Westchester County and Orange County based Krav Maga New York hosted a law enforcement only ‘Train the Trainer’ certification course earlier this month. Officers who participated in this 40 hour long certification learned Krav Maga based techniques including side arm and long gun retention and defenses against attacks that transition to the ground. Shortly after course completion, Detective Marc M., a Police Academy Instructor, SWAT team member and course participant, stated, “Though intense and highly stressful, the course was personally gratifying and overall, a great success. Those who participated worked hard and represented their departments extremely well… and on our last day when high ranking Police officials showed up to evaluate our training, the room came alive. Everyone was giving it their all. Man, that was an amazing feeling.” Mr. M. goes on, “ I’m convinced that change is eminent statewide and that at some point in the very near future, PD’s all around us will begin to place a higher value on repetitive in-service training like this.”
Krav Maga has developed into one of the most sought after defensive tactics systems for American law enforcement (and civilian) applications. Originally created during the formation of the Israeli state, it emerged in an environment where extreme violence was common. Over time, the system has been repeatedly tested and improved upon based on real-life conditions. From the streets of Tel Aviv to the streets of Los Angeles and New York, no defensive tactics system in the world is as battle tested as Krav Maga.
Ruben C., a course participant now certified to teach Krav Maga, had this to say, “In my 22 years as a law enforcement officer, this was the best training I’ve gone through. I want to thank Krav Maga New York for bringing Krav Maga to our law enforcement community. What you guys have given us will save our lives, and that is truly a great gift”
Krav Maga training is designed to improve an officers’ emotional and physical response to danger. These instinctive, simple, effective, and aggressive defensive techniques build on one another, require minimal training time and yield maximum retention, even under stress. The system deals with scenarios where operators face life threatening situations while unarmed or face situations where higher force options can’t be accessed. From these positions of disadvantage, operators must respond quickly and decisively until the threat is under control. Krav Maga training methods not only develop officer’s ‘command presence’ in what is considered by participants a comparatively short period of training, but allow officers to recognize danger at the earliest stages, react without hesitation, and deploy, escalate and de-escalate levels of force appropriately.
When asked about the need for Krav Maga training specific to law enforcement, Davide Gristina, Krav Maga New York’s Chief Instructor, Owner and License holder replied, “Today’s breed of law enforcement is more motivated than ever. Given little or no defensive training once on the job, professionals like these will seek training on their own. This is both a widespread, admirable phenomenon as well as a risk. It result is a whole lot of officers training in a whole lot of defensive stuff, none of it department approved, and some of it, perhaps more than we’d like, outright dangerous for the officer. Things could be done better. If departments were to organize, codify and deploy standard hand to hand defensive tactics systems, officer confidence would increase resulting in a better skilled, more assertive, safer officer and that officer would be backed by a better trained, less liable department that in turn would be faced with fewer use of force complaints – because excessive force complaints are largely associated to an initial questionable command presence and an initial lack of sufficient force. So, by implementing law enforcement specific hand to hand defensive training, everybody wins”.
About Krav Maga New York:
Since 2004, Krav Maga New York (KMNY) has been featured on the Journal News, the North County News, the Record Review, LoHud.com, the Blotter, Hudson Valley Magazine, Healthy Frontiers, and News 12 Westchester. KMNY has trained thousands of civilians and hundreds of Law Enforcement Officers including members of New York Tactical Officers Association (NYTOA), members of Westchester County Police Academy and Rockland County Police Academy, PD’s such as the Waterfront Commission, as well as elite special response teams and a high profile protective services unit. KMNY is recognized and highly regarded by leading Krav Maga licensing bodies nationwide.
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