Imi Lichtenfeld 1910 – 1998 “Founder of Krav Maga”
“Founder of Krav Maga”
Imre Lichtenfeld was a Hungarian-born Slovakian martial artist who founded the Krav Maga self-defense system.As a young man, Lichtenfeld was a successful boxer, wrestler, and gymnast since his youth.In 1928, he won the Slovakian Youth Wrestling Championship, and in 1929, the adult championship in the light and middleweight divisions. That year, he also won the national boxing championship and an international gymnastics championship. In the late 1930s, anti-Semitic riots threatened the Jewish population of Bratislava. Together with other Jewish boxers and wrestlers, Lichtenfeld helped to defend his Jewish neighbourhood against racist gangs. He quickly decided that sport has little in common with real combat and began developing a system of techniques for practical self-defense in life-threatening situations.
Because of his renowned fighting
ability, Lichtenfeld was targeted by the local police in Bratislava, and he was
forced to flee with a group of other young Jewish men and women. He was the only member of his family to
survive the Holocaust. He eventually
found his way to pre-state Israel in 1942.
He began training fighters in his area of expertise in 1944. After the 1948 War of Independence, he was
absorbed into the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) where he remained for a long
career as Chief Instructor of Physical Fitness and Hand to Hand combat (Krav
Maga). During that time he developed and
refined his unique method for self defense and hand to hand combat. He retired from the military in 1964, and
began to adapt and modify Krav Magna to meet the needs of police forces and
ordinary civilians. To disseminate his
method, he established two training centres, one in Tel Aviv and one in
Netanya. His trained and accredited
teachers of Krav Maga, who were also accredited by the Israeli Minister of
Education. He developed his fundamental
self-defense principle: 'use natural movements and reactions' for defense,
combined with an immediate and decisive counterattack. From this evolved the
refined theory of 'simultaneous defense and attack' while 'never occupying two
hands in the same defensive movement.
The one rule in Krav Maga, is to not get hurt.
His method was formulated to suit everyone – man and woman, boy or girl, who might need it to save his or her life or survive an attack while sustaining minimal harm.
Lichtenfeld created the International Krav Maga Federation in 1995. He died in Netanya in 1998.
