From Barny's Desk

Whether you think you can or think you can't - you are right.

- Henry Ford

When training you should always think positively... stopping in the middle of a defense and talking about what you did wrong will more often than not cause you to do it wrong again and again. If you make a mistake stop, visualize the correctway to perform the technique. Talk your way through it to reinforce in your mind the right moves. You will find it easier to learn and retain the technique.

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Announcements and Events

Re-naming Contest: One Year Free Membership Prize!

We are having a contest to re-name the Krav Maga of San Francisco Training Center. We will continue to be all about learning the most effective self-defense system in the world, but it's time for a name that also reflects our diversity. Please submit your entries to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , or write it down and give it to Gail or Gabe at the front desk. If a student submits the winning entry, they will receive a free one year membership to the training center! So be creative, and good luck!

2nd Annual Combatives Training Seminar

Open to all levels.
Increase punching and kicking speed and power!

Material Covered:
Straight Punches, Palm Strikes, Hammer Fists, Hook Punches, Uppercut Punches, Groin Kicks, Vertical Kicks, Push Kicks, Side Kicks, Back Kicks, Round Kicks.

Arm and Leg conditioning to increase strength, speed and stamina.

Great for anyone who wants to learn to improve their punches and kicks.

Saturday July 15 1:30-4:30

Sign up by July 1....$50
After July 1.........$65

Upcoming Belt Tests

Blue Belt
July 22nd and 23rd

Yellow Belt Test
August 12th

Orange Belt Test
August 26th

Congratulations to Krav Maga's new Yellow and Green Belts!

Yellow:
Tim Reid, Paul Dottin, Danny Siudara, Thomas Sachen, Jonathan Deffarges, Charles Deffarges, Celia La Luz, Jodi Langsfeld, Aaron Sampson, Patrick Harte, Peter Fillat, Bill Walsh, Jonathan Sofer, Teddy Rusli, Seth Dutcher.

Green:
Michael Hammond, Mark Hegland, Kim Levy, John Eggert, Geoff Oppenheimer, Dennis Tordesillas, Joachim Muller-Lance.

Gym Facilities at KMSF

The gym facilities will open by August 1st. Members who have signed up are eligible to receive a free half hour training session with Kat.

Saturday Yoga class - Extended and Advanced

Beginning July the 8th, the Saturday Yoga class is extended to 90 minutes. It is a level two class, incorporating more advanced poses including back bending, arm balancing, and inversions. If you have taken 10 or more of the regular classes you will be prepared for it.

Schedule Change

The 4:45 pm Tuesday and Thurssday Level 2 classes are now at 4:30 pm.

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Interview: Geof Oppenheimer

Recently I sat down with Geof at a Mission Street cafe near his studio to chat for a while about his experience with Krav Maga training, and about the other parts of his life outside the school.

How did you get started in Krav Maga?

"I started back when the school was on Greenwich Street because someone threatened my life! I had a personal friend who was in a bad relationship, their boyfriend called me up and threatened me! I kind of freaked out as anyone would. I've always been a very proactive guy and this was one situation where I thought I wouldn't be in control and I wouldn't know what to do.

I've never liked to feel that way about anything. I went and day one, I loved it! I have family members who are in the Israeli military who recommended it to me. I made myself go and I wasn't expecting to even like it. Even the first time I sparred, it scared the shit out of me, but it was empowering. You find out getting hit only hurts for that one second. Even though there is a bajillion people at this school that are better than me and I don't want to be the best, but now I can hold my own. And because I have a natural facility towards it, this is where I get pretty artsy, but it's a lot like sculpture in a way. For my mind sculpture is about moving things in space and where mass hangs out. Krav is like that, I think when a guy moves this way where is he going to be off balance and that sort of thing."

I would expect a guy like you to think that way, to think in abstract terms and look for common parameters.

"Certainly psychologically for me it's been great. A lot of the people here whom I really like, I don't know what they do. It's very democratic, and I'm sure very few of them know what I do. I love it because the mind set is different than the very academic world that I happened to end up in. It's a very nice break. Honestly I feel a lot more affinity with the stuff I hear in Krav than I do talking about "the reconstructed body under post-modernism" or whatever else we talk about in the art world."

How much time do you spend doing other work? What else do you do?

"I teach at Berkeley 60 percent of the time. I love teaching, although I wish I was engaging with the students on more of a moral level. The grad students are a little more hand-picked, but with undergrads it is whoever shows up."

Are you required to come up with a complete set of new pieces every 18 months?

"I've had a show where I had one bad ass sculpture and a bunch of drawings, another was several pieces and a video. So it varies, then from that show the work gets dispersed to other galleries or to a museum or to a collector, so that one show sustains the year."

How long have you been doing that?

"Not that long, I graduated in 2001, I got picked by a New York gallery that year, and the gallery I am with now poached me from them in 2002."

Which members of your family were in the Israeli military?

"On my mom's side, they emigrated during the colonial times, pre-Israel. They were in the Irgun, which terrorized the British, then in the IDF during the war for independence, which in the Israeli military was the path for advancement. One of my uncles is still in the Haganah."

I am always curious, how does martial arts training or training in organized movement affect the other things you do?

"I don't think Krav Maga changed how I work in the studio, I think the skills I learned in the studio helped me train in Krav Maga. My undergrad experience was a very traditional experience, with a lot of 60's modernism. It is about mass and space, and how an object moves through space. That stuff I really utilize in Krav. Like if I rotate my leg over my hip in certain way, how is that going to throw my upper body around, or how do I get all of my 140 pounds into the punches I'm throwing. I'm sure that type of thinking is applied in a lot of fields, I just happened to come to it through high modernist sculpture."

That is a very intellectual approach to body mechanics, how is it that you have applied this to fast movement? Or is it more of deconstructive approach?

"It's a training tool, I don't think about it when I spar, but when I'm learning something new, that's how I understand the world. I think of things in terms of mass and space. I'm always aware of space, where is the negative space, where are the openings for me to put my foot or my fists. I was in my first Level 4 class and I was trying to learn a spinning heel kick, I think of where my balance is, that's art to me."

You do learn a lot about human nature while dealing with confrontations, dealing with other students, dealing with the stress of sparring etc.

"One the things I've had a really hard time with, is that I freak myself out a bit when I'm fighting. I have trouble staying relaxed, but now I have been fighting a lot. It's interesting, some people when you hit them, they smile at you and start to fight harder, or you hit somebody else and the fight goes right out of them.

Overall, Krav has really helped me approach conflict with more honesty, metaphorically I have a much easier time looking at someone or something in the eye and being ok with discord. I understand that it's ok to disagree whereas before I would always try to negate the conflict by ignoring it or being ashamed of my own anger. Now I'm not, if it's an honest conflict, I'm ok with it. If I'm wrong I say I'm wrong, rather than try to get out of it somehow. That is definitely different for me and it's something that other people in my life have noticed. I've been doing it for 5 years now. Now there has to be another thing to keep my interest intellectually, I still go to Level 1 classes, and it's those kinds of psychological aspects that keep my motivation up. In the easier classes, my movements are more instinctual so then I start to work on the footwork or envisioning opponents, dealing with the aggression an opponent might be putting towards me."

Were there other atheltics you were into before Krav, or while you were growing up?

"I played soccer, and did a lot of skateboarding. I grew up in DC during the time of Fugazi, there was lots of reggae, lots of punk rock, and lots of skateboarding. But beyond that, not much really. I was in the crew that hated the jocks. Soccer came later, in high school and college. I was on my art school soccer team which was pretty much a joke. Krav Maga is without a doubt the most consistent real sporting thing I've ever done, and I'm certainly in better shape than I've ever been in my life. I didn't go here to get in shape, but its a by-product. I came purely for self defense, and that is still what I am here for."

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Body Language

Oftentimes we are unaware of what signals we are putting out to other people in the form of our body language. This includes our overall posture, facial expressions, and gestures. There is some controversy over what constitutes involuntary and voluntary aspects of body language, but here I am primarily concerned with those aspects that we can make voluntary, or control ourselves. We are usually more aware of other people's body language, but becoming more sensitive to this crucial form of communication can help you survive or avoid many common assault situations.

You are always displaying some form of body language whether you are aware of it or not, like it or not. It's crucial to become aware of it, and very sensitive to it. Observe it in yourself and others. The beauty of it is that you can study this anywhere. We interact with people on a daily basis, at work, at home, while going about our lives. There are numerous opportunities to learn how human nature and situations affect people's body language. Particularly in Krav Maga classes, we get to observe ourselves and others under physical stress while going through drills or simulating self-defense scenarios.

Typical forms of aggressive body language are signs of tension like closed fists, clenched jaws, raised shoulders, and encroachment of personal space. There are cultural exceptions however, so it is useful to gauge the overall affect of someone's posture, voice, and the situation before making an assessment of danger based solely on one or two limited observations. It is like the barking dog with the wagging tail, which end do you believe? In addition to observing others, observe yourself to see what signals your body language is putting forth. Are you showing signs of tension that might escalate the situation? Are you showing signs of fear that might embolden your adversary? In some situations, it might even be useful to show compliance or docility with our body language to buy time, or to reduce our attacker's awareness of our counterattack or escape. Most of the time however, a posture that is both confident and non-threatening is the way to go.

If you haven't thought about this universal form of communication, start now. Body language is as old as humanity, even older in fact. We learned it from animals, and there are still common features of human body language we can observe in many animals. Use it to your advantage, use it for survival, use it to communicate what you want to others.