Eyal Yanilov
Eyal Yanilov, chief instructor for the International Krav Maga Federation, has been Imi's closest assistant for over 15 years.
Teaching Krav Maga Since 1976, Eyal has training civilians, Military, Law Enforcement, Special Units and Instructors for all sectors, all over the world. Eyal was the Instructor for over 20 Americans, including Darren Levine and Alan Feldman, who took a part in the first Instructor’s Course for Americans in Israel (during the summer of 1981). He taught and certified all the first generation of American Krav Maga instructors in courses in Israel and USA in 1984, 1986, 1988, and later until the mid 1990's, and was the Lead Instructor for official courses conducted for the Illinois State Police and other units that made the breakthrough for KM in the Law Enforcement sector (1988). As head of the Krav Maga Professional Committee (starting in 1987), was responsible for organizing Krav Maga into a true system, and for revolutionizing it in the mid-1980's. Organized the latest major overhaul in the late 1990's and leads the current tactical revolution in progress. Eyal has also been acting as the main driving force in spreading Krav Maga in Europe, Australia and the Far East.
Eyal, who is the drivind force of spreading KM around the world, believes this facet of the training to be highly important. 'the last thing anyone should get from self defense training is a false sense of security', says Eyal. In KM students are taught to respond form natural postures rather than assuming a fighting stance prior to combat. This is due to the fact that attacks often occur when the defender is not in a state of readiness. Krav Maga students are therefore trained to perform defense whilst seated, lying down, falling backwards, in bed, in a car, and in other situations where movement is restricted. Asked about the difference between training military and special units and training civilians Eyal answers, 'if assailant tries to stab a young man or an officer of a SWAT team, I will give both of them the same technique as it is the best on I've got against this specific attack. The technique includes a decisive counter-attack, but the finishing stage of the technique will be different, the level of aggressiveness in the lesson will be much higher for the officer and some of the training drills will not be the same. Also the officer is usually carrying a weapon which he can use to his advantage and he may encounter threats of attacks that a civilian will not meet, and vice versa. This way every one will get approaches, techniques and training drills the best way we know how, in order to fulfil his needs'.
It has been said that there is nothing new in martial arts, and that a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick. Krav Maga does have a large number of techniques, tactics, training methods and special drills to offer, as new situations present themselves everyday the world as well as in battle torn Israel, and for many Israelis, it is a matter of life and death to have new solutions to new and to old or adverse situations. KM is a modern system with logical comprehensive thinking behind it is based on experience and has a set goal to save lives.
Together with a creative and intensive training program, Krav Maga has proven that you don't have to be a victim, nor do you need to practice complicated of flashy maneuvers to extricate yourself from a violent or potentially violent situation. Krav Maga is based on modular type defense (and in most cases simultaneous counter-attacks). The same principles and modified techniques can be employed to block a punch or knife attack making Krav Maga easy to learn and easy to retain retain.
