Articles by Raz Chen

  Apple’s show “Tehran” is not meant to be totally realistic but from both a Krav Maga perspective and an overall realism perspective, it is starting to fail the viewer.   Without spoiling too much,  in one episode, super Mossad agent Tamar is in on Iran on a mission. She goes [Read More]

  I am someone who is focused on discipline, order, effectiveness and efficiency.  I require my training spaces to be tidy and organized, I place discipline as one of the top priorities of training and I don’t tolerate sloppy work. I work to make the class fun, and I definitely [Read More]

One of the most valuable lessons of martial arts is how to persevere when you make mistakes. Many feel like giving up. It is so easy for people to give up when they feel exhausted, and to refuse to push through. This is especially important in self-defense training. When someone [Read More]

I know that TV has very little to do with reality, but sometimes, stupidity hits a new low. One of my students showed me a clip from an old TV show, “Prodigal Son.”  In one episode, one of the villains was an evil Krav Maga instructor, who beat up students [Read More]

Many times, students look at me and think I had an easy road to becoming a Krav Maga expert. Growing up, I won’t deny I was quite physically talented and coordinated. I was also the smallest kid in my Krav Maga classes. While in my previous hobby of Capoeira, my [Read More]

I recently did an interview with Eyal Yanilov. Although it didn’t make the article, one of my favorite moments in his discussion of training was talking about him as a teenager when he studying under Grandmaster Imi. During that time, Eyal had been taught sentry removal training. For those who [Read More]

I am often asked if learning Krav Maga will teach people how to be aggressive. “What if they start getting into fights, trying to be super-protectors?” For some reason I really do not understand, people seem to think you will come out of my classes ready to get into street [Read More]

My job is to teach people how to be safe. That’s how I earn a living and the central focus of my study. I know even if I won the lottery tomorrow, it’s still how I would devote my time.  That doesn’t make it any easier when the world around [Read More]

After the army, I transitioned back to becoming a civilian instructor. It was not exactly a smooth transition. I was forged in the military Krav Maga that was geared to take teenagers and turn them into warriors. Now, I was back to teaching regular civilians. Gone was the discipline and [Read More]

As a martial arts teacher, it’s our job to sometimes be the bad guy and give a little taste of harsh reality in a controlled environment. The mat is a safe place to learn lessons that would keep them safe in the real world. Those lessons can sometimes be very [Read More]

Teaching at Free Training Day I have wanted to write about Whistlekick Free Training Day since the day I came back, but it’s only now that I’m finally taking a trip home to Israel that I’ve had a second to breathe and process the amazing experience. I decided to pause [Read More]

  After my training, I was so excited to get my Instructor pin and return to my unit. My dream had finally come true. Well, at least it felt that way until I actually returned to base. When I returned to my troop, they were stationed in a fairly dangerous [Read More]

When the last article finished, I had just finished advanced training in the Israeli army and had been working as a special operations soldier.  I had wanted to be a combat instructor, but when the army selected me for field service, I had not argued and had accepted my fate. [Read More]

I realize that I need to step back and talk about another step in my Krav Maga journey, becoming the 2010 IDF Krav Maga Champion.  The issue of whether Krav Maga should have tournaments is an essay on its own, so I’ll leave it for after this series.  At the [Read More]

Even though it is mandatory, I was still proud to start my military service. I had been protected by soldiers since my birth. Everywhere I went, I could see a soldier dressed in their olive uniform and rifle. I knew that they kept my family and I safe. Now, it [Read More]

As I mentioned in the introduction, before I was in Krav Maga, I started out as an athlete. Before I was a year old, I was already running, and by the age of thirteen, I was studying capoeira and playing soccer. I may have been smaller than the other kids, [Read More]

Krav Maga can be boiled down to a few key concepts. One of them is that we must live outside our comfort zone. I was never someone who enjoyed writing as a hobby, and suddenly, I’m committing to writing an article a month here at Martial Journal as well as [Read More]

In Krav Maga, we train to make the best of a bad situation. We use hard times to grow and improve and learn new skills that will benefit us.  Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating. Gyms have been forced to close and I have been without a classroom to [Read More]