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Krav Maga

Country of Origin: Israel

Israel/Judea/Palestine is the most plundered, conquered, occupied, and all around screwed-with chunk of land on the face of this planet, and the Jews have been systematically brutalized by so many nations that in most parts of the world it's considered weird not to hate them. It should therefore come as no surprise to anybody that the most vicious martial art in the world originates from there.

It was originally invented in the 1930s by a Czechoslovakian Jew named Imrich Lichtenfeld to be used by Jews to defend themselves from Nazi militia, by beating the absolute [censored] out of them with their own weapons in a matter of seconds and then running before their screams of pain attracted any help.

In 1940, Lichtenfeld fled the Holocaust to what was then Palestine, and began teaching it to local militia. When Israel became a nation in 1948, they began teaching Krav Maga to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

In addition to a lineup of particularly brutal holds, strikes, and take downs, they teach the use of the M-16 as a melee weapon and multiple, lightning fast ways to take a gun away from an opponent and then kill him with it.

Krav Maga in Action:

The basic tenets of Krav Maga require you to assume that your opponent always has another weapon hidden somewhere on his body and both the intent and will to drag you off and torture you to death. It also encourages you to avoid dragging out a fight at all costs by breaking your opponent into multiple, small pieces and, if necessary, running away.

While basic Krav Maga requires you to take on multiple, knife wielding opponents in close quarters, as well as being able to kill anybody who tries to hijack your bus or take you hostage, there is a more advanced course, taught to the Mossad, Shin Bet, and the Israeli special forces. It teaches you how to clear a building full of terrorists with an M-16 and no bullets, as well as how to use pistols in ways that would make John Woo proud.

Without a doubt, Krav Maga is the single most compelling reason to keep your job at Blockbuster instead of taking up a life of crime in Israel. And if you still need convincing, let's just say that it's the only real martial art listed in the "see also" section of Wikipedia's entry on Gun Kata.