Krav Maga in the United States

In the 1960s, with military approval, Imi began teaching Krav Maga to civilians in Israel. In 1981, the Krav Maga Association of Israel and the Ministry of Education held the first International Instructor’s Course at Wingate Institute for Physical Education. A generous philanthropist from New York, S. Daniel Abraham, sponsored a delegation of 23 members from various cities in the United States to attend. The course was supervised by Imi, then 71 and retired from his military career, and taught by Krav Maga lead instructors Shike Barak, Eyal Yanilov, and Ruevin Moimon. Darren Levine was selected as one of the delegates because of his martial arts and boxing background, as well as his involvement in the physical education program at Heschel Day School near L.A.

The course was a six-week intensive course that involved over eight hours of training per day, six days per week. The course was exhausting, and by the end only a few people passed. Darren was one of them.

During the course, Imi and Darren became friends, and Imi promised Darren that he would visit him in the United States. True to his word, in the summer of 1982 Imi traveled to Los Angeles and lived with Darren and his family while teaching Darren more about Krav Maga.

Darren tells a story about Imi’s visit, a story that he also told while delivering a eulogy at Imi’s funeral in 1998.

When Imi came to visit me, I had just bought a new sports car and I was really excited to show it to him. I was really proud of that car. But when Imi got in the car, he started shifting and fidgeting around, reaching over his shoulder. He looked unhappy. Finally, I asked him what was wrong. He said, “This car isn’t good. The seat belt, it’s too far back. I can’t reach it with my right hand. I can’t reach it with my left hand. I’m a lazy one. It needs to be easy, or people won’t wear their seat belt. It’s not safe.”

At the time, I was just disappointed. I wanted him to be impressed with my car. But later I realized that he looked at that seat belt the same way he looked at everything. It had to be simple, effective, or people wouldn’t be able to do it. That was Krav Maga.

Darren’s training continued, and in 1984 he received his full instructor’s degree from Wingate Institute. That year, Imi gave Darren his own personal black belt. Years later, Imi would award Darren with a Founder’s Diploma, one of only two Imi gave before his death. Darren and his colleagues had already formed the Krav Maga Association of America, and the growth of Krav Maga in the United States had begun.

Krav Maga for Law Enforcement

In 1987, Darren and his top students began teaching Krav Maga to law enforcement in the United States. Under Imi’s guidance, Darren adapted Krav Maga to the needs of U.S. law enforcement and military personnel. The first agency to adopt Krav Maga into its force training curriculum was the Illinois State Police. When Darren taught them, Imi, then 77, flew out from Israel to attend.

Since that time, Krav Maga’s involvement with law enforcement has grown rapidly. Krav Maga Worldwide (our company, which received a master license from the Krav Maga Association of America) now trains over 400 law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels.

In many ways, law enforcement agencies share the same needs that the Israeli military felt after its birth: limited training time, limited opportunities for retraining, and a wide variety in officer abilities. Krav Maga is the obvious answer for them.

Some individuals, knowing how aggressive Krav Maga can be, raise an eyebrow when they hear that we teach law enforcement officers. After all, law enforcement work is different from military work: war is to kill or be killed, but we demand more restraint from police officers. We agree with this sentiment completely, and we include use-of-force education and escalation/de-escalation drills in all our law enforcement training.

Having said that, we have also discovered an interesting aspect of Krav Maga’s aggressive approach. Because we train officers to go from a non-aggressive to aggressive state immediately, they usually neutralize a violent subject very quickly. The more quickly the subject is neutralized, the less of a fight there is. Less fight equals less damage. The result: Agencies often find that use-of-force complaints decrease once they adopt Krav Maga training.