Imi Lichtenfeld

Imi Lichtenfeld
Born	Lichtenfeld Imre (1910-05-26)May 26, 1910 Budapest, Hungary
Died	January 9, 1998(1998-01-09) (aged 87) Netanya, Israel
Other names	Imi Lichtenfeld, Imi Sde-Or
Style	Krav Maga
Notable students	Haim Gidon, Kobi Lichtenstein, Eyal Yanilov, Avi Moyal

Imre "Imi" Lichtenfeld (May 26, 1910 – January 9, 1998) was a Hungarian-born Slovakian martial artist who founded the Krav Maga self-defense system. He was also known as Imi Sde-Or, the Hebrew calque of his name.

Early life

Lichtenfeld was born on May 26, 1910, to a Hungarian Jewish family in Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He grew up in Bratislava, Slovakia. His father, Samuel Lichtenfeld, was a chief inspector on the Bratislava police force and a former circus acrobat. Lichtenfeld trained at the Hercules Gymnasium, which was owned by his father, who taught self-defense.

As a young man, Lichtenfeld was a successful boxer, wrestler, and gymnast since his youth. He competed at national and international levels and was a champion and member of the Slovakian National Wrestling Team. In 1928, he won the Slovakian Youth Wrestling Championship, and in 1929, the adult championship in the light and middleweight divisions. That year, he also won the national boxing championship and an international gymnastics championship.

Development of Krav Maga

In the late 1930s, anti-Semitic riots threatened the Jewish population of Bratislava. Together with other Jewish boxers and wrestlers, Lichtenfeld helped to defend his Jewish neighborhood against racist gangs. Being a successful athlete earlier, Lichtenfeld later took up martial arts like Judo and Jujutsu, because he thought that would make him able to defend himself. He quickly decided that sport has little in common with real combat and began developing a system of techniques for practical self-defense in life-threatening situations.

In 1935, Lichtenfeld visited Palestine with a team of Jewish wrestlers to participate in the Maccabi games but could not participate because of a broken rib that resulted from his training while on route. This led to the fundamental Krav Maga precept, 'do not get hurt' while training. Lichtenfeld returned to Czechoslovakia to face increasing anti-Semitic violence. Lichtenfeld organized a group of young Jews to protect his community. On the streets, he acquired hard won experience and the crucial understanding of the differences between sport fighting and street fighting. He developed his fundamental self-defense principle: 'use natural movements and reactions' for defense, combined with an immediate and decisive counterattack. From this evolved the refined theory of 'simultaneous defense and attack' while 'never occupying two hands in the same defensive movement.'

In 1940, Lichtenfeld fled the Nazi occupation of his homeland, heading for Palestine on the Aliyah Bet vessel, Pencho, which shipwrecked on the Greek Dodecanese Islands. He reached Palestine in 1942 after serving with distinction in the British supervised Free Czech Legion in North Africa. The Haganah's leaders immediately recognized Lichtenfeld's fighting prowess and ingenuity. In 1944 Imi began training fighters in his areas of expertise: physical fitness, swimming, wrestling, use of the knife, and defenses against knife attacks. During this period, Imi trained several elite units of the Hagana and Palmach (striking force of the Hagana and forerunner of the special units of the IDF), including the Pal-yam, as well as groups of police officers. In 1948, when the State of Israel was founded and the IDF was formed, Imi became Chief Instructor for Physical Fitness and Krav Maga at the IDF School of Combat Fitness. He served in the IDF for about 20 years, during which time he developed and refined his unique method for self-defense and hand-to-hand combat. After he finished his active duty, Imi began adapting and modifying Krav Maga to civilian needs.

The method was formulated to suit everyone – man and woman, boy or girl, who might need it to save his or her life or survive an attack while sustaining minimal harm, whatever the background of the attack – criminal, nationalistic, or other. To disseminate his method, Imi established two training centers, one in Tel Aviv and the other in Netanya.

Later life

In 1964, Lichtenfeld retired from the Israeli military. He then modified Krav Maga to fit the needs of police forces and ordinary civilians. He trained teams of Krav Maga instructors, who were accredited by him and the Israeli Ministry of Education. He also created the International Krav Maga Federation in 1995. On January 9, 1998, Lichtenfeld died in Netanya, Israel, at the age of 87.

Sadly, after his death, many of his former students started claiming to be "the best", "the highest ranked", the "closest to Imi". All of them tried to spread krav maga according to their own interpretations, with different approaches, but everyone saying that they were the only ones teaching "The Imi's way". Even before Imi's death, Haim Zut and his student Uri Refaeli, formed an independent organization, teaching a high quality Krav Maga, but separately from IKMA. Yaron Lichtenstein, from Bukan, emigrated to Brazil and started a story of Imi giving him a 9th degree and the title of "Grand Master" (no evidence about it, as the last degree legitimately given to him was a 6th Dan), and claims to be the only person in the world who really knows Krav Maga. Eyal Yanilov was one of the closest students of Imi on his last days, and he was the mind behind spreading Krav Maga in the United States. There are documents showing that he earned a 7th Degree.

Haim Gidon is the legit successor as president of the Imi's association (IKMA), and the evidence is shown in a video easily found on the web, as well as Imi granting him 8th Dan, and saying that 9th and 10th Degrees were to come for Haim. Kobi Lichtenstein received from Imi a black belt, 6th Degree, and emigrated to Brazil with the blessing of Imi, to be the first person teaching Krav Maga in South America. But the legacy of Imi keeps alive in all of these masters, despite the speech that each one of them may say.