The Origins of Krav Maga — From Bratislava Street Violence to a Global Self-Defence System

Bratislava in the 1930s — Where Krav Maga Was Born

Imi Lichtenfeld grew up in Bratislava, Slovakia, in a family with deep roots in physical culture. His father Samuel was a detective, physical educator, and competitive wrestler who ran a local gym. Imi followed — winning Slovakian championships in wrestling, boxing, and gymnastics by his early twenties. He was, by any measure, an exceptional athlete with a thorough grounding in multiple combat sports.

In the mid-1930s, as fascist groups began organising attacks on Jewish communities in Bratislava, Lichtenfeld led a group of young men to defend the neighbourhood. What he discovered quickly changed his understanding of fighting entirely: sport technique did not transfer to street violence. Competition is structured, 1v1, ruled, and between consenting participants. Street mob violence is none of those things.

The attackers came with whatever was at hand. Eyal Yanilov — who trained directly under Imi for over two decades — has described what Imi told him about those years: the mobs often armed themselves with improvised weapons pulled from the environment — fence pickets ripped from garden fences, stones grabbed from the street, lengths of timber. Ordinary objects, in the hands of people intent on serious harm. There were no rules, no referees, often multiple attackers at once.

Imi had to adapt everything he knew to survive those encounters and protect his community. That adaptation — stripping away what didn't work, keeping what did, developing responses to improvised weapons and multiple attackers — was the beginning of Krav Maga. It wasn't invented at a desk. It was forced into existence by necessity.

Israel, the IDF, and the Development of a System

Lichtenfeld emigrated to what became the State of Israel in 1948. Within a few years he was appointed Chief Instructor of Physical Fitness and Krav Maga for the Israel Defence Forces. Over the following two decades, he refined and systematised his technique into a formal curriculum for military training — adding responses to firearms, group combat, and the specific scenarios faced by military personnel.

By the late 1970s, recognising that ordinary civilians also needed practical self-defence capability, Lichtenfeld began adapting the system for civilian use. The military version wasn't directly appropriate — the legal constraints, the threat scenarios, and the training context are all different for civilians. This is when his most dedicated student, Eyal Yanilov, began the work that would become the KMG civilian curriculum. The two worked closely together until Lichtenfeld's death in 1998.

Eyal Yanilov — The Man Who Built the Global Curriculum

Eyal Yanilov began training Krav Maga in 1974 and was training directly under Imi Lichtenfeld by the mid-1970s — becoming his closest student and collaborator over more than two decades. He is the most senior active Krav Maga practitioner in direct lineage from the founder, and the person most responsible for the system's global spread and development.

Yanilov's contribution to KMG goes beyond continuing Imi's work. He brought scientific and pedagogical rigour — examining what technique holds up under real stress, how adrenaline affects performance, and how curriculum should be sequenced to build genuine capability rather than just technical familiarity. He created the P (Practitioner), G (Graduate), E (Expert), and M (Master) progression structure that gives KMG its clarity and consistency. In 2010 he formally established Krav Maga Global, now operating across more than 60 countries. For more on KMG as an organisation, the KMG explained article covers it in full.

The Connection Between KMG Auckland and the Source

Eyal Yanilov is not a distant figurehead for Krav Maga Auckland — he is Instructor Aaron's direct instructor. That relationship has been built over more than a decade of sustained, intensive training.

Aaron has attended seven week-long training camps in Israel — the most intensive form of KMG development available — as well as numerous three and five-day training sessions in the UK and Australia alongside the KMG global and international instructor team. These aren't seminars. They are extended, physically demanding immersions directly under Eyal's instruction.

Eyal has visited New Zealand twice at Aaron's invitation — and on one of those visits, stayed at Aaron's home. That level of personal connection and trust within the KMG system is rare, and it reflects the seriousness with which Krav Maga Auckland approaches the training and its responsibility to students.

The Lineage Continues — From Aaron to the Next Generation

The lineage Imi established doesn't stop with Aaron. Instructor Bertrand — one of Aaron's earliest students at KMG Auckland — has gone on to establish his own KMG-affiliated club in West Auckland. Imi → Eyal → Aaron → Bertrand → students. That is what an authentic lineage looks like: not just a certificate on a wall, but a chain of teaching, learning, and developing that extends the system outward.

This is why the connection to the source matters for students training at KMG Birkenhead today. When Eyal updates the curriculum based on new research or operational experience, that update flows directly to Aaron — not through a chain of intermediaries or a diluted franchise. You train with someone who trains with the person who leads the system.

Why the Origins Still Shape Every Class at KMG Birkenhead

The founding question Imi asked in Bratislava — "does this actually work against a real, uncooperative, dangerous opponent?" — is still the standard applied to every technique in the KMG curriculum. That's why there are no katas, no point-scoring, no techniques preserved for tradition alone. If something doesn't work under real pressure, it doesn't belong in the curriculum.

It's also why the weapons curriculum is as broad as it is. The improvised weapons Imi faced — fence pickets, stones, lengths of timber — are exactly the kinds of objects that appear in real incidents. The KMG system trains defence against the full range: knives, sticks, blunt objects, chains, firearms. Not because it makes good marketing, but because Imi's experience proved that real threats don't limit themselves to convenient categories.

For more on how the legal and ethical framework of self-defence connects to this history, the self-defence and the law article is worth reading. And for a clear picture of how capability develops over time at KMG Birkenhead, the self-defence training timeline maps the progression from day one.