KAPAP COMBAT CONCEPTS

KAPAP ACADEMY Israeli Close Quarter Combatives Level 1 Instructor course

2011-12-13T08:05:00.000-08:00

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POLICE TACTICAL FOLDING KNIFE SEMINAR

2011-11-10T17:30:00.000-08:00

Date: December 3rd, 2011 Time: 9:00AM-5:00PM

Location: 495 Boulevard Elmwood Park, NJ 07407

Cost: 50.00

Click here for info

3 Days officer survival Law Enforcement training by KAPAP ACADEMY

2011-09-06T21:26:00.000-07:00

The Bergen county Law & Public Safety Institute BCLPI
281 Campgaw Road
Mahwah, NJ 07430
(OIC) Lt. Mike Devine 201-785-6029
Make Cheks Payble to:
KAPAP ACADEMY LLC
P.O.Box 4027
River Edge, NJ 07661
For credit card payment use the PayPal option

Two Days Israeli Combative Pistolcraft Training Colorado

2011-07-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

This course is a two day introduction to the Israeli Combat Point Shooting with high speed training drills. It covers subjects from Basic safety rules and safe handgun handling and progresses the shooter into a full CQB platform. It is limited in space and will reqire a pre-registration process in order to ensure participation and acceptance. It is open to the general public.

Course Subjects:

Shooting stances
Weapon retention
Combat reloading techniques
Slow fire, single tap, double tap and salvo shooting drills
Selective shooting and target discrimination
Strategic operational thinking
Responding to unexpected situations
Upgrade aggressiveness and combat mindset
Unusual shooting conditions and situations
CQB tactics and Dynamic and hostile fire drills

Gear and Ammo requirements:

Handgun
Three magazines per weapon
Holsters: fast draw holster & pouch or duty rig
Ammunition – 200 rounds per day
Eye/ear protection (goggles for intervention)
Kneepads
Training attire
Hat

For more information about our programs, hosting options and course registration please visit :

www.COMBATCONCEPTS.info

2011-07-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

This Seminar will be showcasing the common misconceptions regarding the realities of every day attacks. What most people conceive as realistic and how they imply tools that are being taught in the "Dojo" which are not an appropriate as an approach to Self protection/Self Defense.

Seminar will include the following topics:

1. Essentials for choosing a good Self Defense training program
2. The dynamics of real violence
3. Avoidance and De-escalation
4. Primal Vs. Tactical responses to attacks
5. Sharpening the CQB tools
6. Realistic attack scenarios with full gear

An "all combat" Seminar hosted by KAPAP ACADEMY PA and Instructed by KAPAP ACADEMY and Israeli CQB Instructor Albert Timen. (Albert is a veteran of the IDF and Israeli Police special units with over 18 years of operational and hands on experience in the field of CQB, Counter Terrorism and security).

Price:

$75.00 Pre registered (Please RSVP here and contact us for further details).
$ 90.00 at the door

Location:
KAPAP ACADEMY PENNSYLVANIA
1 Declaration Drive
Bensalem, PA 19020
United States

Contact: (215) 908-8525 Jon F.info@kapapacademypa.com
http://www.kapapacademypa.com/

(201) 310-6707 Albert T.
info@kapapacademy.com
http://www.kapapacademy.com/

Combat Network Magazine exclusive Interview

2011-07-05T16:27:00.000-07:00

Albert Timen head of KAPAP ACADEMY given an exclusive interview to the COMBAT NETWORK MAGAZINE issue # 7 which came out yesterday. You can check the story on pages 14-18 at Albert Timen Combat Network Magazine interview

More details about the uniqe CQB system and development of combat tactics can be found at the KAPAP ACADEMY website.

2011-04-26T11:02:00.001-07:00

Israeli Combat Point Shooting Training - A student's prespective

2011-02-22T09:40:00.000-08:00

Way Of The Warrior Seminar - January 15,16 2011 Colorado

2010-11-10T06:09:00.000-08:00

Read all about it inside the article "The Path of the Warrior" to learn about the history and development of the Modern Spyderco knife, as well as take rare opportunity to join a special seminar co-sponsored by KAPAP ACADEMY DENVER and SPYDERCO company.

The Israeli Combat Point Shooting Method - Tactical Handgun CQB

2010-10-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

The Israeli Combat Point Shooting Method - Tactical Handgun CQB

2010-09-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

KAPAP ACADEMY FEATURED IN BLITZ MAGAZINE

Blitz Magazine Part 1 - August 2010

Blitz Magazine Part 2 - September 2010

2010-03-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SURVIVAL
SELF DEFENSE FROM A CEREBRAL PERSPECTIVE

"True courage is being afraid, and going ahead
and doing your job ~ General Norman Schwarzkopf .

WHAT DETERMINES VICTORY IN A LIFE OR DEATH SITUATION?

Too often when training in self defense we misunderstand the conditions of “victory.” We see ourselves standing over and subduing an attacker, disarming guns, or knocking someone unconscious.

IN A LIFE OR DEATH SITUATION OR A STREET FIGHT THE ONLY CONDITION IS SURVIVAL

SELF DEFENSE OFTEN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FIGHTING.

It is important to know that in history there are more untrained people who successfully defend themselves than there will be black belts in the martial arts.

Why is this?

Why is it that people who train so hard and spend countless years perfecting self defense can be murdered, and people with no training get away and survive.

The answer is that people, who train on a particular system, rely on their self defense answers from that particular system. Judoka, train against Judo techniques. Kung Fu people train against Kung Fu techniques. Boxers train against boxers.

Let’s say we have a woman who is walking alone in garage parking lot. Two men are following her. She has no training at all, and she is scared. She doesn’t have enough time to use her cell phone because the two men are closing fast. She thinks about screaming, but she wonders if she is afraid that people will ignore her.

We ask a group of martial artists about the situation:

The Judo instructor wants her to throw one attacker into the other, so she can get away quickly.

The Kung Fu Instructor wants her block any oncoming strikes and hit them in they eyes.

The Krav Maga Instructor wants her to kick the first attacker in the groin as soon as he comes close, and then use her keys in the eyes of the second attacker.

SHE DOESN’T DO ANY OF THAT! She finds the nearest fire alarm and pulls it. A loud bell sounds instantly alerting everyone in the area that there is a fire. The two attackers are confused, and then they hear the sounds of sirens growing louder and louder. They realize that fire trucks are approaching. The woman runs for the garage elevator and presses the emergency stop button.

The fact is that all of the respective self defense instructors strategies, MIGHT work. However, they also might have failed miserably because they involve a woman confronting two large men who might be armed. She didn’t use any martial art, she didn’t even fight, yet she survived a situation that could have ended horribly! There are countless stories of people surviving using their INTELECT, INSTINCTS, and INTUITION.

KAPAP ACADEMY MILITARY ICPS

2010-03-10T07:57:00.000-08:00

ICPS / Albert Timen's Combative Pistolcraft Training

2010-01-13T17:43:00.001-08:00

A fast paced tactical handgun course instilling the proper attitude, mindset and confidence to safely handle and effectively use a firearm under stressful situations with split second decision making during a deadly force encounter. focused on upgrading individual skil...ls and combat proficiencies with the pistol. Operators will learn a unique weapons technique that will result in superior handgun skills and rapid reaction to fluid conditions

2009-12-31T13:56:00.000-08:00

The Israeli Combat Point Shooting method - By Albert Timen

The purpose of Israeli Combat Point Shooting is to enable a shooter to quickly and effectively defend his or her life, or the life of an innocent person, not to be more accurate or compete with other marksmen.

ICPS (Israeli combat Point Shooting) techniques employ the human body's inherent instincts and reflexes. Shooters use a natural pointing reflex combined with specific methods for maximum accuracy and safety. This is training to win in life-threatening situations, where the reaction time is a fraction of a second. In this regard, the most important aspect of ICPS is that the shooter must rapidly overcome being fearful, slow, or frozen. Instead, the shooter must immediately switch to a combat mindset that relies on fast, intuitive instincts, and training-acquired tactical concepts.

There are variations of ICPS such as standing, kneeling, and shooting utilizing cover, as well as shooting with a handgun and adaptations using a sub-gun or carbine.
In general, a police officer, soldier, or government agent must wait until the bad guy or terrorist makes an overt act, yet it is common for such aggressive acts to come without warning. This puts the police officer in a reactionary mode and at the disadvantage of being a second or two behind the criminal.

ICPS teaches the skills needed to overcome this time lag with speed and accuracy in an armed encounter and win in a gunfight. Aggressiveness and decisiveness increase the speed of the reaction. Once again, mindset and training come into play.

The training guideline for Israeli Combat Point Shooting is to secure one continuous move based upon the shooter’s natural instincts, and constantly retrain until it becomes second nature. As practice progresses, the moves are quickened to reach maximum speed while maintaining accurate shot placement. ICPS techniques involve intuitive movements that everyone will do automatically when involved in a gunfight. These techniques of stance and natural pointing are the foundation of the Israeli Instinctive Shooting System and are time tested, battle proven, realistic techniques that have worked day in and day out in Israel.

2009-12-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

KAPAP ACADEMY COMBAT CONCEPTS AND BASIC PRINCIPLES
By Albert Timen

In order to successfully deal with any opponent the hand-to-hand fighter must be familiar with the basic principles and concepts and be able to apply them when needed.

The principles mentioned are only a few of the basic guidelines that are essential knowledge for any hand-to-hand combat. There are many others, which through years of study become intuitive to highly skilled fighters.

- Physical Balance
- Mental Balance
- Relative Positioning
- Timing
- Distance
- Momentum
- Leverage

Physical Balance: The ability to remain in a stable, upright position. The fighter must maintain his balance both to defend himself and to successfully launch effective counter attack.
Without balance, the fighter has no stability with which to defend himself, or the base of power for an attack.
There are two aspects of balance in a struggle:
- The fighter’s own balance – maintaining the legs shoulder width apart, flexed knees lowering center of gravity to increase stability.
- The opponent balance – exploiting and exposing the weakness of the opponent balance by constantly changing his body position (relative position).

Mental Balance: The fighter must maintain a mental balance, not allowing fear or other emotions to overcome his ability to react instinctively.

Relative Position: It refers to the location of the fighter /defender in relation to his opponent. A vital principle when being attacked is for the defender to move his body to a safe position--that is, where the attack cannot continue unless the enemy moves his whole body.
To position for a counterattack, a fighter should move his whole body off the opponent's line of attack. Then, the opponent has to change his position to continue the attack. It is usually safe to move off the line of attack at a 45-degree angle, either toward the opponent or away from him, whichever is appropriate for the given scenario. This position gives the fighter safety, allowing him to exploit weaknesses in the enemy's counterattack position. Movement to an
Advantageous position requires accurate timing and distance perception.

Timing: The best time to move to an advantageous position in an attack. If the fighter moves too soon, the opponent will anticipate his movement and adjust the attack. If he moves too late, the opponent will have time to strike him. Similarly, the fighter must launch his attack or counterattack when the opponent is the most vulnerable.

Distance:The relative distance between the positions of opponents. A fighter positions himself where distance is to his advantage. The hand-to-hand fighter must adjust his distance by changing his relative position and developing attacks or counterattacks. He does this according to the range at which he and his opponent are engaged (long, medium or short/close).

Momentum:The tendency of a body in motion to continue in the direction of motion unless acted on by another force. Body mass in motion develops momentum. The greater the body mass or speed of movement, the greater the momentum. Therefore, a fighter must understand the effects of this principle and apply it to his advantage.

Leverage: leverage is used in hand-to-hand combat by using the natural movement of the body to place the opponent in a position of unnatural movement. The fighter uses his body or parts of his body to create a mechanical advantage over parts of the opponent’s body. He should never oppose the opponent in a direct strength; however, by using leverage larger or stronger opponents can be defeated.

It’s not about us, it’s about them!

2009-10-25T14:56:00.000-07:00

What it really means, to be a good instructor…

By Jon Kleineman and Albert Timen

Imagine how you would feel if someone you trained was brutally raped or murdered because you did not prepare them to the best of your ability for real life violence.

Imagine you were to teach someone that would knowingly go off and face a life or death confrontation that would affect them, their families, and their loved ones for the rest of their lives. Think about the humiliation, the violation of trust, the fear, and the sense of helplessness that they carry with them after not having been able to defend themselves.

Suddenly, it wouldn’t matter what level of instructorship you were. It wouldn’t matter that what you learned came from the Special Forces. It wouldn’t matter how hard you punched or kicked. It wouldn’t matter how tough you were, or how many competitions, or street fights you won. Nothing else would matter, but the fact that you did not do the right thing to guide that student out of a violent confrontation.

Unfortunately this is so often forgotten by us as self defense instructors. We train, We hone our bodies to high levels of pain and endurance. We get certificates, belts, and titles. We pat ourselves on the back and our students admire us.

The grim reality is that no amounts of our own personal accolades are going to help our students to survive in the street or the battlefield. It doesn’t matter how fast we are, how many “moves” we know, or how many boards we can break. It doesn’t matter what we can do, ourselves, if they are the ones attacked. It’s about what they can do.

“Don’t show them what you can do. Show them what they can do.”
~ Tony Blauer

We as instructors have an incredible responsibility to teach people how to defend themselves and survive a confrontation…..even if they are not as fast, strong, or as tough as us. It is a HUGE responsibility, and one that you should take very seriously. We are dealing with the safety of other people’s lives.

We need to think about this the next time we pat ourselves on the back for having a 1,000 students training in a huge facility. We can never be complacent and always be continuously learning HOW TO TEACH.

We need to study the behavioral and psychological aspects of a confrontation. We need to study human anatomy, physiology, and motor learning as it applies to combat. We need to be able to say that we have worked hard to make students understand the mentality of survival, and make it apart of their lives.

If you are willing to do these things you may be on the path to being a good Instructor. Never lose sight of the fact that it’s not about us, it’s about them!

MENTAL CONDITIONING

2009-08-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

Mental conditioning may be just what you need to enhance your performance. Consider the benefits — improved concentration and focus, controlled emotions, confidence in the face of challenge.

Mental conditioning is often based on four core techniques: relaxation, imagery, goal setting and positive thinking.

Relaxation:

Simple relaxation techniques can help you relieve anxiety and tension to improve concentration and focus. Take a few deep breaths before your performance to prepare for what you're about to do. Slow down. Stay calm. Focus on what's happening now, rather than possible upsets or mistakes.

Imagery:

Imagery can be a powerful tool for increasing confidence. Picture yourself doing your activity — dressed as you would be, hearing what you might hear and smelling what you might smell. Feel your muscles. Sense your emotions. Imagine yourself playing with confidence and skill. Let distracting thoughts or feelings float away. If you see yourself doing something incorrectly, switch gears. Replay the image in your mind exactly as you hope it would happen.

The confidence you gain from these mental practices or rehearsals can help you stay on top of your game when it really counts.

Goal setting:

Setting goals can increase your motivation, provide you with a sense of challenge and help you determine what you can and can't control — leading to greater confidence. Combine long-term and short-term goals related to your personal best or the actions you must take to meet your objectives. Keep the goals realistic and manageable.

Positive thinking:

Negative thoughts can get in the way of concentration and confidence. Mantras such as "Don't miss this shot" or "Don't strike out" may only cause you to do the exact thing you were trying to avoid. Instead, remind yourself that you can do it. Repeat positive phrases to yourself as you play. If you make an error, consider it a simple reminder that your focus is off. Concentrate on what you're doing right and the changes you can make to improve your performance.

KAPAP ACADEMY LLC. Elite Israeli Self Defense and CQB

2009-06-17T07:31:00.000-07:00

KAPAP ACADEMY LEVEL 1 Instructor course

2009-06-03T07:50:00.000-07:00

One Mind any Weapon

2009-05-02T22:27:00.000-07:00

When training with a program like a self defense oriented Martial Art, one need to include the three following disciplines:

* Mental strength

* Character

* Physical skill

Joined together, these create a properly trained, disciplined, ethical and highly motivated warrior. Such warriors are an integral part of the historical time line of the Kapap operatives who both protect and set an example for their society.

KAPAP ACADEMY is not a sports-based martial-arts program; it is a combat & Conflict fighting system based on the use of modern self Defense tools such as the handgun, rifle and Knife as a combat knife and then followed by weapons of opportunity (e.g. shovels, tree limbs, bricks, anything in your hand or around you!). The training is rounded out by the harsh school of unarmed combat (hand-to-hand) in its most literal and personal sense.

This practical training is supported by the study of other warrior cultures, including the Spartans, the Zulus and the Apaches, among others. The goal is to produce ethical warriors who are winners and better civilians.

KAPAP ACADEMY teaches not only the skills to win but also the mind-set to find the right way to win. The KAPAP ACADEMY first level training block creates the individual Kapap Academy’s foundation, providing all the basic information needed to enhance his or hers success and survival on today’s harsh reality. After that, each practitioner builds on and enhances this basic knowledge.

This allows anyone at any age to continue training and learning up to the 4th Instructor training level. All KAPAP ACADEMY practitioners can spend their entire careers learning more advanced skills and better ways to use and control those skills.

KAPAP ACADEMY Instructors purposely don’t wear any belts or ranks. A KAPAP ACADEMY Instructor is expected to show his or her leadership and skill by example and personal conduct, not by a cloth belt.

Each Kapap Instructor is expected to continually earn a “belt” by teaching, and by giving back knowledge and experience to fellow practitioners and students. One does not just have a belt; one is continually earning the right to become an Instructor.

David battling goliath – Past, present & future

One of the best known characters of Bible History is David, who as a lowly shepherd boy defeated the mighty Philistine warrior Goliath, and then grew up to be King David of Israel - and human ancestor of Jesus Christ.

David was the eighth and youngest son of Jesse, from Bethlehem. He was a strong, healthy lad, apparently with an uncommon characteristic among his people of the time - red hair.

The incident with Goliath the Philistine is probably one of the most told "Bible stories" of the Old Testament. When the Israelites were at war with the Philistines, the two armies faced each other from opposite hills with the Valley of Elah between them. Every morning for forty days, the mighty Goliath (he may have stood over 9 feet tall) challenged the Israelites for someone to come out and fight him, but none would go out. One day, David, who was actually then too young for the army, arrived with some deliveries for his older brothers. He heard Goliath and immediately volunteered to fight him. After turning down an offer of the king's own armor, which was too big for him, David went down to the creek and got five suitable stones for his sling.

The rest of the story is famous. He killed Goliath with a single perfectly-accurate shot - the stone didn't just rebound off the giant man's thick skull as would naturally be expected, but actually penetrated with the power of a modern high-velocity bullet. Upon seeing their hero defeated, the Philistine army made a disorderly retreat (i.e. they just dropped everything and ran), giving the Israelites then in hot pursuit the victory. The entire story can be found in 1 Samuel 17:1-58.

As enemy and threats have unexpectedly appeared in the past, they will appear without warning again in the future at their own time and place of choosing. Every man and woman must be psychologically as well as physically ready to defend himself /herself and loved ones in the moment of truth.

When reminded with the shocking events of Sept. 11, and being exposed to daily violent trends and occurrences in our society it is unlikely that there is any one left who don't realize that everyone is now on the front line, and the front line is now everywhere and anytime – world wide.

Mental Conditioning

2009-05-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

Mental conditioning may be just what you need to enhance your performance. Consider the benefits — improved concentration and focus, controlled emotions, confidence in the face of challenge.

Mental conditioning is often based on four core techniques: relaxation, imagery, goal setting and positive thinking.

Relaxation: Simple relaxation techniques can help you relieve anxiety and tension to improve concentration and focus. Take a few deep breaths before your performance to prepare for what you're about to do. Slow down. Stay calm. Focus on what's happening now, rather than possible upsets or mistakes.

Imagery: Imagery can be a powerful tool for increasing confidence. Picture yourself doing your activity — dressed as you would be, hearing what you might hear and smelling what you might smell. Feel your muscles. Sense your emotions. Imagine yourself playing with confidence and skill. Let distracting thoughts or feelings float away. If you see yourself doing something incorrectly, switch gears. Replay the image in your mind exactly as you hope it would happen.
The confidence you gain from these mental practices or rehearsals can help you stay on top of your game when it really counts.

Goal setting: Setting goals can increase your motivation, provide you with a sense of challenge and help you determine what you can and can't control — leading to greater confidence. Combine long-term and short-term goals related to your personal best or the actions you must take to meet your objectives. Keep the goals realistic and manageable.

2009-04-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

Officer Survival Creed

"The will to survive, to survive the attack, must be uppermost in my mind. For the one who lives through a fight is better off than the one who does not. Therefore, preparation and not paranoia is the key to my survival. To survive I must be aware, be alert, be confident, be deceptive, be decisive, and be ready. I must expect the unexpected and do the unexpected.

When faced with violent assault, my life depends upon my reaction without hesitation. There is no time to ponder because to ponder is to possibly perish. My response, if attacked, must not be fear but aggressiveness. I must block out all thoughts of my own peril and think only of stopping the assailant.

My prize in personal defense is my life. The perfect fight is one that is over before the loser realizes what is happening. The perfect defense is a counterattack that succeeds before the enemy can attack again. Therefore, if I am assaulted, I will retaliate instantly. I will be sudden and quick. I will be fast, not fair. Speed is my salvation.

If my attacker knocks me down, I will fight back against the odds and get up off the ground. I will seize the initiative and take every advantage. My concern is to stay alive. I won't hold back.

If I find myself under lethal attack, I won't be kind. I will be harsh and tough. If I must shoot, I will shoot with precision and shoot to stop. If I must use my hands, I will use them with all the strength I possess and more. When I strike, I will strike hard; I will kick, punch, and do what must be done to survive. I will strike no more after my attacker is incapable of further action, but I will see that he is stopped.

Above all, I won't give up, and I will make it. I will not die in the streets, or in an alley, or in any other part of the concrete jungle. I will survive; not just by good luck and good fortune, but by my skills."

EDGED WEAPONS FACTS AND REALISTIC TRAINING

2009-03-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

THE CASE FOR THE COMBAT GRIP

2009-03-14T20:21:00.001-07:00

By Albert Timen

In the last 20 years, throughout my career involvement in
Law Enforcement Firearms and Tactical training, I was
reminded quite often as I am still today, that basic skills must
be honed as a second nature before continuing to focus on to
more advanced ones.

While referring to basic shooting skills, such as proper sight
alignment and Proper trigger manipulation, which seem so
basic to the point of minimal need of repetition, I had still
witnessed shooters struggling with the effective application
of these important basic techniques.

One of the aspects with the least amount of training attention
is the way that we grip the handgun in our hands effectively.

With the exception of target shooting in competitions and with
recreational shooters, I am often referring to shooter that probably
needs it the most for personal defense. I am referring to shooters
like Police and Law Enforcement officers, as well as Law abiding
citizens that carry a handgun lawfully for self defense purpose.

Let’s try to understand the importance of the grip and how it
plays a significant role in our defensive shooting practice.
While we all agree that “you fight as you train”, when it comes
to reality, we don’t have the commodity of making corrections
once things go bad. Let’s put a scenario in which someone is trying
to take the gun away from you, or even worse - trying to kill you!
Your entire body will be shaking from adrenaline rush caused by
this experience! These are just plain realities that are happening
every day unfortunately.

So how we control these things ahead of time?

Once you will learn how to apply a correct grip to your handgun,
you already minimized the risk of been disarmed by an attacker,
or even worse- killed with your own weapon. You will certainly have
to shoot quickly if your life is on the line and it can only be
accomplished with a proper grip of your weapon.

The grip is the base and one of the most important of shooting
fundamentals. it is the key to your “cycle of shooting” and will
determine your end result at the end of this cycle.

The crush grip AKA the “combat grip”

The grip strength breaks down to three different types of grips
that the human Hand is capable of: the Pinch Grip, the Crush Grip,
and the Support Grip.

The crush grip is what most people immediately attribute to grip
strength. It is The foundation that the human hand is built on.
Hand shaking, swinging a bat or golf club, or holding tight to the
subway bars when it stops - it’s all crush grip.

Since most of the work in our daily life is done by the hands we
tend to misinterpret the right amount of strength needed for our
grip to overcome problematic situations. Training for the crush
grip is easier than you think and it is something that can be done
almost anywhere throughout the day. Improving your crush grip
is relatively easy to feel once you practiced correctly. It also has
the advantage of enhancing other aspects of combative skills in
self defense disciplines when grip strength is needed.

Once you reach the feeling that your handgun is “crushed” in
your hands you will be surprised how much you improved your
shooting skills. Any marksmanship expert will tell you that
consistency of grasp is a key to consistent accuracy. So once that
handgun is drawn from the holster you better make sure you
use your combat grip from start to finish and through every
shot made.

There are many other attributes to the art of Defensive and
Combat Shooting other then grip, but the amount of impact
that this specific aspect has on the Shooter mindset as well
as on tactics of shooting, is one of the most vital ones
which can be relatively easy to master.

2009-02-23T20:14:00.000-08:00

“Fighting to End the Fight “

Understanding the mindset of
“fearlessness and determination”

By Albert Timen

In order to analyze how a person functions during combat and under fear, it is important to understand the mental and physical states that he may experience before the physical aspect takes place - at the Pre-Conflict.

Combat anxiety - defined as "the anticipation of danger" may lead to a gradual deterioration of both mental and physical skills. This type of condition is related to the mindset of any person that finds himself in a survival conflict (rape, mugging, attacked, war, etc’). The main effects that it has on a person are related to these facts of “survival stress” and “combat stress”:
1. During the conflict the survival stress deals with the post event mental & physiological symptoms known as "backlash", which may distort the memory.
2. On post conflict combat stress transforms into Objective fear perceptions - Fear of death, injury, killing, incorrect decision-making, failure, or just plain fear.

As more one can predict fear, the higher the level of arousal becomes. Once you feel threatened, your level of arousal is not under your voluntary control however; your perception of the threat level and your behavior during levels of high arousal can be strongly influenced by training you receive prior to the threatening situation.

Our arousal is controlled by our autonomic nervous system, which operates automatically in the same way that we breathe and our heart beats automatically. Our autonomic nervous system has two parts; the parasympathetic part is operational under no threat conditions. However, under threat conditions, the sympathetic part will switch on and the cause profound changes in our body that prepare us to do one of three survival behaviors:

Flight – Fight - Freeze

With freeze being the most dangerous behavior to us, the profound changes in your body happens during high arousal states will not only influence your behavior, but also your thinking processes and your ability after the event to remember what happened.

A backlash effect, which is known as vasodilatation will increase the normal bleeding. Therefore, it is critical that all gunshot / knife wounds be treated as soon as possible. If a wound is bleeding excessively during stress activation (sympathetic nervous system), it indicates arterial bleeding and appropriate countermeasures (such as pressure point and/or tourniquet) should be given strong consideration. Backlash effect can also slow down the visual process. It reduces oxygen delivery to the photoreceptors, especially to the cones. This in turn, results in a temporary loss or distortion of a person's vision.

All perceptual senses, (sight, sound, touch taste, smell and the six sense), provides the brain with a constant flow of information. However, when the brain becomes focused on an activity or a threat, the brain will "tune in" to the sensory system that provides the most relevant information at that given second. Other sensory inputs will be "tuned out" by the brain because they lack immediate significance for the victim at that given second. This is a phenomenon referred to as perceptual narrowing or selective attention. As a result, the brain stops processing information from the other senses, particularly the auditory or hearing system. This is referred to as "auditory exclusion."

Each of these physiological changes will affect combat performance as it relates to our vision, our ability to perform basic motor skills, and our ability to cognitively process information, accuracy skills and a significant increase in reaction time.

When stress (activates the SNS) arousal occurs, these negative effects upon vision cannot be avoided, but they can be minimized through proper training. For example should be taught to pivot their heads, rather than just darting their eyes, in order to compensate for tunnel vision.

In addition, shooting programs can emphasize instinctive shooting techniques that reduce the need to rely on the gun sights when firing at close range. (See our Israeli combat Point shooting programs ICPS 1-3).

Combat Fitness is recognized as an integral component of survival and use of force training. The combination of aerobic (cardio/respiratory) and anaerobic (strength) conditioning not only enhances a person's ability to control a subject and survive, but contributes to long term health.

When one’s fine and complex motor skills are being trained constantly in a specific way, they affect immediately the performance of the gross motor skills that are used naturally by our body in a combat (stressful) situation, thus enhancing the overall performance and ability to overcome any threat situation with increased probability to survive.

About The Principles of Running and Martial Art

2006-10-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

One normally wouldn’t think of running as a martial art. And yet…

What is “martial”? – of or having to do with battle. What is “art”? – one definition is “quality of communication.” So, a fist or elbow to the face, a kick to the shin is a communication, all right. Not the preferred type, but still a communication. The only kind some people understand… and the quality depends on the skill of the fighter.

No question it has to do with battle. And what about running? Is it a tool in battle? The Art of War teaches us that a battle never fought is a battle won. So, if you’re in the mindset to fight in order to humiliate or beat up your opponent, forget it. Otherwise, read on.

So, running is an art. But to be an art, skill must be present. Great artists of the past could impress by their technique itself, message or no message. And yet, up until recently there was no standard for a running technique:
“There is no commonly accepted running model which will suit everyone” (Nytro, 1987).
“No, there is no correct running form, and you couldn’t learn it. Form is God-given. If you systematize it, you destroy it.” (Wallack, 2004).
There is a gold standard to a meter, being kept in France. There is a standard in a legal system; there is a standard in figure skating. Any good boxer can tell a good punch from the bad, right? So why not in running?

A Russian scientist, athlete, and track coach Dr.Nicholas Romanov asked himself the same question on his route to developing the Pose Method of Running. Let’s look at some of the concepts.

First, why Pose? In traditional martial arts as well as ballet, movement is taught through poses, or positions. Well – same in running. There is a key pose that every runner goes through and by understanding the pose and its elements, running can be much simplified. In fact, it’s from that pose that the runner can tap into the most powerful force he can use…

In Aikido and Hapkido, one uses the opponent’s strength to overcome him. In running, we sort of do the same. The force of gravity, the most powerful mechanical force on Earth, is not at all our opponent, but if we tap into it, it is our best friend. Talking about opponents – it’s only if we fight gravity that we get into trouble. Think about it: what hurts more – a direct block or a redirection of a punch? – Exactly. So we get one basic rule of running – don’t stop movement. If you stop an enemy’s fist with your face, you have a bruise. If you try to stop your body’s movement in running, you get knee pain, shin splints, stress fractures, etc.

So, we know we have to use gravity, but how? Do we really want to fall face flat on the floor? No, but we do want to fall. In my first Hapkido class, to much surprise, we learned to fall. Not punches, kicks, or locks, but falls. It seems running is not so different after all. Except, in running, the fall never ends. “Motion is created by the destruction of balance” said Leonardo Da Vinci and so it is. A quote from a British scientist Graham Brown is of a similar mind: “It seems that the act of progression itself – whether it be by flight through the air or by such movements as running over the surface of the ground consists essentially in a movement in which the centre of mass of the body is allowed to fall forwards and downwards under the action of gravity, and in which the momentum thus gained is used in driving the centre of mass again upwards and forwards; so that, from one point in the cycle to the corresponding point in the next, no work is done (theoretically), but he mass of the individual is, in effect, moved horizontally through the environment.” A lengthy quote, but what it really says is that we move by falling…so let’s move on.

In boxing or in any other martial art, what is a good punch?: one that reaches the target and jumps back instantly to protect the body, or one that leaves the hand at the opponents mercy? Easy answer, right?
Well, same in running. We already have the two elements of the Pose Method: Pose and fall. The third is Pull. It is by pulling the support foot from the ground that we allow the fall to reoccur, and we pull it quickly and on time, thus not leaving it to the “mercy” of ground impact….

In the movie “The Chronicles of Riddick”, he killed an enemy with a tea cup. The second enemy ran away before Riddick killed him with a hair pin. Why was he so feared? He knew how to use any tool to reach his end. That is, in fact, the definition of skill: using all available resources to reach a goal. So whether your goal is to run fast, to minimize your energy expenditure in running, to make recovery easier, to save your joints and muscles, to run away from unpleasant company late at night, to catch a robber, to catch a football, to run a marathon, to run a 100 yard dash – what have you, the Pose method works. Why? It maximizes all the resources available to you.

Surely, this isn’t much information on such a vast field. However, I thank you for your attention. More info as well as video clips and exact drills to learn the method can be found on http://www.posetech.com/
I will be glad to respond to any questions: vladimirarc@yahoo.com

Article was written by Kapap Level one® Instructor Vladimir Reznikov for www.kapapacademy.com

“Determination and fearlessness”

2006-10-08T15:39:00.000-07:00

Zulu Facing British Battle Tactics

Technology versus the human resource

Ever since we had moved from Israel into the open and competitive market, which is highly influenced by western culture and dependent on “high tech” technological advancement, we can clearly point the big changes that took over our biggest asset – the human resource, which as a progressive society we are loosing its biggest value.
Coming from a country like Israel, where the human resource is the most important asset in all aspects, it is the most invested asset when it comes to training, skills and knowledge. We were astonished to find out that almost every thing comes in packages that promises the “short way” to success, or that people are looking to buy knowledge like a secret pill or some kind of a “kit” that will do the work for them, instead of investing in studying the right way and keeping on training for the goal with no shortcuts.

Knowledge and skills are powerful

Don’t try depending on technology only!!
In the historic battle of 1879 the Zulu warriors fought against the British forces, we have a great example of a “Modern” and technological advanced army (The British forces) that is defeated by an inferior army which is considered “primitive” (The Zulu) which was based only on the human asset and warriors skills. This is the history in a brief:
The story of the African resistance in 1879 as the British soldiers said "they fight like lions and not afraid of death”.

We go back to January 22nd, 1879 to the Zulu victory over the British forces at Isandhlwana. Even though no one gave the Zulus much credit, they found a way to win, even against a technologically superior foe. Those who take the time to look for a way to win usually find it!

British soldiers were armed with a Martini-Henry, breech-loading rifle in 45 calibers. Like the trapdoor Springfield, it was an accurate piece, but basically a sporting rifle. It overheated during high-volume fire, causing spent cartridges to refuse to extract. When their rifles thus went down, soldiers were left with only bayonets and pistols. Zulu warriors were armed with a skin-covered shield and a short, stabbing spear, called an assegai, which they used in a low, stabbing motion. Zulus were masters of massed formations. They could, in unison, run, shift directions, and go to ground as if operating on one brain. In unison, they could chant, stomp the ground, and strike their spears against their shields. The din was deafening! Most frightening, they could absorb hideous casualties and still keep coming as if nothing had happened. They were confident that they could be effective even against British infantry, particularly when they were spread too thin and were armed with rifles that overheated! The British relied on their technological superiority, characterized by the Martini-Henry rifle, artillery, rockets and Gatling guns. During the later stages of the war these weapons effectively broke up the Zulu charges with few casualties on the British side.

Determination and fearlessness

The Zulus acquired a deserved reputation for bravery during the Zulu War but the truth is that their initial successes in battle were as much due to British overconfidence and incompetence as to their almost mythical reputation. The Zulu were technologically inferior to the British. The Zulus chief weapon was the short stabbing spear, or iklwa, which was so named because of the sound it made as it entered someone’s body. The other weapon used was the knob-Kerrie which was a form of club. These weapons required the Zulus to come close with the enemy. The Zulus were highly mobile and could cover large distances quicker than the British. Once they sighted the enemy they deployed, at a charge, into their famous bull formation. The horns would flank around the sides whilst the main body attacked the front. The enemy would then be trapped and encircled. A reserve would sit with their backs to the battle until they were needed. At Isandhlwana the Zulus charged five miles to engage the British camp.

The British military systems were some of the most advanced in the world...The Zulu military system was primitive, employing infantry armed with spears and animal skinned shields. Their primary tactics utilized their strength in numbers and advantages over rifle infantry at close range. The Zulu corps defeated the British at Isandlwana.

We can defiantly conclude and say we learn that we’ve learned nothing from history. Arrogant and egocentric men set themselves up for disaster.

The model of our western way of thinking is leaning more and more towards this failing approach by cutting short the educated and trained human resource and transforming him into a watered down version of himself and becoming “technology dependent”. Our view about the importance of the human resource as the main goal of investment is based on the analysis of our own experience as a part of a nation that had to rely on this important asset repeatedly throughout history. We know now more then ever that there is now way around it and that technology is secondary, and when you lost your true human skills and knowledge to fight, it will not help you even if you have the best weapon in hand.

Kapap Academy teaches CQB and hand to hand training methods that are based on the philosophy of investing in the human resource. Our Instructors and instruction methods are preserving and developing the skills, knowledge and fighting spirit of determination and fearlessness, which is needed to survive any life threatening confrontation. This investment will become handy when you need it; after all we are talking about your life!

Article written by Kapap Academy staff: Albert Timen & Avi Nardia

http://www.kapapacademy.com info@kapapacademy.com

"Triumph of the Spirit"

2005-12-16T16:30:00.000-08:00

A must see movie to all Israeli Martial arts practitioners

The True Story about true hero (salomo Arouch) that represents the living spirit of Israeli Martial arts.

Triumph of the Spirit takes an uncompromising view of the horrors of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, dealing with the fate of Greek jews, and particularly a boxing Champion Salomo Arouch who fights to amuse the brutal Nazi Officers, enabling his father's and his own survival. He was allowed life while his losing opponents perished. Based on a true story, without doubt the most devastating film ever made on the topic of death camps, it is extremely realistic in its presentation having been filmed in the bleak winter of 1989 on location in Auschwitz, and that shows. It must have effected the cast and the crew extremely. Willem Defoe's performance proves the depth of feeling that was thus achieved, and this is reflected by the whole cast. Certainly not an easy film to watch, but it is rewarding and extremely moving to those who make the effort. Perhaps in some small way this film might prevent such evil being perpetrated on the world again. A remarkable achievement that predates and eclipses Schindler's List, yet sadly not widely shown.

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The Israeli Response to the 1972 Munich Olympic Massacre

2005-12-16T11:35:00.000-08:00

Wrath of God: The Israeli Response to the 1972 Munich Olympic Massacre

By Thomas B Hunter

"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, sayeth the Lord."
Romans 12:19

Overview
In September 5th 1972, the world was shaken with the kidnapping and murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Images of the incident were emblazoned across television screen around the world, and the incident brought immediate global condemnation. While the world mourned, however, group of senior Israeli officials met secretly to discuss retribution for the murders. What followed was one of the most aggressive and deadly covert assassination campaigns ever conducted by a government intelligence agency against known terrorists. It would become known as Operation Wrath of God.
Black September Strikes
In the early morning hours of 05 September 1972, eight men clad in civilian clothing scaled fences surrounding the Olympic Village in Munch, Germany. Unseen by security officers, they quietly made their way to the apartments housing Israeli athletes and coaches participating in the XXth Olympiad. At the first apartment, one of the men slid a passkey into the door control and passed the word to his compatriots that he had unlocked the door. The Arab voices startled Yossef Gutfreund, a 275-pound wrestling referee who threw himself against the now-unlocked door. This action enabled one of his roommates to escape; however, he was quickly subdued and taken hostage. Similar actions took place in the neighboring apartments. One hour after the attack began, the eight members of the Black September Organization had taken nine hostages, and killed two. Two athletes who managed to escape quickly alerted the authorities.
After dumping the body of one of the hostages onto the street near the apartments, the terrorists released a list of demands. The demands included the release from prison of 234 Arab and German prisoners held in Israel and West Germany, including two leaders of the infamous German-based Baader-Meinhof Gang. They also demanded that three planes be fueled and made ready for takeoff at nearby Furstenfeldbruck airport. Upon their arrival with the hostages, the terrorists stated, they would then select one of the planes to fly them to Cairo where they would meet up with the released prisoners.
Rejecting offers from Israel to send a team of veteran hostage rescue commandos, the German Police instead deployed five officers to the airfield equipped with sniper rifles, one for each of the terrorists. The plan was to wait until the Arabs were a "safe" distance from the hostages, then to open fire simultaneously, killing all the terrorists before they could harm the hostages.
This plan, however, quickly began to unravel. When the terrorists arrived with the hostages, the Germans realized that there were eight gunmen, not the five they had planned for. With only five snipers there was no way for the sharpshooters to engage all the terrorists at the same time. Remarkably, none of the men selected had sniper training or experience in engaging live targets. The shooters also lacked vital equipment such as nightvision devices, helmets, and flak jackets. German soldiers who were to hide in the airplane demanded by the gunmen and open fire when they entered decided that the mission was too dangerous and left the scene without telling their commanders.
The order was given to open fire. One of the terrorists lobbed a grenade into the helicopter where it exploded and ignited a catastrophic fire. When the smoke finally cleared, the full scope of the failure-to-rescue operation was clear. All nine of the remaining hostages, one German police officer, and five of the eight terrorists were dead.
Later investigations would reveal that agents attached to the East German Olympic team deployed to the airport to observe the operation. One such report indicates that the agents communicated the movements of the German police to the terrorists, possibly betraying the security plan.

Israel Responds
Israeli retaliation was swift and massive. Three days later, an air strike was launched involving approximately 75 aircraft, the largest such attack since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Fighter-bombers struck guerrilla targets in Lebanon and Syria, killing 66 and leaving hundreds injured. Israeli fighters even managed to shoot down three Syrian planes over the Golan Heights, with a loss of two of its own. Israeli troops were also ordered into Lebanon to engage Palestinian terrorists who had been mining Israeli roads.
Despite this aggressive military response, a select group of high-ranking Israeli officials felt that more had to be done. They decided that a message had to be sent not only to those who participated in the Munich massacre, but also to those who might be considering terrorist attacks against their country in the future. Designated "Committee X" and chaired by Israeli Premier Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, the group authorized the assassination of all individuals involved - directly or indirectly - in the Munich attack. There would be no captures, no arrests. The goal was to kill those they could find, and in so doing, terrorize those they could not.
In order to carry out this task, Mossad activated its assassination unit, known as the kidon - Hebrew for "bayonet." Kidon teams have been responsible for a number of high profile assassinations, including Dr. Gerald Bull, designer of the Iraqi supergun, and Nasser Issa, also known as "The Engineer," a master bombmaker for the terrorist group HAMAS. These teams would be commanded by Mike Harari, a senior Mossad agent.
At the time of the Munich attack, the kidon were housed within Mossad's Metsada department, known today as Komemiute. The kidon was composed of approximately 36 operators divided into three 12-man teams. Typically, two of these teams were undergoing training in Israel at any given time, with the remaining team out on a "real-world" operation. Payment for these personnel was deposited into Swiss bank accounts and would be made available to the operators upon completion of their assigned mission.
These teams were unique from those fielded previously by Israel. Instead of informing all operators involved in the operation of the goals, team structure, and other information, the teams were instead tightly compartmentalized: no team was aware of the existence of the others. Additionally, Mossad covertly supported the assassination teams, both operationally and financially. In this way, they would be able to operate with complete autonomy, completely outside the Israeli governmental structure. The only mutual point of contact between all the personnel was Harari. He would provide the list of target names and all other information necessary to achieving the group's goal of hunting down and killing the terrorists.
Harari allowed his men great latitude in their operations, removing rank structure and encouraging them to be creative with their assassinations. Harari didn't just want his targets eliminated, he wanted the terrorists to feel that there was nowhere - absolutely nowhere - that they could go and feel safe from Israeli reprisal. He wanted them to experience the same terror they had inflicted on the Israeli athletes and their families, and would settle for nothing less.
Harari did have one rule, however, about which there could be no doubt: targets would only be acted against after the team had attained one hundred percent identification. If this could not be achieved, no matter how much time or energy had been devoted to a target, the hit was to be called off. He would not permit any "collateral damage."
The List
There were thirty-five targets for whom death warrants had been issued, so the terrorists were divided amongst the teams. On the list of one such team were eleven terrorists known to have played a role in the Munich massacre.
Operating from a covert location in Geneva, this team set out to track down their eleven targets.

These included the following:
• Adwan, Kamal - Chief of sabotage operations for Al Fatah in Israeli occupied territories
• Al-Chir, Hussein Abad - PLO contact with KGB in Cyprus
• Al-Kubaisi, Dr. Basil Paoud - Responsible for logistics within the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
• Boudia, Mohammed - Linked with European PLO
• Daoud, Abu - Admitted member of the Black September Organization
• Haddad, Dr. Wadi - Chief terrorist linked with Dr. George Habash
• Mahshari, Mohmoud - PLO member and coordinator of Munich incident
• Nassir, Kamal - Official PLO spokesman and member of the PLO Executive Committee
• Salameh, Ali Hassan - Developed and executed the Munich operation
• Yussuf, Abu - High ranking PLO official
• Zwaiter, Wael - Cousin to Yassir Arafat, organizer of PLO terrorism in Europe

The first selection from the list was Wael Zwaiter, who was then living in an apartment near Rome. The group's weapons specialist facilitated the delivery of five Beretta .22-cailber pistols from Geneva to Italy via a clandestine arms supply network. These were then distributed to the action team that had taken up residence in three separate locations.
The decision to move against Zwaiter was made on 16 October 1972. A support team delivered two shooters to a location near Zwaiter's apartment, while support personnel took up observation posts within visual range of the hit team. Acting according to plan, one of the support vehicles pulled away from the curb and drove off. This clandestinely signaled the shooters that Zwaiter was approaching.

The two men assigned to kill the Palestinian entered the apartment lobby ahead of their quarry. Zwaiter stopped off at a pub across the street in order to make a phone call. The action team expected this, as it had learned that his phone service had been turned off by the local telephone company for lack of payment. His phone call concluded, Zwaiter then walked toward the lobby.
Acting in accordance with Harari's edict, one of the shooters turned on additional lights in the dimly lit space in order to ensure they could positively identify their target. When Zwaiter walked through the door and into the lobby, a voice asked, "Are you Wael Zwaiter?" The answer gave the shooters the confirmation they needed. Simultaneously they drew their Berettas and fired eighteen shots into the terrorist. He died instantly. The action team quickly disappeared, traveling by van to a prearranged safe house.

Israel's second attempt at revenge would differ slightly from the first in that special attention was given to instilling fear into the terrorists that it was stalking. It was becoming clear through the first killing that Israel was capable of conducting assassinations far from the streets of Beirut or Lebanon. The decision was made to make the Palestinian extremists feel that they were not safe, even in the safety of their own homes.
Mahmoud Hamshiri was selected as the second target. For this action, a third party was directed to phone him at home, posing as an Italian journalist. Hamshiri agreed to the "journalist's" request for a telephone interview, which was set for 8 December 1972. Unbeknownst to the terrorist, however, members of the action team had visited his apartment the previous day while their target was out.
So, when the phone rang that afternoon, Hamshiri answered. The voice on the other end asked him to identify himself. When he did, an action team member depressed a button on a remote control device. This sent a silent signal to a detonator and the explosive charge placed in the telephone ignited. Hamshiri, like Zwaiter before him, died quickly and violently.
Four more terrorists, Dr. Basil al-Kubasi, Abad al-Chir, Zaid Muchassi, and Mohammed Boudia met similar fates, and were dead within the next few months at the hands of the Israeli kidon. Muchassi, not on the original list, was included when he assumed the position of PLO contact with the KGB in Cyprus, a position recently vacated by Abad al-Chir. Acting in accordance with their autonomous nature, the kidon personnel determined that if al-Chir had been a target due to the nature of his position, then his replacement would be considered an equally viable selection.

This decision, while proper from the perspective of an clandestine Israeli operator tasked with eliminating a known terrorist, clearly went beyond the mandate laid down by Committee X. Nonetheless, Muchassi was deemed a "target of opportunity" and plans were made to eliminate him. And while the action team did soon achieve its objective, it nearly violated Harari's second mandate covering collateral damage. This occurred when the hit squad attempted to leave the scene of Muchassi's assassination. It found its escape route blocked by his KGB contact. The Israelis shot and killed the Russian when he reached under his coat, a move that signaled he was possibly reaching for a weapon. There was apparently no retaliation against the action team by Harari for this incident, most likely because the KGB agent, though not a terrorist, was not deemed to enjoy same level of innocence as a unwitting civilian.

Having successfully eliminated five of their eleven assigned targets (not including Muchassi), the action team was ordered to return to Israel. Upon their arrival, the team was notified that three original members of the list--Kemel Adwan, Mohamed Youssef Al-Najjar, and Kamal Nasser--had been removed from the list for unspecified reasons. Despite this, the Israeli government still wanted them dead. The three, along with known terrorists, were expected to be present at a meeting in Beirut. Harari wanted the kidon personnel on hand to provide support for a Mossad-directed military action targeting the meeting participants. This joint operation, though a clear departure from the independent covert action conducted previously, proved successful.
On 10 April 1973, Israel launched Operation Spring of Youth. This involved the participation of approximately forty elite commandos from Sayeret Matkal, Sayeret T'zanahim, S-13 (the Israeli equivalent of the U.S. Navy SEALs), and Unit 707 (a since-disbanded Navy special operation unit). The commandos covertly came ashore across a Beirut beach and were delivered to their targets by Mossad drivers. Some of these personnel were assigned specifically to go after Adwan, Al-Najjar and Nasser. These terrorists were killed when their apartments were raided during the assault. Some reports indicate that the current Foreign Minister in Israel, Ehud Barak, took part in this operation while dressed as an Arab woman. By the time Operation Spring of Youth was over, one hundred Palestinians were killed, along with two Israeli commandos.

Tragedy in Lillehammer
After one full year of searching, Israeli hit squads were able to locate an individual they were convinced was Ali Hassan Salameh, a senior PLO official and commander of Force 17, Yassir Arafat's elite personal security squad.
Acting on previously gained intelligence, a small surveillance team was dispatched to Lillehammer, Norway to investigate a lead that Salameh had been seen in the city. On 21 July 1993, the surveillance team watched the individual as he entered a local public swimming pool. The man appeared physically identical to Salameh, so much so that the surveillance team called in the group's action team, which arrived soon thereafter and registered under assumed names at the Oppland Tourist Hotel.
The man soon left the pool, with a pregnant woman not previously identified, and later attended a film at a nearby theater. When the movie ended, at approximately 10:35 p.m., the assumed Salameh and his female friend took a bus to a stop a short distance from his apartment. As they approached the building, two kidon personnel exited their Mazda automobile, pulled out their .22-caliber pistols and opened fire. Their target dropped to the ground, dying in a pool of blood. Tragically, the man targeted by the kidon was not Salameh, but a man who looked remarkably like him; Moroccan-born waiter Ahmed Bouchiki.
Unaware of their mistake, the action team immediately drove to a predetermined location and switched to a rented Peugeot. In the hours and days that followed, however, Norwegian police managed to track down the hit team as it attempted to board a plane at a nearby airport. The following investigation led to the arrests of six Israelis, all of whom went on trial for their actions. One of the operators was acquitted, but five would receive sentences ranging from two years to five and half years. Despite this, Norwegian authorities would release all within twenty-two months.

The Hunt for Salameh
In January 1974, the kidon action team deployed covertly to Switzerland after receiving word that Salameh was scheduled to meet other POL leaders in a church on 12 January. When two shooters entered the church at the time of the meeting, however, three men who appeared to be Arab met them. One of these men made a move for his weapon and the Israelis opened fire, killing all three. Despite the commotion caused by the gunfire, the kidon personnel continued into the church, looking for Salameh. In a short time, however, the decision was made to abort the mission and escape.
It was not long, however, before the Israelis acted on another lead regarding the whereabouts of Salameh. Three kidon members traveled to London to meet with a source who agreed to meet to provide information on the elusive terrorist. When the source failed to show for the meeting, however, the team began to believe that they were under surveillance by unknown parties.
These concerns may have been well founded. One night, a team member met a woman in the bar of the Europa Hotel. Time passed, and after a brief conversation, he excused himself and headed back to his room for a short time. On the way, he passed his partner in hallway as he walked down to the bar for a drink. Shortly thereafter, he returned to the bar to find that both his partner and the woman had disappeared.
In time, he retired to his room, which shared a common foyer with the room of his compatriot. Oddly, he noticed that his room smelled of the same perfume worn by the woman in the bar. He also noticed the sound of a woman laughing from his partner's room, though he thought no more about it. The following morning, his partner failed to meet him for breakfast, so he went up to the room and knocked. There was no answer, so he let himself in. There, on the floor, was his partner, naked with a bullet wound to his chest.
Remarkably, the woman was located three months later, living just outside Amsterdam. Covert inquiries into her identity were provided by local sources. It was revealed that she was a freelance assassin, working for anyone who could afford her services. On 21 August, kidon team members avenged their partner's death by shooting and killing the woman near her home. Later, the kidon team leader would be reprimanded for acting outside the assigned scope of their mission. It was never learned who contracted the assassin to kill the kidon agent.
Following this incident, the third failed attempt to kill Salameh, Harari gave the order to abort the mission. The kidon team, however, elected to ignore the order and instead planned one more time to kill Salameh.
Intelligence placed the terrorist at a house in Tarifa, on the westernmost point of Gibraltar's Atlantic coast. As three action team members made their way toward the house, they were again intercepted by an Arab security guard. The guard raised his AK-47 and was gunned down. The operation was aborted and the team exited back to the safe house.
The final assassination of the Wrath of God campaign came in 1979. Ironically, the final target would be the individual that was the subject of the very first kidon assassination operation: Ali Hassan Salameh. Mossad finally caught up with their elusive quarry on the streets of Beirut. Following a short period of surveillance, the team was able to positively identify the long-sought terrorist. As he passed a vehicle while walking down a street, he passed a car that had been placed there by Mossad operatives. The car contained a high explosive charge, which was remotely detonated by kidon personnel. The blast killed Salameh and ended the six-year long campaign to kill and terrorize those responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre.
Postscript
While the Wrath of God operation had been successful in terms of both eliminating those the Israelis had deemed reponsible as well as striking fear into the heart of the PLO, one important target remained: Jemel Al-Gashey, the only gunman involved in the Munich operation that was still alive.
In 1999, a documentary film crew managed to accomplish something that Israeli intelligence could not: it located Al-Gashey and managed to arrange an interview. Largely by learning from the mistakes of his compatriots, Al-Gashey severed all ties with his relatives and disappeared. During the interview, the heavily disguised terrorist remained unrepentant and proud of his actions and those of his compatriots in September of 1972.
It is not known if the Israeli government is still actively seeking Al-Gashey; however, if the labors of those who hunted Nazi war criminals following World War II is any indication of resolve, it is likely that Al-Gashey will remain a man on the run. And if Israel's goal was to terrorize those that it could not kill, appears that they succeeded.
Author's note: Sources and references available upon request.
Primary source: Calahan, Alexander, "Countering Terrorism: The Israeli Response to the 1972 Munich Olympic Massacre and the Development of Independent Covert Action Teams," (Marine Corps Command and General Staff College, April 1995).

Munich Massacre at wikipedia

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Kapap קפ"פ Training in the early 50's Israel

2005-12-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

Kapap Military Training in the early days

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Intresting Statistics About Israel

2005-12-16T09:27:00.000-08:00

The Middle East has been growing date palms for centuries. The average tree is about 18-20 feet tall and yields about 38 pounds of dates a year.
Israeli trees are now yielding 400 pounds/year and are short enough to be harvested from the ground or a short ladder.

Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population, can lay claim to the following:

The cell phone was developed in Israel by Israelis working in the Israeli branch of Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.

Most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel.

The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed inIsrael at Intel.

Both the Pentium-4 microprocessor and the Centrino processor were entirely designed, developed and produced in Israel.

The Pentium microprocessor in your computer was most likely made in Israel.

Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.

Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis.

Israel has the fourth largest air force in the world (after the U.S, Russia and China). In addition to a large variety of other aircraft, Israel's air force has an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16's. This is the largest fleet of F-16 aircraft outside of the U.S.Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.

According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industry's most impenetrable flight security. US officials now look (finally) to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats.

Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin - 109 per 10,000 people --as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the U.S. (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech).With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and startups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world -- apart from the Silicon Valley, U. S.Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the U. S.Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies.

Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East.The per capita income in 2000 was over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech startups.Twenty-four per cent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees, ranking third in theindustrialized world, after the United States and Holland and 12 per cent hold advanced degrees.

Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews (Operation Solomon) at Risk in Ethiopia, to safety in Israel.When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world's second elected female leader in modern times.

When the U. S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya was bombed in 1998, Israeli rescue teams were on the scene within a day -- and saved three victims from the rubble. Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship -- and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.

Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity. (Hundreds of thousands from the former Soviet Union).

Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process, an international standard that certifies diamonds as "conflict free."Israel has the world's second highest per capita of new books.

Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.

Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.

Medicine: Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnosticinstrumentation for breast cancer.An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in U. S. hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.Israel's Givun Imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside apill. Used to view the small intestine from the inside, cancer and digestive disorders.Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure. The new device is synchronized with the camera helps doctors diagnose heart's mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U. S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.

A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the ClearLight device, produces a high-intensity,ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct -- all without damaging surrounding skin or tissue.

An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in southern California's Mojave desert.All the above while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy that seeks its destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other county on earth.Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.

THE STATE OF ISRAEL . . . continues to EXCEL !

AND THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR IN ENGLAND SAYS "ISRAEL IS NOTHING BUT A SHITTY LITTLE COUNTRY

ISRAELI CQB - Understanding the Concept.

2005-12-16T09:11:00.000-08:00

By Kapap Academy Staff

There are two kinds of fights: for your Ego or for your life, CQB is made to fight for your life.
“Always a student, sometimes a teacher”.
“Better a student of reality than a master of illusion”.
“Any weapon – one mind “.
Edged weapons don’t run out of ammo and never jam.

The Israeli CQB Martial art of Kapap has been written in a special ink- Blood!!.The knowledge came from experience, many times learned by tragic mistakes, then by studying the results to understand what needs to be done better next time.Unfortunately, Israel is the most experienced nation in the world when it comes to terrorim and that is why it has developed one of the most valued CQB training systems in the world. CQB is about evaluation and evolution: A few hundred years ago, archery was a combat tool, while today it is a traditional martial art (i.e. Kyudo, Zen and the Way of Archery). Guns are the archery of modern times and modern martial arts. An arrow is an edged weapon which is projected to a target, just as a bullet is. Gun powder is the bow for modern day archery. In the evolution of Israeli martial arts, we see guns as an integral part of the fighting system. And let’s not forget that when you disarm a gun, you must know how to retain it and use it later. Israeli CQB training owes its development to many. Though most are missing from any list you will find, all have donated to the art, and no individual can claim ownership. To understand more about true meanings to the Israeli fighting concept, research names such as Hanna Senesh, Solomon Aruch (as shown in the film Triumph of the Spirit), Meir Har Tzion , 11 Olympic Athletes massacred in Munich, Daniel Pearl, Ron Arad and many many more. If you don't understand the roots you won't get it. Unfortunately, many people claim today to own or be the sole representatives of Israeli CQB, when they actually know very little and have never even set foot in Israeli Martial arts,thus giving Israeli arts a bad image among serious martial artists. In Kapap we don't bow and don't give belts, since this is the way of the Japanese martial arts, not Israeli. Official instructor in the army and police is never awarded belts. Either you are the student or the instructor. If you are the student you don`t need a belt - you need to be empty vessel (open minded)to get it all. The most valued part of Israeli CQB is the fighting spirit. Kapap was the first CQB training introduced in Israeli history and was based on stick fighting, knives, guns, hand-to-hand and even stone throwing in the old days. The idea of any CQB is to fight with what you have at hand . . . the gun that you have in your hand when you need it. That is also the main idea behind Israeli CQB. Evaluation and evolution must be done for every technique in order to examine if it fits our aims. Kapap is based on evaluating a technique to determine whether it can be done by any soldier (for civilians, whether it can be done by the weakest man or woman). It needs to be easy to teach (there could be a better technique but if you don’t have years to train it, start with an easier one). You look for simple, fast techniques that can be easily and quickly learned, implemented and remembered. Abe Drori, one of the first Kapap instructors in Israel, lives today in Los Angeles. At the age of 70 years, someone pulled a 45 magnum at him in an alley, and he used an old kapap technique and disarmed the assailant. Another important consideration is liability. When teaching military CQB, you can stay in the killing zone, but for a civilian, after disarming a knife you don't want to kill the guy and go to jail. When teaching police CQB, there are other considerations. Any police defensive tactics program must be approved legally, medically and politically. You don't want to turn on your television and see a policeman kicking someone. Two years ago we introduced the Israeli Kapap system to the American public, as we didn’t like the commercial way in which Israeli martial arts were being presented to civilians. More importantly, since the people claiming to teach it were never instructors in the Israeli army, police or secret service, the “Israeli” martial arts being taught were full of mistakes. All Kapap instructors were blessed to teach defensive tactics in the Israeli Army where it originated and they never used a belt system. They were blessed to be defensive tactics instructors for the Israeli operational police academy in Israel, where they didn't get involved in martial arts politics or with any of the civilian names that are used for teaching the public. These instructors represented only a part of the training at any army or police training in Israel. For instance the police used the name Hagana Hatzmit, which literally means self defense. The CQB is a modern martial art while traditional martial arts are older styles, they can be effective only if combined together. Modern martial arts can't live without the traditional and the traditional needs the modern. When someone is going to kick you, your life is not at risk, only your ego . . . but when someone pulls a knife or gun on you, you need to know how and when and if you should act. Kapap is a Defensive self defense Tactics system , whose objective is to provide you with these tools. As is always said, there is nothing new under the sun . . .As you look at these CQB Manual books from the late '40s they remind you of Krav Maga / Kapap / Lotar and other manual books of CQB at the army. Look at Applegate's book. Its just great what he had knew at that time . . . Check out this site for Applegate's book. It seems to provide it for free to copy! This is the root for all CQB training around the world including Israel!

Introduction to Close Quarters Battle (CQB)

2005-12-16T00:29:00.000-08:00

By Albert Timen

CQB can be described as combat taking place within buildings, cars, hallways, stairwells, rooms, enclosures, and other constricted spaces. Although CQB training first started with military and law enforcement personnel, it is now being taught to security unit personnel and civilians. CQB is important to security forces because the techniques associated with CQB serve as the foundation for recapture tactics. As a result, security units and their personnel must have the ability to respond to a “worst case scenario” by recapturing the asset that it is protecting.
CQB can involve - individually or collectively, hand-to-hand combat, weapons, and more. As a result, we need to be proficient with every move. For instance, with hand-to-hand combat we cannot assume that the enemy will freeze up when we engage him. We need to think that he will counter our moves so we need to consider this and be ready for it in the fight – whether it is with a firearm or with a knife. That is why in Kapap we include these elements as a part of the hand-to-hand combat program.

Violent Confrontation
This term is used to describe a meeting of two or more combatants (even if one or more is passive) where there is the potential for or actual use of extreme destructive force. This type of confrontation usually occurs at close range in a short amount of time.

The SOP 9 Study
This study was conducted in New York and examined every shot fired in the line of duty by law enforcement officials during the course of one year. Out of a total of 2047 shots fired that year only 217 actually hit their intended targets and only 10 percent of these shots hit vital organs. During interviews with the officers involved in these shootings the majority of them commented that they never even acquired their front sights when they engaged their target. Additionally, these officers also experienced some or all of the following:

* The confrontations took place at the range of ten feet or less with duration of less than four seconds.
* During this time, fewer than five rounds were fired.
* The typical response was from the holster.
* A sudden feeling of shock and surprise overwhelmed the officers.

The end result of this study showed that the police officers were NOT trained properly enough to handle these of life and death situations. Now, can you imagine what it would be like for a civilian who has even less training than these officers? That is why, for civilians, realistic training is needed and should be conducted by experienced firearms instructors.
Things to consider- Psychological Aspects: Under severe stress, the normal mental processes become extremely difficult and the mind resorts to its most basic processes.
The following are examples of psychological effects you may experience during a combat situation or any other high stress situation:
1. Tunnel vision: Under extreme stress your attention will primarily be focused on the greatest threat and, as a result, you will have a temporary loss of peripheral vision.
2. Auditory Exclusion: As with tunnel vision, you will focus on the greatest threat and will have the inability to hear for a period of time. For instance, you will probably not hear anyone shouting at you.
3. Electro Dermal Stimulation: A reaction of the skin that makes the hair stand up on the arms and the back of neck.
4. Time/Space Compression: There will be a slow down in the perceived passage of time and a shift in perceived spatial relationship in times of high stress. This is caused by the inability to judge speed and distance and accurately balance the two. Also, you may experience a slowing down of time. In other words, everybody will seem to move in slow motion.
5. Mental Track: In most high stress situations, to include life and death situations, a person’s ability to keep track of the details of the situation taking place around him becomes nearly impossible. In most police shootings, a police officer being debriefed after an engagement does not usually remember how many rounds that he fired. This can happen even in training. Therefore, as a shooter, you must learn to beware of the number of rounds you fired so the weapon does not run completely dry in the middle of a firefight. This concept of awareness not only applies to a shooting situation, but also applies to hand-to-hand combat and edged weapons.
Physiological Aspects: Regardless of how much training an individual has certain studies, along with the SOP 9 study; show that during a combat situation, one or more physical changes take place in an individual’s body. That is why proper training is necessary to help minimize certain aspects.

The following are examples of physiological effects you may experience during a combat situation or any other high stress situation:
1. Pulse and Breathing: In any excitable situation, pulse and breathing will always be affected. Your heart rate increases and your breathing becomes rapid and shallow.
2. Adrenaline: This is nothing more than a hormone that stimulates involuntary nerve action. The amount of stress you are placed under will depend on the amount of adrenaline released into the system. When adrenaline is released into the body, it stimulates the muscles. This causes them to tighten. Depending on the individual and the situation, this is more than adequate to affect an individual’s shooting position or fighting position.
3. Coordination and Reflexes: Under any type of stress hand and eye coordination degrade severely, especially the coordination of the hand and fingers.

The Chemical Cocktail: The reactions just discussed are the result of the body’s survival response to a potentially lethal situation. When suddenly placed in a life-threatening situation, the body will dump the below listed chemicals into the bloodstream and mix with sodium. This “chemical cocktail” creates an imbalance characterized by general muscle tightening and loss of fine motor skills. This chemical cocktail includes:
1. Epinephrine: An adrenal hormone that stimulates automatic nerve action (fight).
2. Nor – Epinephrine: A hormone that is formed naturally in the body’s nerve endings during times of fear (flight).
3. Cortazol: A crystalline hormone released to the body’s nerve endings during times of fear (fight).

The body's reaction: The body’s response to this imbalance by releasing potassium to counteract the effects of the sodium. However, this process takes time and slows our ability to react. As a result, we must always seek to minimize the impact that this chemical cocktail has on us in order to improve our reaction times. We can do this by training to maintain the proper “mindset”.

Mindset: is a term used to describe an individual’s state of mental readiness to act or react to a stimulus in our environment that ensures survival. This proper combat mindset is neither learned nor can it be taught, it must be developed from within. The tools you need for proper combat mindset can only be exposed in a schoolhouse environment to help you to develop yourself.

The Breakdown of the Mind: Conscious Mind: The conscious mind is the thinking part of the mind. It takes seconds to make decisions when using this part of the brain. In any type of combat situation the conscious mind’s decision making process is too slow to keep you alive. The conscious mind is a hindrance causing you to have to react to every situation instead of acting.
Sub-Conscious Mind: Reacts to situations. This part of the mind works in quarter seconds, which is much faster than the conscious mind. It has to be trained in order for it to work properly.
When training, the skills being learned need not only to be simple, but sound and effective. The sub-conscious mind is only developed through proper repetition (muscle memory) in training.
You must strive for perfection each and every repetition.
If you train poorly, or if the training is too complicated or too detailed, when the sub-conscious mind takes over it will not be able to respond properly to the situation. What occurs is the conscious mind identifies the situation, realizes it cannot handle it, and then turns it over to the sub-conscious mind to react. That is why we say that in any type of combat situation a person must rely on his training in order to survive.

The Optimum Combat Mindset: Optimum combat mindset is the state of mind where you have prepared yourself mentally (both consciously and sub consciously), physically, emotionally, tactically, and technically to endure the rigors of combat for prolonged periods of time and under extremely adverse conditions, and still remain effective.

Developing a Combat Mindset: Like the body the mind needs to be conditioned to respond or function properly in combat. When faced with a combat situation you want your mind to be free of distractions so that all of your focus is on the mission at hand – such as getting out of a situation and if it’s at the killing zone, killing the enemy and surviving the encounter). You need to be mentally prepared for death and injury and you need to go into the fight prepared for the worst. For instance, if you find yourself in a knife fight you should expect to get cut or if you go into a shooting you should expect to get shot.
Remember, response time is a critical factor in surviving a violent confrontation in a CQB environment. Do not waste time analyzing and second-guessing in an attempt to make the best possible decision. The time that is saved in the thought process will in turn save your life as you fight to end the fight.

Israeli KAPAP and Traditional Martial Arts

2005-12-16T00:23:00.001-08:00

By Albert Timen

KAPAP was the first CQB training introduced in Israel and was based on stick fighting, knives, guns, and hand-to-hand and even stone throwing in the old days. The idea is to fight with what you have available in your hand. For instance, when people argue about what gun is the best gun to have or what knife is the best knife to have the answer is obvious – the best gun or knife, or any weapon for that matter, is the one you have in your hand when you need it.

This is also the main idea behind the Israeli KAPAP/CQB. It was not developed to create new grandmasters so that Israel could have a place in the international arena of martial arts. That is why there are no uniforms or belts or ranks or even bowing to an opponent when sparring or training. All are considered useless because they serve no purpose in an encounter involving a real, life-threatening situation.

An example of what occurs during a real encounter occurred last year with a traditional martial artist who was shot to death in parking lot. Although he was a boxing champion he lost his life to his assailant who shot him after he tried to grab the assailant’s gun. Certainly, if it were a fight in the ring the martial artist probably would have won the fight. However, the fight was for his life and not for prize money.

This is not to say that every encounter will end successfully, but how you respond to a situation will depend on whether or not you have the ability to effectively defend yourself or the mentality to accept the fact that it is okay to run away from a situation in order to stay alive. As mentioned earlier, Israeli KAPAP is based on evaluation and evolution, which must be done for every technique in order to examine if it accomplishes what it is designed to accomplish. In KAPAP, techniques are also evaluated to determine whether any soldier or police officer can do it and, for civilians, whether they can be done by the weakest man or woman. The techniques must also be easy to teach. If the individual or group has a very limited time to train, easier and simpler techniques can be implemented to accommodate these training needs. However, if there is time to train, better and more specific techniques are also taught. Another important consideration for teaching KAPAP is liability. When teaching military personnel, you teach soldiers to stay in the killing zone and continue the assault on the enemy. For a civilian, just the opposite applies. If after disarming a knife an individual decides to stay in the fight and attempts to kill the attacker there is a good chance that individual will be spending time in jail. Also, when teaching police officers, there are other things to consider since just about every law enforcement agency has a defensive tactics program that must not only be politically correct, but must also meet any legal and medical requirements before being implemented. So, although KAPAP is specific in its application it is still flexible enough to be used in any arena to meet liability concerns.

Today, CQB is a modern martial art while traditional martial arts are considered older styles. It is when these two are combined, the old with the new, that they can then be effective. In essence, modern martial arts can't live without the traditional martial arts nor can the traditional martial arts live without the modern martial arts. The bottom line is, when some one is going to kick you your life is not at risk, only your ego. However, when someone pulls a knife or points a gun at you, you need to know how, when and if you should act. If someone says, “Give me your money” the best defense is to give him your money. If the encounter becomes more life threatening then you must also defend yourself. The question is - do you have the tools to know what to do and how to do it? The Israeli martial art of KAPAP is the self-defense system that can provide you with these tools when your life, not your ego, is on the line.

The Development of Israeli KAPAP/CQB

2005-12-16T00:23:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, Israel is the most experienced nation in the world when it comes to terrorism and that is why it has developed one of the most valued CQB training systems in the world - the Israeli martial art of KAPAP/CQB, which has been written in special ink called blood. The knowledge gained in developing the martial art of KAPAP/CQB came from not only the experience of successful operations against terrorist attacks, but many times it came by making tragic mistakes. It was after these mistakes occurred that better techniques were developed to avoid making the same tragic mistakes again. For this reason, the Israeli martial art of KAPAP/CQB is about evaluation and evolution. Even today, the weapons of warfare and self-defense have evolved from earlier techniques and strategies. For example, a few hundred years ago the bow and arrow was a combat tool, while today we have guns - the bow and arrow of modern times and of modern martial arts. Just as the arrow was once the edged weapon projected towards a target, it is now the bullet that is the edged weapon. And instead of the bow as the force behind the delivering of the arrow, gunpowder now takes on the same role to deliver the bullet. That is why today, in the evolution of Israeli martial arts such as Kapap, we see guns being used as an integral part of the training, especially when it comes to gun disarming. Not only is it important to know how to disarm a gun, but you must also know how to retain it and, if necessary, use it. Israeli CQB training, as well as KAPAP, owes its development to many different individuals. Though most of their names are missing from any list you will find, they have all contributed to the art and that is why no one individual can claim sole ownership of having developed it. As with any martial art, it is important to understand the origin of Israeli martial arts and to recognize the culture from which it began. For Israeli’s, the roots of Israeli CQB came from anti-Semitism and the Nazi’s desire to kill the Jews. It is the same feeling that some radical Muslim groups have today against Jews. It is from this climate of hatred that has given Israeli’s their fighting spirit and to fight back, if needed, in order to survive. This is what Israeli martial arts is all about - to do whatever it takes to survive the fight. For Israeli’s, the reality is that when you’re in a fight for your life it’s not important how good you look delivering a spinning kick if there is a chance the technique will kill you. And why will it kill you? Simply because the spinning back kick is useless and the person you were fighting against used ugly, but practical, techniques to live another day.

“Because that’s The Way it’s Always Been Around Here!”

2005-12-16T00:19:00.000-08:00

Albert Timen

Sound familiar? This concept has no borders. It is found in our homes and in our places of business. It is passed on from individual to individual and even from group to group. This concept can be illustrated by an experiment conducted by scientists involving a group of five monkeys and a banana.

Inside a cage, a banana hangs down from the ceiling as it dangles on a piece of string just above a set of stairs. Before long, one of the monkeys walks over towards the banana and as soon as he touches the stairs all of the other monkeys get sprayed with ice-cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt to get to the banana and with the same result - all the monkeys get sprayed with ice-cold water. A few minutes go by and a third monkey makes an attempt to get to the banana.

However, this time, all the other monkeys aggressively tackled him and prevent him from touching the stairs because they believed they would all be sprayed with ice-cold water. Now, after turning off the cold water, a monkey is removed from the cage and replaced with a new monkey.

Once inside the cage, the new monkey sees the banana and begins walking towards the stairs and immediately, to his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys began to attack him. This same monkey tries a second time to reach the stairs and is attacked once again. Finally, the monkey realizes that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be attacked and decides to make no more attempts to get to the banana.

Then, just as before, one of the original monkeys is removed from the cage and is replaced with a new monkey. Once again, the new monkey sees the banana and begins walking towards the stairs and, just like the other monkey, is attacked. Surprisingly, even the previous newcomer takes part in the attack with enthusiasm.

Finally, a third original monkey is replaced with a new monkey. And, just as before, as the new monkey makes it to the stairs to try to get to the banana the other monkeys attack him. Even the new monkeys, which had never experienced being sprayed with cold water, attack the new monkey with no idea as to why they are attacking him. They don’t even know why they are not permitted to climb the stairs.

As a result of all of this, any new monkey that is placed with the group will continue with this behavior so that no monkey can ever climb the stairs to get to the banana.

And why is this? Well, as far as they know it’s because, “That’s the way it's always been around here!”

Unfortunately, it appears that this mentality has found its way into the martial arts community. Asking why a technique is used or how effective the technique is will usually result in one of the most common answers being given in response to these types of questions – “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

That is why Kapap students are taught to open their mind and to feel free to evaluate a technique to confirm it is both realistic and effective.

Remember, only dead fish swim with the flow! If a technique works then continue to use it and if it doesn’t, then get rid of it, regardless of the martial arts system. It could be Kendo, Karate, Kali, Tae Kwon Do, or any of the other martial arts systems. That’s the beauty of Kapap - evolution and evaluation, truly an open-minded martial which keeps searching and reaserching for valid solutions whitin the wisdoms of the traditional martial arts.

Dan Inosanto a legendary martial artist once said:

We are all climbing different paths through the mountain of life and we have all experienced much hardship and strife. There are many paths through the mountain of life, and some climbs can be felt like the point of a knife. Some paths are short and others are long, but who can say which path is right or wrong? The beauty of truth is that each path has its own song, and if you listen closely you will find where you belong. So climb your own path true and strong, but respect all other truths for your way for them could be wrong.

KAPAP ACADEMY - Elite Israeli Combat

2005-12-15T23:34:00.000-08:00

Cell Phone Guns Discovered

2005-12-15T23:02:00.000-08:00

Cell Phone Guns Discovered

first sight it looks like a regular cell phone - same size, same shape, same overall appearance. But beneath the digital face lies a .22-caliber pistol - a phone gun capable of firing four rounds in quick succession with a touch of the otherwise standard keypad.European law enforcement officials - stunned by the discovery of these deadly decoys - say phone guns are changing the rules of engagement in Europe."We find it very, very alarming," says Wolfgang Dicke of the German Police union. "It means police will have to draw their weapons whenever a person being checked reaches for their mobile phone."Although cell phone guns have not hit America yet, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the U.S.Customs Service say they've been briefed on the new weapons."This criminal invention represents a potentially serious threat to law enforcement and the public," said U.S. Customs Service Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly."We received word about these guns last month. We have since alerted our field personnel to be on the lookout for 'cell phone guns' at U.S. ports of entry." Guns on the Move These new covert guns were first discovered in October when Dutch police stumbled on a cache during a drug raid in Amsterdam. In another recent incident a Croatian gun dealer was caught attempting to smuggle a shipment through Slovenia into Western Europe.Police say both shipments are believed to have originated in Yugoslavia.Interpol sent out a warning to law enforcement agencies around the world.European border police and customs officers are at a heightened state of alert at all ports, airports and border crossings. Realistic Appearance 'If you didn't know they were guns, you wouldn't suspect anything," said Ari Zandbergen, spokesman for the Amsterdam police."Only when you have one in your hand do you realize that they are heavier," says Birgit Heib of the German Federal Criminal Investigation Agency. The guns are loaded by twisting the phone in half. The .22-caliber rounds fit into the top of the phone under the screen. The lower half, under the keyboard, holds the firing pins. The bullets fire through the antenna by pressing the keypad from numbers five to eight.Amsterdam police says they are very sophisticated machines constructed inside gutted cell phones which do not light up or operate as real phones."These are very difficult to make. We believe experts are involved," says Zandbergen. America on Alert U.S. authorities, including the FBI, ATF, Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Customs Service Authority have been supplied detailed information and pictures of these new weapons. "They've been given a heads up," said Jim Crandall, ATF spokesman.To date no phone guns have been discovered either in the United States or in the process of being smuggled in, authorities say. But they know it's only a matter of time.FAA spokeswoman Rebecca Trexler said airport security officers had been trained to deal with this new threat. "We don't want to tell the bad guys exactly what we're looking for," she says, "We are trying to stay one step ahead." Will Affect Travelers Airport authorities across Europe are implementing systems to X-ray all cell phones, those procedures will likely be followed by airports around the world."This is just one more item that we need to pay special attention to because nowadays, of course just about every passenger carries a mobile phone," says the spokesman for Frankfurt airport security.Customs officials in the U.S. say their safety procedure has normally been to require travelers to turn their phones on, however that may no longer be enough. Cell phone users will have to be made aware that reaching for their phones in some circumstances could be misinterpreted as a threat by authorities.

Calculator Knife

2005-12-15T22:58:00.000-08:00

This calculator was found on a passenger at BWI airport during screening. It's very innocent looking, but can be deadly.To the left are photographs taken of a PYA/Monarch Calculator taken from a passenger at a B.W.I. Airport screening check point. the calculater is just 3 ½ " long by 2" tall and contains a concealed 2" knife blade, two screwdrivers and a mini flashlight.

NEW! Weapons believed to be made in Eastern Europe

2005-12-15T22:53:00.000-08:00

NEW! Weapons believed to be made in Eastern EuropeFrench police said Friday they had seized two lethal mobile phones capable of shooting four bullets, with the digital touchpads used as triggers.The black phones, identical to normal mobile phones on the outside, were discovered in a raid on a suspected criminal's home Tuesday in the northern city of Rouen.The deadly phones come apart in the middle to reveal a four-chamber compartment for .22 caliber bullets, which can be shot out of a protruding fake antenna. "These would be lethal at 10 meters (yards)," said Michel Lavaud, head of a local police brigade.Police seized the telephones along with 1,000 ecstasy pills, heroin, cannabis and $25,000 in cash at the home of a man suspected of armed robberies and drug trafficking.Lavaud said police thought the weapons were of a kind believed to be made in Eastern Europe and to have appeared in Belgium and the Netherlands in 2001.