Israel Krav Maga - Part 4

Krav Maga was developed in Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the 1930s by Imi Lichtenfeld, also known as Imi Sde-Or. (Sde-Or - "Light Field" - is a calque of his surname into Hebrew) He first taught his fighting system in Bratislava in order to help protect the local Jewish community from Nazi militia. Upon arriving in the British Mandate of Palestine prior to the establishment of the Jewish state, Imi began teaching hand-to-hand combat to the Haganah, the Jewish underground army. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Imi became the Chief Instructor of Physical Fitness and Krav Maga at the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) School of Combat Fitness. He served in the IDF for about 20 years, during which time he continued to develop and refine his hand-to-hand combat method. In 1978, Imi founded the non-profit Israeli Krav Maga Association with several senior instructors.[3] He died in January 1998 in Netanya, Israel