The work in the following years and up to today, was to design the system to confront every day attacks and street confrontation problems. Imi and his senior students set about designing Krav Maga as a complete system, and Imi`s close assistant from the 80`and untill his death, Eyal Yanilov, was put in charge of tieing the loose ends together and making Krav Maga into a respected martial art system.

New problems was discovered and Imi set about finding a solution to them, with the help of his senior instructors. The core of the system has always been simplicity and effectiveness, and Imi was always looking for the easy solution to most problems.

Many changes was made to the system both technically and visual, but in all the work that was done Imi never forgot the base of the system, simplicity, effectiveness and realism.

One interesting result of this was Krav Maga`s use of belts. In the early system Imi did not use belts in training, because it was a millitary system. But seeking recognition from his fellow martial artists he designed a belt system based on the Judo system of white-yellow-orange-green-blue-brown-black. The system was didived into grades making it easier to orginize. He also started training in gi`s (white judo training suits). In the 90`s however Imi desided that belts no longer should be a part of the system as it originally did not have a place there and that the use of belts did not have any realistic or practical meening in the system. The system of grades was kept, but the belts was taken out and replaced with a system of Practitioner/Graduate/Expert levels. The training suits today also consist of black pants and white t-shirts. Some countries still uses the belts in the curriculum, but not in training.

Continue with part three >>