I've trained Krav for about 2 and a half years, and only a few weeks ago, for the first time ever, I had to use it to defend myself. Despite all my training I was (and still am) apprehensive about ever having to use it. As is natural I guess. But the outcome of this situation is something that has made all the hours of training worth it for me. And I would encourage anyone to read this who might be on the fence about learning krav, or who doesn't feel like they're making progress. I am going to describe it as vividly as I can, it's probably going to be quite a long read for what in real life was probably 8 seconds of action.
The situation has a lot of backstory that I won't go into. But the gist is that I was attacked by a man older and bigger than myself in a situation that I wasn't expecting. It was the end of an evening and I was sobering up. But I was still feeling the effects of alcohol. I was slower, duller, and less coordinated than I usually am.
I became aware of someone running at me from my right side and shouting, I start turning towards him just in time to see him swinging towards my face. My memories of the events that followed are just swinging wildly and trying to protect my head. I wasn't thinking about Krav, I don't even have memories of seeing my attacker the whole time, I didn't think I had landed a single punch. All of a sudden I felt myself being dragged to the floor. I managed to get my knees in between myself and the person pulling me down and I landed on top of them. In the space of however many seconds I was under attack, my adrenaline had kicked in; by the time we hit the floor I was suddenly sharper, clearer. I remembered my training and looked over my shoulder instantly to check for danger and sure enough there was another guy running at us. I managed to break contact with the guy and I was in the process of getting up to face the new assailant. Luckily I had friends around, and they also started running over to help me. Seeing this the other guy backed off, and I managed to get escape. The man ended up helping his friend up and then the two of them backed away now that I was with my friends.
...And that was pretty much the end of the experience. Someone attacked me and I got lucky, right? I was pissed, all that Krav training and when I needed it I just panicked and forgot it all. What if there had been a knife? By the time I had started to think about all my Krav training the fight was practically over.
Well, it turns out it wasn't a waste. In fact it's probably the only reason I didn't have to go to hospital that night. I had the fight described to me afterwards by a number of people who watched it, non of whom knew I did Krav, nor what Krav Maga entails. They said that as I turned towards him and saw the punch I threw a block up, deflecting the punch so that it only glanced of my eyebrow as opposed to hitting me square in the temple. They then described me 'parrying' 3 punches thrown straight at my face using what I know to be inside defence. They then said I countered with three punches straight into his face. Right-left-right. The attacker went down, and as he fell he grabbed my shirt, pulling me with him. And from there you know the rest.
I honestly don't remember thinking about doing any of those things. It wasn't a conscious decision to defend myself, It was like my body went into autopilot and just did what I've been practicing every week for the last couple of years. I'm in no doubt that without that training that man would have knocked me out. And then who knows what else he and his mate might have done before my friends stopped them. Hell, I don't even know if they would have been able to.
The endless repetition of drills, practicing them over and over and stress testing them is what enabled me to produce them when they were really needed, without even having to think. I really hope that anyone with doubts about Krav or their own progress will read this and realise that it works and even if you don't realise it you are improving. To any who have doubts about starting to learn: you should have absolutely no worries or reservations about finding a school, everyone has a right to be able to defend themselves in situations like these. And I personally think that Krav is absolutely the best way to do it.