Actual school reviews with stuff such as aliveness and sparring would help. Also definitely list lineage of KM ranking such as organization and what not, as each has its own requirements.

Any school in this thread is going to have a "lot" of aliveness/sparring.

Though i will go back and edit in the organization.

thank you.

well ,I left Krav right before testing for level 4 because of all the silly kicks you nedd to know. I went to the one in SF. they have a BB and some other good instructors who have time in thai boxing,etc. they do have a purple and brown teaching no gi BJJ and the have the "fight " class. Danny, is one of the instructors, opened a KM school in berkeley, inside the Ralph Gracie academy there. He is from Israel, was an instructor for the military there and a great boxer. I am a huge fan of him, he is the real deal. I decided to drop most striking until I get purple in BJJ.

so SF KM- meh, ok
Berkeley KM - recommended


Side note... i always (not just from you) hear about green belt's "silly kicks..."

They include an axe kick, cressant kick, hook kick, and a spinning back kick.

I mean the instructors should be explaining WHY they are being taught. They are not being taught as primary self protection tools (that should be obvious).

Green is considered the first level in which a student has "mastered" the basic self-defense skills of km, so there is an opportunity to teach "somewhat" complex kicks/attacks from different angles.

Green belt (for me) was the first level you HAD to Spar (a lot) to get your belt. It was understood that when sparring you would be more likely to experience those kicks than in "self-defense." But for either reason the DEFENSES for those kicks are also being taught at Green.

It's hard to practice defending a kick if no one in the class can throw it.

I've posted this before but I was told that this is a more "old school" KM school. My second level (yellow belt) test spanned two days (1.5 hours each day) and had me sweating more than I had ever before that point. Great school, great instructors and great bunch of students from my memories (circa 2002).

:) My yellow belt was 4-5 hour one day lol No sparring but i remember it felt like we were sparring lol I remember giving my (then) girlfriend (who trained with me, and we were stupid enough to partner up) her first black eye back. We were training inside defenses and we were told to really go hard (or the ATTACKERS would lose points). I felt sooooo bad.... i punched her really really hard... i knocked her over. But she got her ass back up and kept on taking the test.

Blue belt was a Fri, Sat, Sun.... like 3 hours on Fri, 8 hour Sat, and 4 hour Sunday... a LOT of sparring grappling

I tried the one in the San Diego JCC awhile. I would describe it as slanted towards law-enforcement/military and females (overly so for my taste)-- if you expect to mainly fight while wearing tons of equipment, or against people twice your size, then it seems like great stuff.

They say they are the only "Israeli affiliated" (or something like that) school in SD.

You raised the dead a little but whatever, no one cares about a single zombie roaming around.




It's hard to practice defending a kick if no one in the class can throw it.


This is a good point.