David Santos, introducer of krav-mága en Vigo through his school, Bukan Krav-Maga (Hernán Cortés, 28), clarifies from the beginning that this martial art “It is not a sport, but rather it is focused on personal defense on the street.”
In the 1930s, Imi Lichtenfeld, a Hungarian Hebrew living in Bratislava, devised this discipline as a combination of different martial arts so that the Jewish community could protect itself from the attacks they were beginning to suffer from the Nazi movement. After the Second World War, Lichtenfeld moved to Palestine and there he developed his technique, first with the Haganah militias and, later, with the Israeli army, which ended up exporting it all over the world.
“He was an Olympic champion in Greco-Roman wrestling, a professional boxer and a black belt in judo, in addition to practicing other martial arts. And from all of that, he developed a system with which he could Eliminate an enemy with a single blow. They had to do it very efficiently,” says David Santos.
“Currently, its techniques are practiced by most armies,” adds the Vigo instructor, who came into contact with this martial art in Bucharest, where he moved in 2006 for work reasons. “I practiced martial arts from a very young age in Vigo. In Bucharest there is an important Hebrew community and I started working with them on krav-magá in 2007“, explains Santos, who insists that it is “a martial art aimed at self-defense. Other disciplines of this type, such as karate, judo, taekwondo or kung-fu, have focused more on sport and competition, while krav-magá has not. There are no fights, no competitions, no rivals because it would be impossible. “It focuses on self-defense on the street.”
As time went by, David decided to leave his previous job to dedicate himself professionally to Krav-Maga. To this end, last year he opened his first Bukan school in Vigo. “We have seventy students and it has been very well received. They come from children from five or six years old to eleven and, from there, they can enter adults, which we have up to 65 and 67 years old. “Anyone can practice self-defense,” says this man from Vigo, who has had Yaron Lichtenstein as a teacher, the main reference for this martial art today.
“He was Imi’s favorite student and last year he was in Vigo giving exams to students from our school. It was a joy to have him in Galicia for the first time and now he is going to return, on November 18, to teach an intensive course and take more level exams,” says Santos, who concludes that “we have been very pleasantly surprised by the welcome.” People are very sensitive to the violence that is being experienced, and that is increasing, and they do not seek it out as a sport. People don’t come here to lose weight, but to look for self-defense formulas”.
2024-05-16 06:07:18
#Kravmagá #selfdefense #discipline #street
