Johnny-X
15-02-2012, 16:01
Hallo Leute!
Hier direkt das Interview:
Interview with Albert January, 20th, Greece
At the VIP-Protection Training by the KAPAP-Academy (KAPAP ACADEMY | Elite Israeli Self Defense and CQB (http://www.kapapacademy.com)) in January 2012 in Greece, Rudy Hochholzer and me has the opportunity to talk with Albert Timen, head director and founder of the KAPAP-Academy.
Because the content shouldn´t be only interesting for us, we asked Albert Timen to do an official and public interview.
Jonathan Marx: “For all the readers who don´t know you, please introduce yourself and tell them what KAPAP is.”
Albert Timen: “ I have made most of my career in the governmental Service as Part of the Israeli defense Forces (Military) in a SF unit, from there continued to Service in the Police in various Special units as well as Instructor at the National Police Academy and SWAT School and was working for the Diplomatic Security Service on various roles before I established KAPAP ACADEMY as a training and certifying entity.
At 9 years old I started learning Judo. It was a good foundation for me as it taught me a lot about positioning and working with balance of bigger kids then me. I was relativly a small kid compared to others my age, but I was very competative as well and allways looked for bigger challanges, so for me it was a good testing ground to my new learned skills.
Durnig my youth years Judo was very popular in Israel and many kids were involved in it. Up untill today one of the biggest National champions and olimpic medalists come from Judo. In those days None of us actually ever heard about Krav Maga or other forms of it or it’s various branches like IKMF, IKMA etc‘ which were created much much later in the late 90’s.
After 4 years in Judo as a Kid I had decided that it’s not challanging enough to my temperament and decided to try a Boxing , which for me offered the next level of challange. The coach was very strict and came from Russia as a coach. He demanded a lot of discipline in terms of training, lots of Cardio drills and the way he taught was teaching me about myself more then anything else. I slowly worked out my way and gotten into competing but due to lack of support of this Sport in Israel at the time we didn’t get to compete professionaly and my coach stopped our matches. I remained with Boxing and my coach since I wanted a mental and physical preparation before my Military Service . When you turn 18 in Israel you immediatly are selected to Military service. You are not asked if you want to serve or not. It’s a public duty by every citizen of Israel that turns 18. The process starts a year before at the age of 17 when you get your first call to make medical tests , the second call is a written tests and ealuations and the third call is psychological assesment and more tests that will determine your qualifications to selection for Special forces or other Military service, according to your profile.
I had passed all stages of the Special Forces selection successfuly and was given a choice to serve in one of the Special units. Little I knew about which unit I was going to serve and all I was told that its a Special Forces unit which is Secret. I had to pass lot of training and they kept intervieing me about m my friends, my background and my motivation. The unit was very secretive about its nature and only when you pass a stage you would go to the next one, so little was told at each respective stage of training and qualification.
They chose 118 men that qualified and now the specific selection started. We begun basic training but no one knew we are still in a process of selection by our Unit commanders. During the next two years of training and qualification only 16 mede it to our unit.
Training the fighters included basic training (boot camp), Weapons craft, field craft, physical fitness exercises and performing at the individual level, the squad and staff, training of riflemen level 08, counterterrorism Course (longest in the IDF), Hand to hand combat, Urban and Rural navigation and warfare, skydiving course and specialized training on combating terrorism and many other issues that I can’t mention here.
At the end of the training we did a 120 Km march and they separated us completely. Now the trainers became our sergeants and commanders and we began specific unit training. They have beaten the shit out of us again and again during the training and anyone who couldn´t stand it, had to leave.
When we arrived to the Lotar School (Counter Terror School) we had to go through daily hand to hand combat, agressivness and specialized toughening stage that builds you mentally for the job. It was there that I used my boxing skills and judo experience to survive fighting against bigger guys then me. It was very brutal training but no one said a word about it since we all wanted to finish this stage in our final qualification.
The origins of KAPAP reaching back to the time, when the modern state Israel didn´t exist – you have to imagine, that the last time we heard about Israel before was in 70 A.D. When the Romans fought a jewish revolt and renamed Israel into Palestine. After the British implemented their mandate in 1919, after the First World War (1914-1918), there were still a lot of Jewish settlers in the areas that we call Israel today. To handle the problems with arab gangs and in anticipation to eventualy create a own jewish state, the Haganah (hebr.: defence) was formed. The Haganah was a underground army and so the precursor of the modern Israeli Defence Forces.
Soon there was a need for a special unit to defend isolated, jewish outposts against marauding arabs and ongoing racial riots in the urban regions. This unit was called “Notrim” (hebr.: guards) and was very successful at protecting the outposts, but there weren´t so much effectiveness in handling the riots or pushing the enemy back behind its own borders. So another elite unit was formed: The Nodedot (hebr.: wanderers). During the World War II, when the jewish people were threatened by Nazi-Germany and on the other side by arab tribes that openly sided with the Nazis and the British forces where in a worldwide conflict, the first official Israeli Special Forces Unit was formed: The Pal´mach (Hebr.: acronym for “Plugot Machatz”, “Strike Platoon”). This unit should only have 1000 men, but the Haganah decided to train 3000 men in preparation of a future Jewish army.
The Training that these Pal´Mach Commandos did was called KAPAP (hebr.: acronym for “Krav Panim El Panim”, “face-to-face combat”). KAPAP was not one system. KAPAP was a mix of physical training, firearms, explosives training, radio communication training, wilderness survival training, first aid, hand-to-hand-combat, mental and psychological preparation and also different language courses.
KAPAP was used as an “all-inclusive” term.
The Palmach assisted the British in operations during the invasions in Vichy (Nazi-ruled France), Lebanon, Syria and in espionage missions in Jordan and fought side by side with the British SAS in the Balkans.
After the World War II, the Jews expected the Brits to cooperate with them still. But the Brits throwed the deal away and the Jews had to fight for theire own country again. The Pal Mach used guerrilla tactics against the British military and police.
After 1945, when the United Nations were founded, the brits tried to part up the region into two parts – a Jewish part on the West Side of the River Jordan and an arab Part of the east side (todays Jordan).
When the British people left the region and the Jews declared their independence in 1948. Hours later the forces of Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Palestine attacked the new born nation Israel. The Haganah had to face its biggest challenge In the war of independence and was officially named into “Tzava Haganah Le´Yisrael” (“The Army Defence to Israel and also into the Israeli Defence Forces IDF).
During these times of war, the Israeli people not only learned to survive, they also managed to bring their troops to a form that is one of the most respected militarys in the world.
In 1957 the “Sayeret Mat´kal” (Unit 216) was formed. This unit was ultra-secret and the former Avraham Aran was a intelligence officer who modeled the unit closely after the British SAS. The Unit became worldwide fame because of a series of spectacular counter terrorism operations.
In the 1970´s, the IDF Special Forces had a monopole in hand to hand combat and, once again, KAPAP became the training of choice, which was also known as “ Lochama Zehira” (hebr “micro fighting” or “micro combat”). The System included a broad variety of military skills in addition to hand-to-hand-combat.
However, while Israel was still in war with its surrounding enemies and involved in a lot of counter terrorism operations, there was a serious need for a hand to hand fighting system. And as result what they got as a basic was a no-nonsense system called KAPAP.
Jonathan Marx: That means, that KAPAP from 50 years ago isn´t the same as KAPAP today is?
Albert Timen: Absolutely. We have to make a distinction between the historical KAPAP and the KAPAP of today which is modified to fit modern warfare needs. KAPAP had a lot of developers and contributors: Michael Horowitz (Short Stick and Walking Stick), Juda Marcus (Judo, Jutitsu), Gershon Kopler(Jiututso and Boxing), Izak Stiebel (Boxing) and many others. KAPAP was not an integrated system. There were a lot of other instructors and a lot of other disciplines like knife, hand-to-hand, stone throwing, bayonet inprovised objects and more. Imi Lichtenfeld was one of them. Imi was a fitness instructor in the Haganah, and then he actually took part on the first KAPAP instructor course – but he had no influence on it personally, he joined others like him to become a part of the Instructor cadre. A reference for all these things is found in the Book „KAPAP – From the Field to the Battlefield“ by Noah Gross, who worked on a 10 years reaserch independently and funded for this project by the Palmach museum.
KAPAP today is a modernized concept of „how to defend yourself“ with proven tactics and tecniques which are a part of our modern era and respond to actual threates as a reality based Self Defense program. We took a lot of lessons learnd and personal experience of our leading Instructors and tested them in a way set to fail the defender and only things that worked well under pressure were adapted and upgraded to fit our needs. Back then KAPAP was in a more primitive stage and used things that were not tested yet effectivly, so it worked more on the fighting spirit and mind of the practitioner and his motivation to survive.
Rudy Hochholzer: What is the difference between KAPAP and Krav Maga?
Albert Timen: KAPAP and Krav Maga are terms in Hebrew which describes Hand to Hand combat. KAPAP is „face to face combat“, and Krav Maga is „Contact combat“, so in general it’s just two generic words that describe a form of physical combat between two or more people. Some people try to take ownership and trade mark it, or make people think that they have rights over it. Well for me it’s all an attempt to capitalize on a name that is too general to be owned by anyone. This by itself brought fights and ego and destroyes the purpose teaching people to defend themselves.
When you try to make the term Krav Maga like a bible, like a set of rules and only get conflicts by other krav Maga teachers you remain a closed system which becomes afraid of anyone else’s influence or contribution, So they divided, the research stopped and they kept it as a closed system, and the teachers stayed the teachers all the time, leaving their students without any options to learn anything new or better forms it became like a trend that surrounds so many things that are not connected to reality and it became so watered down that it’s almost not funny in my opinion when I see what people call today „krav Maga“.
After i seen that people use the term KAPAP now in many of Krav Maga schools (which has no connetion to any of the material we teach) I will contribut my part about KAPAP as taught under KAPAP ACADEMY for this interview. It’s too general and impossible to generalize everything that goes under a name like KAPAP or Krav Maga so I prefer to specify things to KAPAP ACADEMY – our school.
KAPAP Academy was incorporated in 2004 in the US for the purpose of CQB and self-defense Instruction. CQB for Police and Military and self-defense for civilians. The concept was to share knowledge, accumulated by the instructors and share it with less experienced people and cross train with people with more experience. When we talk about people with more experience, we talk about people who trained and researched in the right way and from whom we can learn. For example we went to research “knife”, we immediately researched people who have experience in the field – not necessary with big names in the market cause we didn´t want to start with people who have too much commercial interests. We came across very interesting cases and people which helped us shape our form of training to become much more realistic to the needs we came for. With the experience from my background I gave KAPAP a much more realistic direction and shifted our focus away from „Martial Arts“ training. We mainly crossed trained with with people who had interactions with violance and with people who had experienced real situations and who understand the main concepts of fighting.
Rudy Hochholzer: Many people are talking about serving in the special units of Israel. Is there any exchange of knowledge or any cooperation?
Albert Timen: This is a complex subject. When you are training together with someone in the Special Forces, you have to ask in what time in which year and in which unit he was. Of course a lot of things changed with the time. And then you have to ask who his instructor was and what where his influences. So like KAPAP in the early days looked almost like Judo and Jiu-Jitsu, but today it´s totally different.
There is a matter of evolution in every training. The responsibility of the head of the school is to take the knowledge and experience to a specific area that answers certain questions.
Again, the KAPAP-Academy has chosen a very specific task to choose students to become independent thinkers and challenge them in realistic scenarios and not give them “the best technique”. Life is dynamic and we have to be honest to our students, who decided not to go the “Ways of the Martial Arts” and eliminate all the ranks, belts -that has nothing to do with reality.
So far from what I see, there is minimal exchange, because everyone wants to keep his knowledge by his self-cause the people see it all as a competition. There are legit instructors with legit experience and they teached in legit units (Military, Police, Special Forces...). But the knowledge stays inside the units. It will never be shared with civilians because the different purpose of the training. So if we talk about form and functionality: How do we try to look here?
We need to test it. If we take- for example the 360°-defense from Krav Maga, which exists in civilian Krav Maga Schools and organisations and people claim that it comes from special forces training we will know that it sounds exciting and it´s easy to belief that this is the case. But when we test its functionality agains a realistic attacker we can track exactly where the 360°-defense comes from and what is the function. The 360°-defense has no value to a realistic attack if you understand anything about knife fighting. The Form of the 360°-defense is based on traditional Martial Arts and any attempt to connect this to military training is misleading it´s students to believe in something that is not connected in reality. So if you call your system out to be updated, etc. and bring your students to the best solutions, not based on ego and behonest to yourself... It´s easy to fool people.
There is a lot of “bla bla” about serving in the “Israeli Special Forces” around. It´s a small community and usually people are humble about their service, cause there is nothing to proof and they don´t do it to impress other people. They see it as a way of service.
Today, every 2nd guy who comes from Israel served In the Israeli Special Forces. We have to ask us about the motivation that stands behind the story. There are a lot of war we can read or hear from resources that are unable to be checked or verified and these people know that. But there is always a way to check and to verify if you really want to. But nobody is willing to verify his military documents because they know that these documents won´t reflect what they are talking about.
Jonathan Marx: What do you think about all these training course that are offered by many Krav Maga organisations, like „5 Day SWAT Krav Maga Instructor“, „Sky Marshall Krav Maga Instructor“ and others?
Albert Timen: Why not to do a doctors course, so that you can become a doctor in five days?
It´s an offer to peoples egos and layes on people who are naive about what they going to learn there. I don´t know what the motivation is behind that. I think they are selling dreams and fantasies. But you always have to ask: Who is the instructor and what his qualifications are and what is his motivation to offer you that type of training.
Rudy Hochholzer: Who do you explain then, that there is a new, successfull Krav Maga organisation every week?
Albert Timen: Why do Hollywood Movies have such an success? (laughes)
Jonathan Marx: Also in KAPAP it has begun, that there are more and more organizations. Do you like to separate yourself from others?
Albert Timen: The KAPAP-Academy, headed by Albert Timen has no connection to other KAPAP-schools that pop up so often. Not even by coincident. Like Martial Arts are just connected through the word Martial Arts.
Rudy Hochholzer:* KAPAP starts to grow in Germany. Are there any wishes for the future of KAPAP in Germany?
Albert Timen: We wish to see more influence by the Schools who are already in the KAPAP-Academy, teaching the society in life saving skills. With the expansion of the schools comes the responsibility that the instructors keep in mind that the students are the focus of the training and not the „grandmasters“.
And off course, I wish that all the instructors step into the shoes of the challenge to master their own ego. Be humble/moderate- in other words.
Jonathan Marx: Any last words to close this interview?
Albert Timen: Yes, Respect all... Fear no one!
Text: Jonathan Marx, (Willkommen auf der Startseite (http://www.kapap-dortmund.de)) 20.01.2012
Rudy Hochholzer (Beez Neez | Self Defense Center (http://www.beezneez.de))
Hier direkt das Interview:
Interview with Albert January, 20th, Greece
At the VIP-Protection Training by the KAPAP-Academy (KAPAP ACADEMY | Elite Israeli Self Defense and CQB (http://www.kapapacademy.com)) in January 2012 in Greece, Rudy Hochholzer and me has the opportunity to talk with Albert Timen, head director and founder of the KAPAP-Academy.
Because the content shouldn´t be only interesting for us, we asked Albert Timen to do an official and public interview.
Jonathan Marx: “For all the readers who don´t know you, please introduce yourself and tell them what KAPAP is.”
Albert Timen: “ I have made most of my career in the governmental Service as Part of the Israeli defense Forces (Military) in a SF unit, from there continued to Service in the Police in various Special units as well as Instructor at the National Police Academy and SWAT School and was working for the Diplomatic Security Service on various roles before I established KAPAP ACADEMY as a training and certifying entity.
At 9 years old I started learning Judo. It was a good foundation for me as it taught me a lot about positioning and working with balance of bigger kids then me. I was relativly a small kid compared to others my age, but I was very competative as well and allways looked for bigger challanges, so for me it was a good testing ground to my new learned skills.
Durnig my youth years Judo was very popular in Israel and many kids were involved in it. Up untill today one of the biggest National champions and olimpic medalists come from Judo. In those days None of us actually ever heard about Krav Maga or other forms of it or it’s various branches like IKMF, IKMA etc‘ which were created much much later in the late 90’s.
After 4 years in Judo as a Kid I had decided that it’s not challanging enough to my temperament and decided to try a Boxing , which for me offered the next level of challange. The coach was very strict and came from Russia as a coach. He demanded a lot of discipline in terms of training, lots of Cardio drills and the way he taught was teaching me about myself more then anything else. I slowly worked out my way and gotten into competing but due to lack of support of this Sport in Israel at the time we didn’t get to compete professionaly and my coach stopped our matches. I remained with Boxing and my coach since I wanted a mental and physical preparation before my Military Service . When you turn 18 in Israel you immediatly are selected to Military service. You are not asked if you want to serve or not. It’s a public duty by every citizen of Israel that turns 18. The process starts a year before at the age of 17 when you get your first call to make medical tests , the second call is a written tests and ealuations and the third call is psychological assesment and more tests that will determine your qualifications to selection for Special forces or other Military service, according to your profile.
I had passed all stages of the Special Forces selection successfuly and was given a choice to serve in one of the Special units. Little I knew about which unit I was going to serve and all I was told that its a Special Forces unit which is Secret. I had to pass lot of training and they kept intervieing me about m my friends, my background and my motivation. The unit was very secretive about its nature and only when you pass a stage you would go to the next one, so little was told at each respective stage of training and qualification.
They chose 118 men that qualified and now the specific selection started. We begun basic training but no one knew we are still in a process of selection by our Unit commanders. During the next two years of training and qualification only 16 mede it to our unit.
Training the fighters included basic training (boot camp), Weapons craft, field craft, physical fitness exercises and performing at the individual level, the squad and staff, training of riflemen level 08, counterterrorism Course (longest in the IDF), Hand to hand combat, Urban and Rural navigation and warfare, skydiving course and specialized training on combating terrorism and many other issues that I can’t mention here.
At the end of the training we did a 120 Km march and they separated us completely. Now the trainers became our sergeants and commanders and we began specific unit training. They have beaten the shit out of us again and again during the training and anyone who couldn´t stand it, had to leave.
When we arrived to the Lotar School (Counter Terror School) we had to go through daily hand to hand combat, agressivness and specialized toughening stage that builds you mentally for the job. It was there that I used my boxing skills and judo experience to survive fighting against bigger guys then me. It was very brutal training but no one said a word about it since we all wanted to finish this stage in our final qualification.
The origins of KAPAP reaching back to the time, when the modern state Israel didn´t exist – you have to imagine, that the last time we heard about Israel before was in 70 A.D. When the Romans fought a jewish revolt and renamed Israel into Palestine. After the British implemented their mandate in 1919, after the First World War (1914-1918), there were still a lot of Jewish settlers in the areas that we call Israel today. To handle the problems with arab gangs and in anticipation to eventualy create a own jewish state, the Haganah (hebr.: defence) was formed. The Haganah was a underground army and so the precursor of the modern Israeli Defence Forces.
Soon there was a need for a special unit to defend isolated, jewish outposts against marauding arabs and ongoing racial riots in the urban regions. This unit was called “Notrim” (hebr.: guards) and was very successful at protecting the outposts, but there weren´t so much effectiveness in handling the riots or pushing the enemy back behind its own borders. So another elite unit was formed: The Nodedot (hebr.: wanderers). During the World War II, when the jewish people were threatened by Nazi-Germany and on the other side by arab tribes that openly sided with the Nazis and the British forces where in a worldwide conflict, the first official Israeli Special Forces Unit was formed: The Pal´mach (Hebr.: acronym for “Plugot Machatz”, “Strike Platoon”). This unit should only have 1000 men, but the Haganah decided to train 3000 men in preparation of a future Jewish army.
The Training that these Pal´Mach Commandos did was called KAPAP (hebr.: acronym for “Krav Panim El Panim”, “face-to-face combat”). KAPAP was not one system. KAPAP was a mix of physical training, firearms, explosives training, radio communication training, wilderness survival training, first aid, hand-to-hand-combat, mental and psychological preparation and also different language courses.
KAPAP was used as an “all-inclusive” term.
The Palmach assisted the British in operations during the invasions in Vichy (Nazi-ruled France), Lebanon, Syria and in espionage missions in Jordan and fought side by side with the British SAS in the Balkans.
After the World War II, the Jews expected the Brits to cooperate with them still. But the Brits throwed the deal away and the Jews had to fight for theire own country again. The Pal Mach used guerrilla tactics against the British military and police.
After 1945, when the United Nations were founded, the brits tried to part up the region into two parts – a Jewish part on the West Side of the River Jordan and an arab Part of the east side (todays Jordan).
When the British people left the region and the Jews declared their independence in 1948. Hours later the forces of Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Palestine attacked the new born nation Israel. The Haganah had to face its biggest challenge In the war of independence and was officially named into “Tzava Haganah Le´Yisrael” (“The Army Defence to Israel and also into the Israeli Defence Forces IDF).
During these times of war, the Israeli people not only learned to survive, they also managed to bring their troops to a form that is one of the most respected militarys in the world.
In 1957 the “Sayeret Mat´kal” (Unit 216) was formed. This unit was ultra-secret and the former Avraham Aran was a intelligence officer who modeled the unit closely after the British SAS. The Unit became worldwide fame because of a series of spectacular counter terrorism operations.
In the 1970´s, the IDF Special Forces had a monopole in hand to hand combat and, once again, KAPAP became the training of choice, which was also known as “ Lochama Zehira” (hebr “micro fighting” or “micro combat”). The System included a broad variety of military skills in addition to hand-to-hand-combat.
However, while Israel was still in war with its surrounding enemies and involved in a lot of counter terrorism operations, there was a serious need for a hand to hand fighting system. And as result what they got as a basic was a no-nonsense system called KAPAP.
Jonathan Marx: That means, that KAPAP from 50 years ago isn´t the same as KAPAP today is?
Albert Timen: Absolutely. We have to make a distinction between the historical KAPAP and the KAPAP of today which is modified to fit modern warfare needs. KAPAP had a lot of developers and contributors: Michael Horowitz (Short Stick and Walking Stick), Juda Marcus (Judo, Jutitsu), Gershon Kopler(Jiututso and Boxing), Izak Stiebel (Boxing) and many others. KAPAP was not an integrated system. There were a lot of other instructors and a lot of other disciplines like knife, hand-to-hand, stone throwing, bayonet inprovised objects and more. Imi Lichtenfeld was one of them. Imi was a fitness instructor in the Haganah, and then he actually took part on the first KAPAP instructor course – but he had no influence on it personally, he joined others like him to become a part of the Instructor cadre. A reference for all these things is found in the Book „KAPAP – From the Field to the Battlefield“ by Noah Gross, who worked on a 10 years reaserch independently and funded for this project by the Palmach museum.
KAPAP today is a modernized concept of „how to defend yourself“ with proven tactics and tecniques which are a part of our modern era and respond to actual threates as a reality based Self Defense program. We took a lot of lessons learnd and personal experience of our leading Instructors and tested them in a way set to fail the defender and only things that worked well under pressure were adapted and upgraded to fit our needs. Back then KAPAP was in a more primitive stage and used things that were not tested yet effectivly, so it worked more on the fighting spirit and mind of the practitioner and his motivation to survive.
Rudy Hochholzer: What is the difference between KAPAP and Krav Maga?
Albert Timen: KAPAP and Krav Maga are terms in Hebrew which describes Hand to Hand combat. KAPAP is „face to face combat“, and Krav Maga is „Contact combat“, so in general it’s just two generic words that describe a form of physical combat between two or more people. Some people try to take ownership and trade mark it, or make people think that they have rights over it. Well for me it’s all an attempt to capitalize on a name that is too general to be owned by anyone. This by itself brought fights and ego and destroyes the purpose teaching people to defend themselves.
When you try to make the term Krav Maga like a bible, like a set of rules and only get conflicts by other krav Maga teachers you remain a closed system which becomes afraid of anyone else’s influence or contribution, So they divided, the research stopped and they kept it as a closed system, and the teachers stayed the teachers all the time, leaving their students without any options to learn anything new or better forms it became like a trend that surrounds so many things that are not connected to reality and it became so watered down that it’s almost not funny in my opinion when I see what people call today „krav Maga“.
After i seen that people use the term KAPAP now in many of Krav Maga schools (which has no connetion to any of the material we teach) I will contribut my part about KAPAP as taught under KAPAP ACADEMY for this interview. It’s too general and impossible to generalize everything that goes under a name like KAPAP or Krav Maga so I prefer to specify things to KAPAP ACADEMY – our school.
KAPAP Academy was incorporated in 2004 in the US for the purpose of CQB and self-defense Instruction. CQB for Police and Military and self-defense for civilians. The concept was to share knowledge, accumulated by the instructors and share it with less experienced people and cross train with people with more experience. When we talk about people with more experience, we talk about people who trained and researched in the right way and from whom we can learn. For example we went to research “knife”, we immediately researched people who have experience in the field – not necessary with big names in the market cause we didn´t want to start with people who have too much commercial interests. We came across very interesting cases and people which helped us shape our form of training to become much more realistic to the needs we came for. With the experience from my background I gave KAPAP a much more realistic direction and shifted our focus away from „Martial Arts“ training. We mainly crossed trained with with people who had interactions with violance and with people who had experienced real situations and who understand the main concepts of fighting.
Rudy Hochholzer: Many people are talking about serving in the special units of Israel. Is there any exchange of knowledge or any cooperation?
Albert Timen: This is a complex subject. When you are training together with someone in the Special Forces, you have to ask in what time in which year and in which unit he was. Of course a lot of things changed with the time. And then you have to ask who his instructor was and what where his influences. So like KAPAP in the early days looked almost like Judo and Jiu-Jitsu, but today it´s totally different.
There is a matter of evolution in every training. The responsibility of the head of the school is to take the knowledge and experience to a specific area that answers certain questions.
Again, the KAPAP-Academy has chosen a very specific task to choose students to become independent thinkers and challenge them in realistic scenarios and not give them “the best technique”. Life is dynamic and we have to be honest to our students, who decided not to go the “Ways of the Martial Arts” and eliminate all the ranks, belts -that has nothing to do with reality.
So far from what I see, there is minimal exchange, because everyone wants to keep his knowledge by his self-cause the people see it all as a competition. There are legit instructors with legit experience and they teached in legit units (Military, Police, Special Forces...). But the knowledge stays inside the units. It will never be shared with civilians because the different purpose of the training. So if we talk about form and functionality: How do we try to look here?
We need to test it. If we take- for example the 360°-defense from Krav Maga, which exists in civilian Krav Maga Schools and organisations and people claim that it comes from special forces training we will know that it sounds exciting and it´s easy to belief that this is the case. But when we test its functionality agains a realistic attacker we can track exactly where the 360°-defense comes from and what is the function. The 360°-defense has no value to a realistic attack if you understand anything about knife fighting. The Form of the 360°-defense is based on traditional Martial Arts and any attempt to connect this to military training is misleading it´s students to believe in something that is not connected in reality. So if you call your system out to be updated, etc. and bring your students to the best solutions, not based on ego and behonest to yourself... It´s easy to fool people.
There is a lot of “bla bla” about serving in the “Israeli Special Forces” around. It´s a small community and usually people are humble about their service, cause there is nothing to proof and they don´t do it to impress other people. They see it as a way of service.
Today, every 2nd guy who comes from Israel served In the Israeli Special Forces. We have to ask us about the motivation that stands behind the story. There are a lot of war we can read or hear from resources that are unable to be checked or verified and these people know that. But there is always a way to check and to verify if you really want to. But nobody is willing to verify his military documents because they know that these documents won´t reflect what they are talking about.
Jonathan Marx: What do you think about all these training course that are offered by many Krav Maga organisations, like „5 Day SWAT Krav Maga Instructor“, „Sky Marshall Krav Maga Instructor“ and others?
Albert Timen: Why not to do a doctors course, so that you can become a doctor in five days?
It´s an offer to peoples egos and layes on people who are naive about what they going to learn there. I don´t know what the motivation is behind that. I think they are selling dreams and fantasies. But you always have to ask: Who is the instructor and what his qualifications are and what is his motivation to offer you that type of training.
Rudy Hochholzer: Who do you explain then, that there is a new, successfull Krav Maga organisation every week?
Albert Timen: Why do Hollywood Movies have such an success? (laughes)
Jonathan Marx: Also in KAPAP it has begun, that there are more and more organizations. Do you like to separate yourself from others?
Albert Timen: The KAPAP-Academy, headed by Albert Timen has no connection to other KAPAP-schools that pop up so often. Not even by coincident. Like Martial Arts are just connected through the word Martial Arts.
Rudy Hochholzer:* KAPAP starts to grow in Germany. Are there any wishes for the future of KAPAP in Germany?
Albert Timen: We wish to see more influence by the Schools who are already in the KAPAP-Academy, teaching the society in life saving skills. With the expansion of the schools comes the responsibility that the instructors keep in mind that the students are the focus of the training and not the „grandmasters“.
And off course, I wish that all the instructors step into the shoes of the challenge to master their own ego. Be humble/moderate- in other words.
Jonathan Marx: Any last words to close this interview?
Albert Timen: Yes, Respect all... Fear no one!
Text: Jonathan Marx, (Willkommen auf der Startseite (http://www.kapap-dortmund.de)) 20.01.2012
Rudy Hochholzer (Beez Neez | Self Defense Center (http://www.beezneez.de))