Hello, and a very warm welcome to our Kalah Blog. We sincerely hope that you enjoy your time here and come back to visit us on a regular basis.
What is Kalah?
It’s a self-defence and combat system.
You may have heard polarising opinions about what we do and how we do it so let me tell you how it is in five points.
1. We train hard with reality-based self-defence and tactical training.
We ignore the bruises, scrapes and cuts and the bloody noses. Our training can look extremely brutal, just as reality often is, and therefore there is a perception that we’re unhinged, unapproachable, dangerous people that go beyond what is considered to be safe and rational. Glory to God, as many of our students have survived home invasions and attacks, charged to kill and rape. Their survival is large because they “kept their head”, and applied principles, under severe stress, just like they were taught in Kalah training sessions. Ego has no place inside a Kalah training studio. Acting in a confrontational manner isn’t just going to piss the attacker off, but no one person is more important than another. We believe that we have the responsibility to help and protect fellow human beings.
2. Kalah Combat System students don’t go quietly.
We speak out about techniques we don’t believe will work, and we are ready to back up our words with actions. More than a few dojos have banned our students or instructors from their premises and seminars. They don’t even want to discuss their techniques with us. But it is our duty to those other students to speak out when something won’t work in reality, because if we don’t speak, they will have no choice but to apply flawed techniques in a real attack—which can get them killed.
3. God gifted Idan Abolnik
Idan Abolnik, an Israeli and our Kalah Combat System founder.
As such, its symbol resembles the Star of David. Small-minded people use this as an excuse for racial prejudice and accuse us of cultish behaviour, because …
4. In a KALAH studio, we are all students.
We talk to each other and the instructors, continually questioning the effectiveness of Kalah solutions, and our only ‘master’ is reality. We don’t have a belt system and we are not interested in tracking the progress of individual students and …
5. … we are also not interested in the money that comes with regular gradings, and membership in prestigious worldwide organisations. In Kalah, you will never find a seminar that is attended by so many students that the instructor is unable to focus on each of them as individuals and train them thoroughly. If one of our students or instructors doesn’t act morally and legally correct, they get excluded from the system. Kalah is a gift from God, and this carries responsibility with it.
To sum up, it’s not comfortable or easy to be a student of Kalah. Welcome to my world.
Kalah is not about being a member of your country’s SWAT team, about presenting an imposing figure by practising martial arts for decades, having twenty different certificates displayed on your dojo wall, a fat bank account and two hundred students. It’s also not about your religion or calling God by a particular name, it’s not about race or skin colour. It’s for everyone, everywhere. It’s about humility, compassion, and backbone enough to stand up for your conviction; and never, ever fold.
Kalah is a gift from God.
