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>>Jürgen Schaffrath:So, what most of the people are
thinking about if they hear the word Kapap, you're the president
of the Kapap Academy so there are more people using the name
Kapap. Maybe you can tell us about what Kapap is and especially
the mission you have and the training you created especially in
the Kapap Academy.
>>Albert Timen: Okay. Well it goes back to the previous question and again
Kapap in general, when you hear the word Kapap, it's Krav Panim
El Panim. In Hebrew it's the very literal translation of face to
face combat. If we take it in context, you have to understand
that every conflict that happens between two or more people is
falling under this category. So it's a very generic word, the
word kapap. It represents a lot of the doctrines of training, a
lot of the things that you know are under this type of setting.
A lot of people confuse kapap with martial arts, with sports,
with things that are mixed and matched because everyone can
create their own face to face combat. Kapap Academy is more
specific entity within this market. Since I came out with Kapap
Academy in 2004, it was created in 2004 when I moved from Israel
to the United States.
As a part of my move I started researching for what is out there in the
market because I am not coming from the civilian market. I'm
coming out from my own personal view and experience. I started
looking for things that are similar to what I did in my
background and obviously, the first thing that pops up is the
self defense market. To me it was a very unique point in time
that I started some kind of a research and I would say a journey
in that market because for me it was first try, first steps in
the market to get to know what's out there, what products are
out there, what type of trainings are out there and there is so
many out there. It was so confusing. So slowly I started making
sense of what is out there in the market and when we started,
literally looking for specific things that are related to self
defense. It's more, we started taking out a lot of the things
that were not completely related to the bottom line of self
defense. We kind of started seeing that a lot of the big market
out there starts to get smaller and smaller and there is not a
lot but very little things or people that are talking about the
same aspects.
Of course in the general aspect, it's very confusing because people really
don't know what self defense, in a general term is. Same like
kapap. Kapap is a general term and it's used mainly just to
describe some kind of a conflict resolution. There are other
names in the market. There are other things in the market that
may sound the same, my look the same, but as a personal result
of our research together with you and other instructors that
joined the ranks, I think that put more things to the test in
that area that a lot of people are not feeling comfortable to
put them in. That kept things a little bit more, for us, the
results were amazing because a lot of people started seeing that
whatever experience they had before suddenly doesn't work. When
you put it to a certain moves and tests that we picked up to
define our methodology of training, we started seeing some
things are failing down and going away. We started understanding
that these are the things that we are looking for in our
research. So we are, now it's a research group, it's a group
that instructors like me, like yourself and others that join,
are going in the same path that I started since 2004 in the
United States and now it becomes more of an international entity
that takes the interesting of the global market and we have a
lot of people now involved in an international kapap training
and Kapap Academy specifically because kapap, as I said before,
is a general term and it describes a lot of things that are not
really describing what we decided that is related to realistic
self defense. So if I can take certain moves that are looking
very well and very good and very well rehearsed but they fail
under certain test, is that a good thing to train them over and
over for years and create some kind of a training paradigm that
gives good results? I feel good that I'm doing it but when the
realistic tests come in, it suddenly fails. For a lot of people
it was a reality check, a slap in the face, and sometimes they
kind of debated why things are failing. Simple things that they
would think are working as a self defense suddenly started
failing. So we took it upon ourselves in Kapap Academy to make
the training much more pragmatic towards the goal of self
defense. I can tell you that the results are still amazing and
a lot of people, everyone that have been through our training in
the past and have crossed trained with us, all of the feedback
that I had to, I can name a lot of people that have been but I
can take specific people that have said I never expected that. I
never really was expecting that result and the simplicity of how
you came to this result was a long time research that we did and
that's where we stand today.
Today, we started making the product of kapap much more defined. We have a
structure. We have the big structure that we started putting
together. Let's not forget that we started only in 2004 and we
still have a way to develop, again, we're in 2013 and I would
say the first years were more of a personal experience of how
the market works. So of course we started with a lot of
commonalities like other systems had but over the years
advanced, we saw that we need to get rid of the unnecessary
attachments that are not bringing the same results that we want
to see. So it was also kind of a work in progress and people
that were a part of this group suddenly started forming the
kapap that we see today. So, of course for me, as a leader of
the Kapap Academy in the United States I did the first steps but
I think that the more people that came together and started
seeing around them what is working and what is not helped us
shape the ultimate product of kapap that we see today and of
course we hope that more people that have the same mindset and
the same goals to really have a realistic approach to self
defense will step in and see the benefit of contributing to this
global aspect. This is how I want to see the future of Kapap
becoming.
>>Jürgen Schaffrath: So I am with you on the journey since 2006. We met first
in Italy and I can remember the first steps in kapap related to
what it is today. It's a completely different style and it's not
a style it's finally the training concept developed. It was
changing, I can't put it in words but the first of the beginning
was a very technical aspect, a lot of videos on YouTube and
whatever are technical based. The [inaudible 13:37] called what
if questions. What if your attacker does this? Then you make
that. It was not that the techniques were not effective or
ineffective but what changed, in my point of view, was complete
training methodology and the reality check. Finally, to make it
on a high intensity level, to just check and get used to the
material and the message was changing. I can't put it into
words. What the people maybe also need to know is we have
different spots we are training in. It's like the Kapap Academy
Level One instructor's course which is the core program for the
civilian market if you want to teach as a instructor like
civilian self defense for all the people out there which is one
thing and on the other hand there is the specific in the Kapap
Academy for maybe the law enforcement market or in addition the
VIP protection. Maybe you can talk a little bit about the three
different core programs.
>>Albert Timen: Sure. Again, relating again to how we started, it was a work in
progress and today after so many years and you have been part of
the journey since 2006 and you see the big change and the big
shift from technical aspects that are really just how to do the
move itself, how to do specifics. We shifted away from that.
We're more principle based. We're more strategical thinking.
We're more reactionary as a human person. We cannot take two
people and start to say that they are the same because they are
not. So, emotional aspects, technical aspects, physiology of
the person. It is again a lot to do with the mission statement
that each and every person carries. If you were a civilian,
let's say, I would try to go away from the conflict. If I have
no business with the conflict I should not stay there and try to
find out if what's wrong. But if you're a police officer you are
there because of the problem. You are called because there is an
unruly civilian that is now or domestic violence and all of
these things. But what we found in common that when you are in
the conflict, there are similarities in the human reaction. This
is our research that brought us together and we started putting
the aspect of how would the law enforcement person respond to
the same situation but the mission statement now is changed
because he's there for a different reason from the civilian. Of
course, there is the military aspect that is completed in the
combat zone. So when you take a soldier out of his base and put
it in a hostile environment, his entire thinking, his entire
strategical behavior becomes different because he has to adjust
to so many unknowns out there. For us, we took this aspect, we
took this type of thinking and we started back engineering it.
Where the problem starts. Let's go back and start to see where
it leads us. So, the plan of the training and all the progress
was made or structured in a way that we can make sense to
civilians, we can make sense to law enforcement personnel, and
we can make sense now in the civilian market.
Here in Europe we're not dealing with the military yet.
Hopefully in the future that will become available. We'll be
more than happy to really accommodate this type of training.
But, for me it's more important to give the professional
security, professional market. I call it a profession market
because these guys do a lot of important work in the civilian
setting and they really have a lot of problems to solve. So,
when you start to give a person the correct mind set to think on
his own two feet and to trouble shoot everything before and not
make it just a technical aspect, you equip him with a very
powerful system. So, we took the civilian market as a level one
instructor course for the people that were interested to get
involved in Kapap Academy training and teach that as a
systematic way because I see us as a delivery tool. Kapap
Academy is a delivery tool for bringing back a more common sense
approach, pragmatic approach, an approach that we don't make it
to succeed. We test it not to fail and that is the biggest
difference that I see from systems that have a little bit more
approach. Yeah, everything that you do has to work. The problem
is, when that doesn't work, what then? Again, going back to the
question, how am I thinking as a person? I'll give you a small
example. If I am taking a person and putting him in a situation.
He needs to think about that immediately exit because if he
thinks more and more about the technical aspect, more and more
he stays in the fight. Maybe you're Mrs. Jones and you are
sitting down in your comfortable life and suddenly you have some
kind of a conflict. You walk on the street. Somebody is
approaching you. You are not feeling comfortable and the first,
most logical solution to do is just disengage or just get away
from the situation safely. But most of the martial arts or
systems that are talking about self defense, they are not really
giving those solutions to these people. Somehow they lost the
track or the way of where they started really giving the service
of self defense. So we try to bring back this logic.
Of course our training involves the physical, the pre-conflict
aspect, the conflict and the post conflict aspects of every
scenario that we put into play. More and more, like yourself,
you were with us in 2005. One of the first instructors in the
international market and you are a perfect example of where we
want to see more and more people involved because I think that
society today, we become more dependent on things that are
taking or blocking our common sense and we need people, good
people, to show the market again that the common sense is not
lost. So there is a chance to learn in a very safe environment
but also we test everything we do in a very realistic way. So it
might look at the beginning that it's not exactly what you have
in mind but after you start to wet your feet and get more
involved in Kapap Academy training, the more you see the bigger
picture. Of course it has to be a journey. Like yourself, you
did in your previous journey before you met us, you had a lot of
things beforehand. When you started seeing, your logic becomes
the main drive behind your training, there is nothing that can
replace that. This is something that we want to bring back to
the people that need it the most because I see everyday people
that are training in the wrong way of training. There is a lot
of ego. There are a lot of muscles. There is a lot of
testosterone. There are a lot of things that have nothing to do
with the end user, with the person that comes to take that self
defense class or be taught self defense. We need to make sense
to him as well. For the civilian market we created the program
for instructors that have this ability and this background or
they are in research of something that answers a lot of their
questions. So of course the level one is more structured for is
an entry point to Kapap Academy training and then we start to
structure the curriculum towards skill sets, not techniques. Of
course you're going to learn a lot in the process but we call
them skill sets. Once you have that skill set package secured,
now you are more comfortable of teaching or talking in the same
language like we do. It's a process by itself to become a good
instructor because just come, stepping in and taking the program
itself doesn't mean that you tomorrow can teach it with
integrity. One of the things that we're looking at in our
instructors is to deliver the integrity of the system. That
means that they always should keep their aspect of training one
level above the student and if the student has questions that
the instructor doesn't know or can't answer, honestly, we expect
him to go back and kind of research with us and we'll try to
troubleshoot it together. That is what keeps everything honest.
That's the programs that we started.
For the law enforcement market we have, I started this model in
the US, and it works. Started to catch up pretty good there
because a lot of people are in need in the same platform. Its
self defense or defensive tactics for police officers are the
same. They have the same needs. They have the same missions. I
feel with my background and with the help of the research we did
so far, we reached a point that we can really help realistically
these guys to resolve a lot of complicated situations to
simplify, break it down with very, very simple tools which are
very effective. So we kind of shortened the path to them for
their angle. We have programs like arrest and control. We have
programs like low light that you guys have been doing here in
Germany as well successfully. For law enforcement we have the
Shocknife program which is a very, very efficient tool.
Shocknife is a trademarked product by Shocknife Company. They
are based in Canada. We have integrated their tools into our
training and that is again another step that we use to introduce
or induce fear and a little bit of adrenaline rush and the
response to law enforcement that find themselves in specific
situations that are more problematic for them. So it brings the
next level of realistic training. We also have the ICPS, the
Israeli Combat Point Shooting that is also a work of research
and a work of years of development.
Of course, back in Israel, it was different from what we train
today because I took it and strip it down from the local and I
made it more international and acceptable by most of the
countries that I've been in. The results are very good. We've
got very good feedback and the things that we are promoting
through that are working for all our law enforcement agencies.
We are very happy to be a part of that. As for the VIP
protection market, we started developing also a course that is
going to accommodate people who are in the security business.
They want to upgrade their personal skills but also make it a
little bit more of tactical training. So this type of training
is more very specific to this market and again similarities of
training and of thinking. How you resolve a problem as a police
officer, as a civilian, and now of course that the VIP
protection has a different mission statement and a goal to
protect somebody else that is not himself now. So this strategic
thinking and answering or trouble shooting problems are really
putting us in a good way that we can give these guys answers as
well and put them realistically through this test.
>>Jürgen Schaffrath: Perfect. I think there are a couple of guys coming in.
>>Albert Timen: Yes.
>>Jürgen Schaffrath: I think we quit now. For me, the only thing that as far
as I understand it now and I think I got the point and I got the
message is for the people outside if they want to check in, join
in, they are more than welcome. In the days when nearly
everybody is creating his own system and every corner there pops
up a new system, I think it's a good thing to be in a very
strong and good structure.
>>Albert Timen: Absolutely.
>>Jürgen Schaffrath: And be part of a big group research and not doing
everything by yourself only. You're the grandmaster so a group
research of a very good bunch of people coming out of the
civilian law enforcement market, military based, so this is what
Kapap Academy offers especially also here in Europe. For me the
interesting thing is that training as a concept and not as a
system which means we do not need to bash other systems because
they do what they do. I finally say it doesn't matter what type
of system you train. You learn your tools there because every
tool in every system is made to succeed finally but you can come
to us, regardless of what system you are training in and do your
reality check and just adapt to the concept. We are open for all
systems to join in and to just test their skills, maybe get with
us on a research journey and finally the result is what counts.
That's the only thing that matters.
>>Albert Timen: Absolutely. I can't agree more with that and I think you
summarized all the things that we said before in a nutshell and
we welcome everyone to train with us. I think that one of the
sentences that we kind of put also in the back of our t-shirts,
respect all and fear none, is one thing that we're looking for
and we really welcome everyone to join in if they have this type
of thinking, just to test their own skills or they want to cross
train with another group of people that have done this research.
Maybe they'll find something new that will help them even
perfect their systems or their way of thinking. Of course we
welcome everyone.
>>Jürgen Schaffrath: Thanks for the talk.
>>Albert Timen: Thank you.
>>Jürgen Schaffrath: And now rock and roll.
>>Albert Timen: Yes.