Boaz Aviram

DISCLAIMER

Well I guess I should start off this review by first informing you, the reader of this review, that I proudly hold the coveted distinction of being the very first Krav Maga instructor personally certified by Boaz Aviram, the author of this book and the producer of his seven disc DVD series entitled, Pure Krav Maga. That not withstanding, I assure you that my being one of his students holds no bearing whatsoever on my review, as a matter of fact, I am probably more critical of it than I would be if I did not hold this position. So with that being said, on with the review.

REVIEW

Now I guess I should start off this review by addressing a couple of minor issues that I and it appears a couple of other reviewers have had concerning the punctuation, sentence structure, spelling, and quality of photography used in this book.

Yes, there does exist some editing errors that could stand to be corrected, but although a couple of them do add some confusion in a couple of places, they do not take away from the quality of the information provided in such a way as to condemn the entire body of work. I myself am the author of numerous books and it would be a pretty safe bet that you can go through any of my books and find a few mistakes here and there. I even recall finding a glaring error in a James Patterson book titled, London Bridges, and I even contacted the publishers about it and I even received a nice response back. We are all human and we all make mistakes, even if some of us don’t want to admit it.

As far as picture quality is concerned, yes I do agree that many of the photographs showed the subjects at to great a distance and detail was lost. Also the background choice could have been much better, but once again don’t allow a few minor problems to take away from the vast amount of quality information contained in this book. Unless you print on glossy paper and in color, you will lose some degree of clarity when printing photographs on regular paper and in black and white.

Now that those issues have been addressed, on with the review.

The main criteria that I judge a technique based book upon is the quality and quantity of information that is provided and how relevant it is in relation to the subject matter it is purporting to be providing. In other words if a book is telling me it is the next best thing to sliced bread concerning Krav Maga, then it darn well better deliver upon its promise. And in this particular instance, it does just that.

Boaz provides a wealth of information concerning the principles and philosophy of Krav Maga as taught to the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) soldiers in a curriculum designed to teach them how to effectively use Krav Maga on the battlefield in as little as 21 hours of instruction with some soldiers receiving an additional 8 to 12 hours of instruction depending upon their individual units needs. Now of course this material must be practiced correctly and as many times as it takes before becoming instinctive in nature in order for it to reach its true potential in both effectiveness and efficiency. It is plainly obvious that the person that practices the techniques correctly for say two weeks is not going to be anywhere near as good as the individual that has practiced for years.

I have always believed and often stated that the principles and concepts behind a technique are far more important than the technique itself and that is something that you will find throughout this entire book, although you will find an abundance of technique never forget that which is more important. This is something that even the great military genius Sun Tzu expounds upon in his famous writing, The Art of War, which follows this very same philosophy of principles and concepts being of more importance than actual techniques.

This book contains a lot of information on a wide array of topics from basic striking and kicking, to defenses against a variety of attacks ranging from unarmed attacks, to chokes and holds, knife and gun attacks, and pretty much everything in between. This book should also be used in conjunction with Boaz’s DVD set entitled, Pure Krav Maga, which is available on Amazon.com.

Now do I agree with absolutely everything in this book? Of course not! And those things that I don’t agree with are more of a technique based issue and not the more important issue pertaining to the various principles and concepts.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning Krav Maga as it was, and I presume still is, taught to the IDF in Israel.

Shawn Kovacich
Martial Artist/Krav Maga Instructor
Author of the Achieving Kicking Excellence book and DVD series.… (altro)