New Year's Special Rate Continued for February
For dedicated Krav Maga students who know they're going to enjoy training here over the next year, we offer this rate:
Prepaid membership gets an extra 3 months for a total of 15 months for $999.

New classes coming Sundays and Mondays
Beginning in March, we willoffer Level 1, Ground Fighting, Strike and Fight, and fitness classes on Sunday.
Beginning Monday, February 23rd, we are adding a Pilates class from 4:30 - 6 pm.

Yellow Belt Test 2/2004:
Over the weekend a new group of Yellow belts kicked, sweated, and fought their way through a grueling test, and emerged victorious. Click the group photo on the right to see them up close and personal.

Tools of Survival
When facing a sudden, violent encounter, what is your greatest asset? Your strength? Your speed? Your endurance? Your lightning fast kicks and punches? If you guessed any of the above, guess again. The most overpowering factor in determining whether you will survive or not, is quite simply your strength of will, your will to survive. I was surprised recently to find that the Army Survival Manual devotes its complete first chapter to this subject. Our thoughts can dictate how we look and act physically, our body language, our speech, and how we react to situations. It is crucial to realize, as early on as possible in your training, that you must treat your mind as another tool you need to train, that in fact it is the most significant tool you have to preserve yourself in adverse situations.

Krav Maga gives you the tools, mentally and physically, to overcome habits of action and mind that can keep you from performing the way you want to when you're under stress. It places you in situations where you can confront some of these situations and stresses, and then observe your own reactions in order to overcome them if they are not helping. Simply taking the time to reflect after class, and ask yourself a few questions can show you how your thoughts drive your actions and reactions, and give you the ability to change them if need be. You can ask yourself, how did I react to the stress of a particular drill? Did it affect my breathing, did it make me more tired or more pumped up? What was I thinking? What was I looking at? Where did I get stuck repeatedly? If I can't remember, why wasn't I paying attention?

To strengthen your will, you must become a critical observer of yourself, without being a harsh judge. Everyone struggles with a variety of mental blocks and hurdles with their training, it is quite likely that many students and teachers have run up against the same issues that you have. Ask teachers what they may have noticed about your reactions, tell them what you discovered, and ask for suggestions to overcome responses you feel need to be changed.

To learn more about how the mind and body work together, particularly in the area of physical performance and martial arts, here are some resources I have found helpful. If you have some to recommend, please e-mail your suggestions to me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Books:
"Mastery", by George Leonard
"Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience", by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
"Book of 5 Rings", by Miyamoto Musashi
"Dead or Alive - the Choice Is Yours: The Definitive Self Protection Handbook", by Geoff Thompson