positive feedback from people. They enjoy these conversations, and they enjoy going in depth and hearing more about it. So thanks for taking the time to do it today.

CJ Kirk: Yeah, man, it's always good to be with you, Joel

Joel Ellenbecker: All right. See you next time.

CJ Kirk: Bye, bye.