Page 18 - Complete Krav maga : the ultimate guide to over 250 self-defense and combative techniques

Krav Maga for Law Enforcement

In 1987, Darren and his top students began teaching Krav Maga to law
enforcement in the United States. Under Imi’s guidance, Darren adapted Krav
Maga to the needs of U.S. law enforcement and military personnel. The first
agency to adopt Krav Maga into its force training curriculum was the Illinois

State Police. When Darren taught them, Imi, then 77, flew out from Israel to
attend.

Since that time, Krav Maga’s involvement with law enforcement has grown
rapidly. Krav Maga Worldwide (our company, which received a master license
from the Krav Maga Association of America) now trains over 400 law
enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels.

In many ways, law enforcement agencies share the same needs that the Israeli
military felt after its birth: limited training time, limited opportunities for
retraining, and a wide variety in officer abilities. Krav Maga is the obvious
answer for them.

Some individuals, knowing how aggressive Krav Maga can be, raise an eyebrow

when they hear that we teach law enforcement officers. After all, law
enforcement work is different from military work: war is to kill or be killed, but
we demand more restraint from police officers. We agree with this sentiment
completely, and we include use-of-force education and escalation/de-escalation
drills in all our law enforcement training.

Having said that, we have also discovered an interesting aspect of Krav Maga’s
aggressive approach. Because we train officers to go from a non-aggressive to
aggressive state immediately, they usually neutralize a violent subject very
quickly. The more quickly the subject is neutralized, the less of a fight there is.
Less fight equals less damage. The result: Agencies often find that use-of-force
complaints decrease once they adopt Krav Maga training.