Martial Arts Articles Avi Nardia

Major Avi Nardia is a former intelligence team member of the Yamam, Israel’s premier counter-terror (takeover) unit, equivalent to the U.S. Delta Force and F.B.I. Counter Terror units. As a member of the intelligence team and the instructor of CQB - Defensive Tactics (known in Hebrew as Kapap – Krav Panim Le Panim, which means face to face combat) he was exposed to many different tactics, training and real life situations.
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The first article we wrote for Budo magazine was about finding the right teacher and tracking the “WAY”. As described in that article, training with the wrong teacher is not called training at all; it is better to wait 15 years to train with the right teacher than studying with the wrong one now. I learned this from a great swordsmanship teacher, Kubo Akira sensei, and a great BJJ teacher, Professor John Machado, proved the same principle to me. (Read Article)

Martial artists carry the burden of doing the right thing and must be careful not to allow ego to create “mens rea,” which is a legal term defined as “the intention to commit a wrongful act”. Martial artists must be mindful of their own intent at all times, doing good things when faced with evil, while avoiding the evil things that having martial skills could lead them to do. The martial skill should be used for good and not evil and therefore, the avoidance of “mens rea” must be foremost in mind. (Read Article)

In order to understand the meaning of thinking out of the box, I will relate a short story.  There once was an old man who used to raise racing horses.  Upon his death, he bequeathed his children all of his horses, to be divided among them.  One half of the horses were to be given to the oldest son, one third to the middle son, and one ninth to the youngest son.  However, there was a minor problem:  there were 17 horses, and this number could not be divided by 2, 3, and 9. (Read Article)

Knowledge and judgment come from experience. Experience comes from good or bad judgment regarding life situations, which leads to evolution over time. That’s how Close Quarter Battle (CQB) and Defensive Tactics is built up and improved every day.
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by Uri Kaffe with Avi Nardia - Gun disarming is one of the most important skills you want to obtain when training in a martial art that claims to be about self-defense. Now that reality based martial arts have become extremely popular, many so called reality based instructors have started to show knife/gun disarming techniques without realizing that they contain deadly mistakes that can get their students killed!
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Events of the last several years have finally sent the “wake-up call” to the entire world. The United States begrudgingly joins with many countries in the sobering realization that safety is no longer a guarantee. Most are beginning to see the big picture. Crime and terrorism are no longer threats that happen to someone else. Violations of public and personal safety have become increasingly open and brazen. (Read Article)

To understand Israeli martial arts you need to understand the history of Israel and why the art was developed in the first place, and to see why it must continue to evolve. You need to understand the goal of the art.
No one can sit in Los Angeles or anywhere else and teach Israeli martial arts and claim to be the official system of the Israeli army if they have never served a day in the Israeli army. Remember, Israeli martial arts was a concept before it was a "martial art". (Read Article)

By Mr. Avi Nardia and Abridged by J.L. Coffman - September 11 attacks and suicide bombing was something new for most Americans but for many terror victims around the world such as Israel, Russia, and Seri Lanka who have lived with it for more than last 50 years, it was sad but not new. Only in the magnitude of the destruction and loss of life was new. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon harnessed modern Technology to the age-old tactic of suicide terrorism. Because the hijackers were willing to die, they could turn passenger jets into deadly missiles and inflict massive casualties. (Read Article)

The Israeli CQB Martial Art of Kapap has been written in a special ink, blood. The knowledge came from experience, many times learned by tragic mistakes, then studying the results to understand what needs to be done the next time. Unfortunately, Israel is the most experienced nation in the world when it comes to terror, and that is why it has developed one of the most valued CQB training systems in the world. (Read Article)

by Jim Wagner and Avi Nardia - Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network claimed that they brought down the World Trade Center towers and punched a hole into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 because the United States of America is a staunch supporter of the state of Israel. For the past several months, almost nightly, we have seen disturbing images of Israeli forces battling it out with Palestinian gunmen, Sha’eed suicide bombers blowing themselves up in the middle of Jewish crowds, and a host of world leaders wringing their hands over the fate of the non-strategic city of Jerusalem. (Read Article)

By Lt. Colonel Chaim Peer, Moni Aizik, Avi Nardia, Johan Castillo - Krav Maga is a beautiful martial art, created by one of the most influential and leading instructors in Israel’s history. However Krav Maga is a generalized term, and when you look it up in the dictionary in Israel, it will say that Krav Maga is a hand-to-hand fighting system based on close quarters combat. Maga meaning close, and Krav meaning battle. (Read Article)

LOTAR is a complete combat concept, derived from real-life situations and personal experience, LOTAR focuses on teaching techniques that recognize, assess and neutralize a threat in the quickest, simplest and most instinctive way possible." (Read Article)