In this episode, Elad Binenfeld & I discuss how Krav Maga serves as a therapeutic tool. Krav Maga, just as Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) involves managing emotions and reactions to help build resilience and prepare for daily situations.
In this episode, Elad Binenfeld & I discuss how Krav Maga serves as a therapeutic tool. Krav Maga, just as Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) involves managing emotions and reactions to help build resilience and prepare for daily situations.
Welcome to Crab Talk. This is where I delve into the multi-faceted world of Crab Magam and share personal life experiences, mine and others. This is where good people talk their walk. I have the honor to host my friend Elad once again. Elad is an international expert in Krav Maga, but also certified in cognitive behavioral therapy what's called CBT. Cbt is a talking therapy that can help people manage problems by changing the way they think and behave. Both Elad and I strongly agree with how Krav Maga in fact is a CBT Not only a self-defense method, but a fundamental life skill that allows other qualities in humans to prosper. In this episode, we go into this topic and provided some example from our personal lives. Enjoy a lot hey how are you?
Speaker 1:I am a friend. Today we're going to talk about a topic that you and I've been conversing about for years how Karmaga is a tool for therapy, how it is a therapeutic tool, and I want to shed some lights to all the listeners of how we see it, how we do it. Each of us can share later some, some of our personal experiences, but first I would like uh, to explain it. Actually, you are also certified as a uh in cbt, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, li cbt yes can explain explain what cbt is for those who don't know, and how how we are connecting cbt to karmada cbt is a cognitive behavior treatment okay, and it it's a therapeutic way and it concentrate of the on thoughts.
Speaker 2:We know that thoughts can create emotions and amplify them. So if we control our thoughts, then we can better control emotions. Not that we want to decide what to feel, this is something different. But if we feel something, we want to understand why and to control where it goes and how high. So we know that thoughts can create emotions and amplify them and the thing is that we want to better control of what, why we feel what we feel, to understand it better and how it affects us. So then we can, with thoughts, navigate to where we want to go to feel better. This is mainly the issue Now. The thing is about control. We see that anxieties and a lot of mental diseases, problems, interferences are creating because of a low self-esteem, of a low self-esteem. We know this and Krav Maga it's about control. Krav Maga principles are about control, especially in those extreme events, extreme situations that we the average people, you know, don't have control.
Speaker 2:It's when you are surprised and attacked physically and it's the extreme situations that we have problem dealing with. And those extreme situations can embed in you, in us, in everyone, a mark. And this mark can become, some can develop a trauma out of it and if it won't be treated right, so it can become post-trauma. Maybe before that it will be like a acutic stress disorder and and then post-trauma, ptsd. So krav maga deals with these stress situations like it. It helped us to get ready for them.
Speaker 2:Now, it's not that we are, like you know, pessimistic. We are not. Krav Maga for us and you know it better than everyone, you know it's a way of life, it's a way of thinking, it's a way to strengthen your mental mind how to think, how to make decisions, how to understand situations, so we can be stronger, mentally stronger. So this is it, because if you understand the principle of Krav Maga, it gives you control, especially in those extreme situations, but also in the everyday situations, like when you're not comfortable from from because someone treated you somewhere somehow. You know so how you deal with that and it's not a a a dangerous situation, and it's not a dangerous situation Objectively, it's not a dangerous situation, but it's still an uncomfortable situation that you need to deal with. So the Krav Maga treat these everyday situations so we can overcome them and be stronger because of them, because of how we treat them, how we dealt with them.
Speaker 1:So that raises the question. I think the way I see it is when you, when you start, when you're young, you're helping yourself, or, as a parent, you're helping your children shape how they are going to interpret situations and how to experience the world. So whatever happened in the first few years in your life, if you were looking at in, is a triangle like we are in the. It's the base of the triangle. This is what's going to shape your self-esteem and how you and the lens you that you see the world, and this is how you're going to react to everything. Right, based on your set of beliefs of who you are and what the world is, you're going to react. We must prepare our body and we must prepare our brain for everything that's coming our way.
Speaker 1:People, as I see it, must prepare for what's in their future, and we know that violence is in the future. That's not even a question. Who never experienced any kind of violence? There's verbal violence, there's physical violence. Just being uncomfortable by witnessing violence. There's a lot of problems with violence. So building resilience to what's in your future is important. So people go to the gym because they want to be stronger, so they can lift more, they can be more fit or better able to defend themselves, or everybody has a reason why they wanna be strong, not let alone that it's just healthier.
Speaker 1:But there's also a mental gym that you have to practice, like how you deal with problems that reshape everything in your life and how you think. And, as you said, thoughts shape reality, shape feelings, feelings shape reality. So the way you and I have been discussing that for many years, how Krav Maga helps create that resilience and how it's, in fact, a life tool to deal with situations, with daily situations, with the idea of manage the emotion and not just the emotion, the reaction, and turn it into a response, basically like learn strategy and in addition to the physical skill, or in fact, this physical skill allows you to create a strategy, it can be secondary once you nail it.
Speaker 2:Yes yes.
Speaker 2:I agree, I agree.
Speaker 2:If I try to simplify the principles regarding that, we can say that being helpless is one of the most horrific feelings, that causes a lot of problems.
Speaker 2:So, krav Maga, one of the principles saying, use your knowledge by need. You need to understand the situation and use your knowledge to solve your problems and save yourself or someone you care about. So, knowledge, if you know how, if you acquire the right knowledge and know how to use it, then it's the opposite of being helpless, even though there are or not, even though in those extreme situations. So Prav Maga, bring it, bring to you, like like, nurture you to become with a specific knowledge to deal with any situation, especially the extreme ones, but but the basic situation, so you won't feel helpless. The the chances we are talking about chances, right, it's not black or white, but the chances you'll feel helpless, going down when you learn and practice Krav Maga in the right way. Of course, not only the movement, it's, like you said before, it's the combined working on the body and the brain to to understand how to use this knowledge, when to use it.
Speaker 1:So that brings me to another question. Do you think every Krav Maga instructor, regardless of their understanding of CBT and willing to learn more you know and to evolve.
Speaker 2:We evolve right. We didn't learn Krav Maga how we teach it now we evolve. So people that are open to learn more and to evolve and to see problems and to seek the solutions and to adjust our solutions to the reality, to the everyday problems, so they can do it. You don't need to learn specific CBT to do it. We did it long before you did it. I did it long before I knew CBT. But CBT is another tool. It's a tool of the thinking, like the principles of Krav Maga. But the question is, if you ask me, if every Krav Maga instructor understands the principles, I think not.
Speaker 2:I think not, not only Krav Maga, more martial arts and the instructors and coaches. They are doing good with their students and they develop their resilience. If they know what they do or don't know exactly what they do, but they do it, it's good. There are, of course, like those instructors, that they're doing also damage. But what we can do, I think that every instructor thinks he knows better.
Speaker 1:That's another podcast. That's a whole conversation. I think that by the end of the day, even if the instructor has absolutely no knowledge or even intent to touch the emotional level of the training they there would be a lot of improvement in this area anyway. Right in my uh yeah, I guess it's the first time I'm announcing it uh, kind of publicly in my book there's guess it's the first time I'm announcing it publicly In my book there's a chapter that goes from motion to emotion, because I believe that once you unlock certain movement, you also release certain emotions, and vice versa, by the way. So the capabilities that you're building when you are training will affect how you feel anyway, so the instructor doesn't have to be aware of it. The capabilities that you're building when you are training will affect how you feel anyway, so the instructor doesn't have to be aware of it. It's just. This is just a byproduct of what we do, and I think you and I are the product of. The instructor is not understanding it yet teaching it Right. They didn't know what's the influence of um, teaching us how to strike and fight. Yet we got to that direction. That's what we got from it. Um, because of our emotional structure and how we see the world right and you and I also grew up together. So for us was we were feeding each other with that. I guess that worldview, but that's not everyone's experience. So we have our way and then other people have different ways. But I think at the end of the day many people will be able to get to the same place, maybe with less acknowledgement of the process, but they will be more resilient. With that. It doesn't matter what they train.
Speaker 1:I believe that once you commit yourself into certain kind of training and you feel more able when you build yourself more confidence. And I think there's another component that when your physical safety, your physical being, is no and your physical safety, your physical being, is not in the first thing you think about when you move around your day, then you are free to do other things. Your brain is not as occupied. We only have a certain capacity to think and to move, and if I'm always at least 50% of it in the back of my mind, I'm always concerned about my safety, then naturally I have less capacity to think about other things. So I think Krav Maga gives you the freedom to think about your day differently and about yourself differently and experience things less of a threat.
Speaker 1:Because one thing we talk a lot about is uh, especially post-covid is anxiety. People are extremely anxious and anxiety leads to either over reaction or under reaction, but not measurable reaction. Right, you don't respond, don't give the proper punishment to whatever happens. Right, proper punishment quote unquote can be also ignored. Right, can be just leave. But when everything becomes a threat, then you always react as if you are threatened.
Speaker 1:But if you're threatened, then it's easier, right, and I had a situation in the subway last week when a guy just those who haven't been in new york every subway ride there will be either something violent or something that close to be violent, because this is what the reality in New York look like these days. So a guy that was well-dressed, he looked nice got on the subway car and started outbursting and screaming and yelling and being aggressive with his body language and I thought that something is wrong. I thought someone maybe started a fight with him. But then I see that he sits on his own and he's only surrounded by a few women they're a few feet away from him, not close, and nobody's responding to him. So I figured, okay, so he might be crazy, but he doesn't look crazy. He looked well-groomed, very nice, well-dressed. So I was curious. I was looking at him, which is a do not do. When you're looking at a crazy person, then you're acknowledging them. This guy saw that I'm looking at him. Crazy person, then you're acknowledging them. This guy saw that I'm looking at him and now he started targeting me and I didn't feel threatened. So, you know, my body language stayed soft and I smiled because I was. I was amused, I didn't. It was not an invitation and this is definitely not not an advice for other people to do, but that was my instinct.
Speaker 1:And then he started yelling at me and getting angry with me Like what are you looking at? And started saying things that I prefer not to repeat on record. And then he stopped. I looked away but I didn't continue that conversation. It's only been a few seconds. But I decided you know what, like in the next stop I'm just going to get off the train and I go to another car. It will be okay, there's no need to engage here. And then I see that he gets up. So I said okay, so I don't need to another car, it will be okay, there's no need to engage here. And then I see that he gets up. So I said okay, so I don't need to get up. Then he gets up and leaves the train.
Speaker 1:But I looked at him to make sure that he's not coming to my door, because I've seen it happen before when they leave in one door and then they come from the other and they surprise you. So I kept looking at him just to make sure he's not coming back. And then he looks at me and getting again outburst and like an angry and showing me like a shooting sign with his fingers and like getting big. And again I was amused. So my response was to smile. So my response was to smile and so, as I see him getting more worked up, I just delivered a little kiss in the air and then he started smiling and then he relaxed. Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know that that's what we consider to be instigating for others, but I think he was. It caught him by surprise because I I was not scared of him. I didn't perceive him as a threat, but it could be a threat. Who knows? Who knows if he had weapons, who knows how crazy he would be willing to go. That's not a self-defense advice. What I've done. It was just purely my instinct, because I didn't feel threatened and I know I have this feeling threatened and objectively he was acting aggressively, so other people might be threatened.
Speaker 1:I think this is a way of being wanting to be seen right when you are just going crazy and yelling. Why are you yelling? Because you think people don't notice you. So when they're looking at you, they acknowledge you. That's it now. You're not going to let go of this jam. Someone acknowledge me. That's it now. You're mine. We're going to talk.
Speaker 2:Not necessarily. He had an ill intent, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think many times the situation. It's a great analogy to many daily situations that not always people have ill intent when they start a negative interaction. Sometimes they don't. They're not even aware that this is a negative interaction. In fact, I had an amazing, similar conversation with my son on the way to school today. My son is only eight.
Speaker 1:Today, if my son is only eight, I explained to him how not listening to me or to someone else right to friends will can create negative consequences and even violence by others, because when people feel like they are not heard, not seen, they get bigger, especially if it's important to them. So if you make people feel seen, you calm them down. It's like I hear you, I understand you. But if you ignore them and then you're expecting them to be on your side, then it's not realistic expectation of a situation. You have to understand that what you do and what you don't do count and that's why we need to learn how to manage the situation, how to distribute our energy, and sometimes we do things not because we want to, because we need to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we understand the situation and we are doing what's smart than right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean we want to be smarter than right.
Speaker 1:I wasn't smart last week in the subway Again, when we're looking at self-defense advice, okay, but yeah, people, people ask so many times that um question with absolute value, just like the. The press usually ask what should you do when that happens? Well, it depends on so many things the the first thing I would ask is first. The first thing I would ask is first, how capable you are to have more than one option. If you are a smaller person, untrained, of course you don't have too many options. If you are a smaller person, weak, maybe a little injured, but very trained, you're still better off than someone that is not trained but you're in a disadvantage.
Speaker 1:People have this idea that training Krav Maga or martial arts will provide some level of immunity. It doesn't. It just allows you to manage the precepts and the beginning. Well, what happened after the beginning of the fight? Who knows that's after that? You. You need to also have some luck. You never know. Because I think the most important tool grandma provides is the, is the pre-fight, understanding what is leading to an altercation, because what we do in its essence is the pre-fight and the first three seconds of the fight. That's Karmaga. Everything that happened after. That requires more advanced curriculum. It requires fighting skills. It requires a lot, lot more stamina, a lot more strength. It does require a lot more skill, um. So I mean this is why we also split the curriculum to self-defense in the beginning and then more advanced skills later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so. So it takes us to the beginning of this conversation that we said about as healthier your self-esteem is, less things threaten you. When you understand situations better and you have the knowledge to get better decisions that are suitable to this specific situation that you are in, then you don't need to fight, you don't have any enemies, you are above that Let things threaten you. So you can be calmer and get better decisions. So you won't, so the situation won't be escalated and prevented. That's the point. And again it comes to the children. If we can teach that and we can we are teaching that, since they are young girls, right? For example, I tell you, just the other day, my boy is six years old now and he has the issue with the snakes. He wants to learn about snakes, to see snakes in the YouTube, you know, and to learn more, and okay. And then I remembered he talked about the cobra snake and I remember when you and me were in Vietnam, right? So we bought for a souvenir like a cobra snake inside a bottle, and I told him that I have and I can show it to him, but it was 15 minutes before we had to go to his kindergarten and he wanted to see it now and the bottle is not available now. It's inside a box somewhere and I need to look for it and it's not the right time. But he's six years old, he needs to learn and develop his life skills, like to be patient, and he couldn't. These 15 minutes were like eternity for me. He was shouting, he was screaming at me and he wants it now. And he won't get it now because it's not the right time. And I told him I will show you, but you need to be patient, you need to let it go for now, and I'm with you Now. This is the point, because they need to, to let it go for now, and I'm with you now. This is the point. Because they need to learn self, they need to learn the life skills. But how we teach the life skills, that's more important, because I can, could go in, you know, head to head with him and fight and threaten that if he won't react like this, if his, his behavior won't be calmed down, then I'll punish him or something I can make him learn patience. But what it will do to his self-esteem? That's the whole idea.
Speaker 2:So I tried as much as I can to hold him, to be with him to keep my voice calm but firm, that he cannot look at that snake now because it's not available. And I gave him a reason, a logic reason why. So he won't translate something that is not there and I promise that I will show him later on when he will help me look for it and do the work with me so we'll find it. And then you can see as the time pass, like in the beginning he was very frustrated, so he needs to deal with this frustration, right. So he's angry. After a while the anger passed and he was sad. You, you could hear it on his voice when he cried and then he could. After the anger left him, he could hug me and told me how much you want to see it, and I still promised him that he will see it. But we need to be patient a little bit more.
Speaker 2:So this is when the children are dealing with everyday situations. We want to teach them the life skills, but we want to mediate the situations to themselves, so they will never, never translate it against them. So it won't hit the self-esteem, won't interfere the self-esteem to grow up. So they will learn patience. They will learn to deal with frustration but not with hurting themselves, so they will develop together with it. Yeah, so then later on, as they grow up, they will fight someone or someone will threat them. You know real dangerous situations. They will have the self-belief that they can control themselves and react appropriately. And this is Krav Maga, since they are very, very young, till the end of their lives. It's a way of thinking and to hold together your abilities, you know, to control, to choose the opportunity, to choose what you do yeah by the end of the day.
Speaker 1:What we are, what we are teaching, is really just giving people choices. Exactly the idea is that people will not feel choiceless or defenseless, so they feel that they have the tool to deal with with the situation. You know, not always I, we are only, as we say in the army we're always best prepared for the previous war, and this cannot be any more truth these days, but the idea is that we will be equipped flow with what's going on well enough. I guess another expectation that we have to set is that there is no such thing as perfection.
Speaker 1:There's no perfect response, but the idea that the response will be good enough. So you prevent an escalation, you prevent bigger problems from occurring in the future or consequences from action or inaction in the situation you're in. And it goes back to management. Now again, since there's no such thing as perfect. Also, us instructors are not perfect.
Speaker 1:We also have our own feelings and the, the backpack that we we have, the life pack we have, we carry on our back and the world, the lens we see the world, and it's much easier for instructors to demonstrate perfection quote unquote but for instructors to demonstrate perfection quote unquote. But that's why we always need to check if the technique works under pressure, if we're working well under pressure. That's. Pressure is what you see, what that's the measurement for truth, right, that's the light detector. And we say in the Jewish belief, we say in the Jewish belief, where there's people who interpreted the Bible, they said you don't judge a person by, say, when he's drunk, when he needs to spend money and when he's angry, because those are difficult situations for people to deal with. But I think the other way around. This is exactly when you judge them. You judge them based on their, what comes out of them under pressure, because otherwise, it's very.
Speaker 1:Everybody can be perfect when there's no pressure. Everybody can sail a boat when the sea is calm. What do you do with the waves?
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I can tell you that I have students, young ones, that in their age now they're dealing with situations better than how I did when I was in their age.
Speaker 1:I think, because our generation is better at educating in that sense, because we are more aware of many psychological aspects of raising the kids. Back then, when we were looking at the 80s, 70s, even in the beginning of 90s, people were more busy with survival. Parents were busy with survival. We are the first generation where, in fact, food was available, was secure. Our parents didn't like that.
Speaker 1:So when, as we said before, you know if your existence is always threatened, clearly it will be very hard for you to deal with other things. So, in fact, I think their resilience to a lot of things that happen around them and within them was higher than the young generation's. Young generation is a lot more aware of the whole process and perhaps able to stop things from happening, but I believe they're a bit less resilient. Like things touch them in the same level of intensity. Simple things are more amplified, so they feel it just as big as the big things that the previous generation had experienced. Simple, simpler things are more amplified, so they feel it just as big as the big things that the previous generation had experienced. But there's also a sign of a better life.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, so if we need to sum it up, you know, sum everything up if we start as early as we can to teach problem, to understand situations and to make a better decision making, then the sky is the limit. You know, the sky is not the limit, actually, that's it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, my friend Elad, always a pleasure, and thanks for sharing your wisdom Always a pleasure, thank you, thanks for sharing your wisdom.
Speaker 2:Have a great day. Thank you, my friend. Thank you, you too.