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Israeli Haganah Combat System
Wado-Ryu KarateGrand Master Hironori Otsuka (1892-1982) established the Wado-Ryu style of karate in 1931. By the time ..... Haganah is Israel's core self-defense fighting system. The term "Haganah" is Hebrew, which means, "defense." Haganah is one word that rouses powerful memories to the people of Israel. Since it was formed over five decades ago, Israel has had to contend with urban warfare and close quarters fighting. Haganah, a group of freedom fighters were outnumbered and ill equipped. However, in spite of this, they subdued their enemies and established the State of Israel. The Haganah eventually became the IDF, the current military force in Israel.
Haganah is known as a unique self-defense system that incorporates both unarmed and armed fighting techniques and applies them to the needs of civilian and professional operators. Hagana combines Israel's self-defense and fighting styles of Israel and tactics called LOTAR, which is being taught in IDF Special Forces Units. While other systems focus on stand-up fighting, ground fighting or armed combat, Haganah teaches how to win in every situation.
Haganah is taught in Israele classrooms. It has DVD/VHS series. It also has a book, Fight to Survive, wherein readers are taught how to "contain, control and demolish" an opponent. Experienced Hagana students are extremely aggressive and highly confident.
What makes the Hagana fighting system highly effective is its continuous improvement. Hagana is an ever-evolving and evre-changing system so that it can keep up with the constantly changing elements of real combat. Haganah teachers keep themselves abreast with the training of Mike Kanarek and Mitkan Adam, the instructors at IDF's counter-terrorism school. Haganah teachers are continually applying what they learn and bring their combat experience into the Haganah system with regularity. There is no ego in the Haganah system. It uses strategies that work.
The Haganah system has two components: Fierce Israeli Guerilla Hand-to-Hand Tactics (F.I.G.H.T.) and armed combat. F.I.G.H.T. involves elements of hand-to-hand, empty hand verses knife and gun and ground survival combat. Hagana's armed combat component includes Israeli Tactical Knife Fighting and Israeli Combat Shooting.
The basic training principle of Haganah and F.I.G.H.T is simple: avoid, escape, demolish. To illustrate this principle: Whenever possible, try to escape an intensifying situation. If you are attacked and cannot make a quick escape, do not make assumptions of your attacker's ultimate intent. Instead, work to demolish your attacker. Measure your response only when choosing how the fight will end. Bring your opponent in, deflect his attacks, establish and maintain control of the situation and then demolish your attacker. Haganah drills into its students a mindset that reacts to a violent attack and quickly switches from a victim to a predatory aggressor.
Every Haganah touch is intended to inflict damage on the opponent. Every Haganah tactic possesses a defensive and offensive element. Techniques are overlapped to "short-circuit" and confuse attackers. Haganah has no rules of engagement. Every technique builds on responses borne from instinct. Strength does not matter. Haganah encourages its practitioners to understand other fighting systems so that they can apply the techniques in situations as well as know how to use the weaknesses to their advantage. Haganah practitioners are urged to stay up to date and continually enhance their knowledge and skills.
Haganah's teaching approach mirrors a military style teaching and recognizes the time demands and typical fitness levels of the working, non-military adult. Haganah instruction virtually contains all the content of the system - hand-to-hand, knife defenses, gun disarms, ground fighting - in just a few hours a week over a four-month cycle, referred to as a "rotation." The rotation repeats itself thrice per year. The hand-to-hand combat aspect of the Haganah military boot camp only takes a couple of weeks' worth of hours. A student's proficiency in Haganah largely depends on his background, but one can be quite proficient in Haganah within two or three rotations.
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