As a self-defense instructor, it is my responsibility to ensure that all students learn appropriate techniques that empower them to defend themselves during a violent threat. I customize and tailor every self-defense maneuver to the abilities of each student, regardless of age, injury or overall physical ability. Ultimately, Krav Maga increases a student’s “capability” for surviving a violent attack.
The one area that the student has sole responsibility in developing, however, is their “capacity” to execute these techniques with full commitment of emotion, mind and body. Without fully accepting the fact that self-defense requires 100% commitment of physical contact and, at times, brutality, there’s no technique that taught that will work.
It is a daunting task for any student to accept that they are vulnerable to an attack that can result in potential injury/death.
As an instructor, all I can do is introduce what the potential threat is and provide a road map and structure for successful defense. The student must accept these scenarios and work through any discomfort that facing violence will produce. Once that process has been successfully accomplished, the student then has the “capacity” to win.
Capability without capacity, is nothing more than dance choreography and, ultimately, unhelpful.
