Lyndsay Gasser made a choke move called a one-handed pluck against instructor Rolando Haddad. Eugenie Hill practiced a defense kick against a pad held by Linda Jasper during their krav maga class. Rolando Haddad demonstrated a knee strike with John Imler, one of his students. Photos by MICHAEL CLEVENGER

Be careful when you sneak up on someone with a bear hug in mind. You might get more than you bargained for if it's a krav maga student of Rolando Haddad.

Krav maga (pronounced "krahv muhGAH") means "contact combat" in Hebrew and is a self-defense system developed by the Israeli military forces.

Haddad drills his students in krav maga techniques in classes at Fitness in Middletown and Baptist East/Milestone Wellness Center in St. Matthews.

The T-shirt-soaking, hourlong classes also provide a fitness workout.

The classes involve some warm-ups and traditional exercises like crunches, or sit-ups, and push-ups and sprinting, but the meat of the sessions involves drills in two techniques — combative and self-defense.

In krav maga you don't have to don robes or shed shoes, bow to an opponent or memorize long movements. Promoters of krav maga describe it as a martial art that is heavy on the "martial" and light on "art."

It involves learning down-and-dirty street-fighting techniques and doing them so often that they become instinctive. The system relies on the human "fight or flight" reaction, and the idea is to act quickly and aggressively to get free of an attacker and then to disable him with a few quick blows to the groin or face, for example, to be able to get away.

"Movements are simple and reflexive" and build on natural instincts, which makes them easy to learn, Haddad said.

Haddad, 39, has several male students assisting him with instruction. One is Greg Burnette, a 33-year-old Louisville police officer who passed a certification program offered by the Krav Maga National Training Center in Los Angeles, where Haddad was certified. Burnette started studying krav maga last August and said he likes how practical it is.

John Imler, a 31-year-old University of Louisville student, took his first classes late last year and quickly became an enthusiastic student. Later this month he plans to try for his certification, which will cover seven days of testing.

Lyndsay Gassner, 26, another UofL student, started taking classes out of curiosity and enjoys the workouts. "Besides, it makes me feel more confident because it gives me some self-defense skills I may have to use," she said.

Because women aren't generally as physically powerful as men, krav maga teaches them to transfer strength from their entire body into a kick and to use the top of the foot and length of the shin as an additional contact surface for delivering a blow.

A student trained in krav maga will grab an assailant by the neck and pull him toward her as she strikes his groin with a kick of her leg.

Krav maga students also jab with their elbows and strike with their knees.

Instructors wear padded mitts and guards and hold padded shields to protect themselves as students pour it on.

When students get some training behind them, the classroom drills can intensify.

For example, while a student is aggressively delivering punches to the padded shield of an instructor, a second "attacker" will approach from behind. The "victim" might use a "one-handed pluck" to get a hand off his neck, then spin around to deliver a groin kick to the attacker at his back.

In the bargain, students work up a sweat. Thrashing the heck out of pads and constantly moving leaves participants huffing and puffing.

Jennifer Lopez used krav maga in the movie "Enough," in which she played an abused woman who learned to defend herself.

Krav maga got started in the 1930s in Czechoslovakia with the late Imi Lichtenfeld, a boxer, wrestler and gymnast who contended with anti-Semitism and violence in Europe.

After leaving Europe and moving to the Middle East, he formalized his fighting methods and trained Israeli defense forces. In 1981, Darren Levine, who studied under Lichtenfeld, brought krav maga to the United States, where it is used to train police as well as offer a combination self-defense and fitness regimen to a broader audience.

Haddad's students generally attend krav maga classes three times a week. He offers instruction on a monthly basis.

He also does seminars for corporations on location and offers demonstration classes. He will be doing krav maga seminars on June 6 and 7 at Louisville Athletic Club on Westport Road and at a date to be determined at Power Moves in Prospect.

Haddad can be reached at (502) 494-2270 or 445-3536; or e-mail him at r.haddad@insightbb.com.

To learn more about Krav Maga Worldwide, go to http://www.kravmaga.com/.

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