Kapap Krav Maga, contemporary but yet fully based in traditional martial arts as part of a Self Defense Education has a Fire arm training or how we like to call it a Gun Jutsu – the way of a Gun. Shooting is and extension of a traditional swordsmanship and it is a Martial art as same as a hooting range is a Dojo. Like in old traditional martial arts settings open filed is the best environment for the classes. Here we can draw a parallel and say that a good shooting rage is the one, which provides a great variety of possibilities for the training, and it is not limited in space and movements. The best example is a combative training. In order to build situational awareness a proper facility/shooting range must come with as many obstacles as possible in the filed, from changing positions to high risks entries like kill house games, cover and concealed, bad vision, low light, shooting from cars and so on. Only and open door shooting range can provide all of those requirements. Indoor shooting range is good to keep and maintain skills during the wintertime but even than my recommendation is to take advantage of all four seasons and train outdoors even if it is snowing.
Firearm has always been a better half of Kapap Krav Maga IJJ. Whilst Jiujutsu and hand-to-hand make one half, shooting and gun skills make the other. Shooting also comes with extra skills requirements in the filed like rappelling, water training, survival, hike and so on.
With more than 40 years in the security and martial arts field it makes me proud to see more women taking part in the hand-to-hand program as well as in the firearm and field program.
The role of women in 21stcentury is comes with a new understanding of gender studies and learning from the history of many powerful and inspiring women that have shaped the destiny of this planet. We can see that in the ancient times the role of a women has differed from culture to culture and while the role of a warrior has been predominantly associated with a male figures there have been historically important women who were actively participating in different warfare’s and battles. They were not only a behind the scene characters dwelling in palaces and chambers as mothers, queens, lovers or old wise women.
Great amount of my understanding of Martial Arts comes from the Far East and learning to know that female warriors are one of the greatest untold narratives in the samurai history. But over a span of couple of centuries female samurai warriors were found on battlefields fighting besides men with fierce and bravery. Female samurai warriors were highly trained in the martial arts. They were taught to use sword, the naginata and the bow and arrow mostly to protect themselves so we can say that this was part of self defense and primarily defensive in nature.
What set Tomoe Gozen as a fearsome 12thcentury Japanese female warrior apart from her fellow warrior women that instead of defensive she was offensive. She became an icon due to her fierce determination as a warrior. Tomoe has disappeared from history and her fate has been speculated by many generations to come.
Lets move to some recent history and to Lyudmila Pavlichenko that many people do not know her name. She was a Soviet sniper in the Red Army during the Second World War; credited with more than 300 confirmed kills what makes he one of the most successful sniper in recorded history. For example, officer Chris Kyle, US Navy Seal, who served during the war in Iraq, was the most lethal sniper shooter in US military history credited with over 160 kills officially.
Lydmila Pavlichenko started her sniper carier at the age of ten when she joined a shooting club not being able to tolerate braging of a neighbor’s son how good shooter he was. She said that she joined the shooting club to show that girl could do as well as him. Later on she has earned a sobriquet “Lady Death” for a good reason. In her speech in United States she said that she was 25 years old and killed 309 fascist ocupant and than reportedly told “Don’t you think, gentlemn, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?”
Women are more and more encouraged to take part in different combat programs. One of the examples is Israeli Army who has always supported women as fighters and had them as part of the team from Navy Seal, YAMAM to Pilot program and in many different units. There are many women in Avi Nardia Academy in KAPAP Krav Maga training and other martial arts programs as well. What we can see is that lately more women take part in the shooting program as part of their self-defense classes but many of them take it as a sport and become excelent shooters and competitors. Lydmila Pavlichenco would have been definitely proud of them as same as many other strong female characters who were writing new pages in history. Women empowerment comes in different shapes and what we do is to provide right tools and safe space for women to feel empowered and tackle every day life with confidence and awarenes.
Women narrative is changing and learning from history we can find a value in the way martial arts and self-defense provides recognition of the complexities of what it means to be a woman and illuminate our understanding of women in contemporary afairs.