By Moshe Katz
Israeli Krav International

June 18, 2017, Israel

Sometimes we go through life like a blind man feeling his way through the darkness.

When we encounter darkness there are two ways to deal with it.

1. Bring in light - Electricity, a torch, a flame to light up the cave.

2. Learn to cope with the darkness; the eyes will gradually adjust, our sense of smell and sound will improve. We will feel our way through the dark cave.

For the Jews of the Lvov ghetto who hid in the dark underground sewers the second option was the only one. They lived for fourteen months underground. They learned to live in darkness.

With self defense situations we face the same dilemma. All attacks are Darkness. Some self defense systems want to eliminate the darkness, they want to light a candle, they want to install electricity. But the reality of life is that we can never eliminate the darkness of an attack. No matter how well prepared we think we are we are still mostly in darkness. You cannot install electricity.

So we, with our system, try to learn to cope with the darkness, just as the Jews in Lvov coped with the darkness of the sewer. We must developed tactics that do not depend upon eliminating the darkness but rather of learning how to function in the dark, with all the unknown elements.