Krav Maga or Jiu-Jitsu for Self-Defence in Tel Aviv: Which One Actually Fits You?

By Professor Itay Leibovich | 3rd degree black belt, Gracie Jiu Jitsu | September 2026 | ~13 min read

"So which is better, Krav Maga or jiu-jitsu?"

I get that question almost every week. Sometimes by WhatsApp, from a woman who walked home late down a dark street in Ramat Aviv and decided she never wants to feel that way again. Sometimes from a 42-year-old standing in the academy doorway, looking at the mats, trying to work out whether he walks in or keeps walking. And sometimes from a father who trained Krav Maga twenty years ago and wants to know whether what he remembers still holds up.

I have been training for 36 years and teaching for 16. In that time I have met plenty of people on the mat who came from Krav Maga, some of them instructors, and I learned things from them. So let me say it up front, so there are no surprises: I teach Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and I am biased. But my bias will not help you choose well, so the goal of this article, for anyone searching for Krav Maga in Tel Aviv or weighing up BJJ, is not to convince you that Krav Maga "does not work". It works. The goal is to give you the right question, the one that will help you choose, even if you end up choosing another gym.

First, in fairness: what Krav Maga is

Krav Maga is an Israeli system, and its story is worth knowing. Imi Lichtenfeld, a Jewish boxer and wrestler from Bratislava, developed its foundations in the 1930s, when he and his friends had to defend their Jewish neighbourhood from gangs. He brought that experience with him to Israel and later taught it in the IDF. From there it reached civilians, and step by step it became one of the things Israel is best known for around the world.

The aim of Krav Maga is clear and practical: neutralise a threat fast and get out of the situation alive. To do that, the system combines strikes and kicks, attacks to vulnerable points, escapes from grabs, defences against a knife or a stick, and work against more than one attacker. It puts a strong emphasis on reacting under stress and on situational awareness, and that emphasis is right. Anyone who trains Krav Maga seriously learns not to freeze, and that is an asset nobody should dismiss.

One more important thing: "Krav Maga" is not a single product. There are dozens of organisations and schools, and training methods differ enormously from one place to the next. Some gyms include regular sparring and glove work, and in others most of the session is drilling techniques with a partner. That is as true of Krav Maga in Tel Aviv as it is anywhere else, and it is the detail we will come back to, because it is the heart of the matter.

What Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is, and where it came from

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu began as a Japanese art. In the early twentieth century Mitsuyo Maeda, a Japanese judoka, arrived in Brazil and taught Carlos Gracie. Carlos and his brothers, with Helio Gracie among the central figures in developing the system, adapted it for a smaller and weaker body: less strength, more leverage, timing and position. That is how what the world now knows as Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was born, and what people in Israel spell half a dozen different ways.

The world discovered it in November 1993, at UFC 1. Royce Gracie, a slim man of about eighty kilos, beat three larger opponents in a single night, with no weight classes and almost no rules at all. It was not magic. It was leverage.

The system specializes in the phase most others try to skip: the clinch, the takedown and the ground. Instead of trading strikes, jiu-jitsu teaches you how to control a person who is trying to hurt you, how not to get hurt while he is on top of you, and how to end the confrontation with a lock or a choke, without needing to be the stronger of the two. Around the world it is called BJJ, short for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I teach the self-defense branch of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, in a lineage that runs from Helio Gracie through Royler Gracie and Moshe, to me.

The difference that really decides it: not what you train, but how

When people compare Krav Maga and jiu-jitsu, they usually compare lists. Krav Maga has strikes, jiu-jitsu does not. Krav Maga has knife work, jiu-jitsu has the ground. That is not accurate, of course (Gracie Jiu-Jitsu includes both strikes and weapon scenarios), but it is not the difference that decides whether you can protect yourself on the day you need to. The difference that decides it is how you train what you learn.

What happens to a technique when the other person does not cooperate

Every technique looks excellent when your partner cooperates. He grabs exactly where he should, with exactly the right force, and waits politely for you to finish the movement. That is how you learn technique, and it is perfectly fine. The problem starts when it is the whole session.

A real attacker does not wait. He pulls, pushes, changes direction, outweighs you by thirty kilos and has not read the script. A technique that has never been tested against resistance is a hypothesis. Sometimes a good one, sometimes not, and you will not know which until it is too late. The most dangerous part is the confidence. Someone who has drilled a choke escape hundreds of times against a soft partner feels that he knows. That feeling is real. The ability is not necessarily.

And there is one more layer, perhaps the most important of all: adrenaline. In a real confrontation the heart rate spikes, the hands shake, vision narrows and fine motor control disappears. That is the exact moment everything you have learned is tested. Someone who trains only in comfortable conditions meets that feeling for the first time on the worst possible day. Someone who spars regularly meets a controlled version of it three times a week, against a person genuinely trying to control him, and learns to breathe, think and act while his body is screaming at him to freeze. It is not magic, and it is not inborn courage. It is habit.

So the most important question you can ask any gym, Krav Maga, jiu-jitsu or anything else, is not "what do you teach here?". It is "how much of the training is against someone who genuinely resists?".

Full-resistance sparring, without breaking anyone

This is exactly where the structural advantage of jiu-jitsu sits. In every session, almost without exception, there is sparring. That is how it works in every serious jiu-jitsu academy, from Tel Aviv to Rio. You face a partner trying with everything he has to control or submit you, and you are trying to do the same to him. One hundred per cent resistance. Not a demonstration, not a staged scenario.

How is that done without everyone ending up in hospital? Because of the techniques themselves. A lock or a choke can be applied slowly and under control, and stopped at the point where your partner feels he is stuck. He taps, he signals that he is done, you release, and you start again. You get the full experience of submitting a person who is resisting with everything he has, without actually hurting him. You cannot do that with a finger to the eye or a kick to the groin, which is why systems built on techniques like those cannot drill them at full resistance.

Like any contact sport, jiu-jitsu carries a risk of injury. Controlled training, responsible partners and tapping in time reduce it significantly, but they do not remove it. Even so, being able to train at full intensity three times a week, year after year, is what turns knowledge into reflex. Roger Gracie, grandson of Carlos Gracie and one of the greatest competitors in the history of the sport, once said that "Jiu Jitsu is simple, you just gotta do it right". That right is built in sparring, not in a demonstration.

I went deeper into this principle in the guide on why self-defence in jiu-jitsu works when everything else fails.

"Krav Maga for the street, jiu-jitsu for sport"? Why that split is not accurate

This is probably the most common comparison of all, and you can find it almost anywhere: Krav Maga was built for the street, and jiu-jitsu is a competitive ground sport. There is a kernel of truth in it, and there is also a large mistake.

The kernel of truth: there is sport jiu-jitsu, with points, rules and competitions, and it contains positions I would not advise anyone to try on a pavement. But jiu-jitsu was not born in competition. It was born in fights with almost no rules, and the branch I teach, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, keeps that emphasis: what to do when someone is trying to hit you, how to close the distance without taking damage, how to get back up safely.

Strikes, weapons and more than one attacker

Here I want to be especially fair. Against a knife, against a stick or against three people, no system makes you untouchable. The most important rule in those scenarios, in any system, is to get away the moment you can. Krav Maga devotes more training time to them than jiu-jitsu does, and that is a legitimate advantage of it.

But the same question comes back here as well: how much of that drilling is done against real resistance? A knife defence practised only against a cooperative partner gives a sense of safety that can be more dangerous than knowing nothing. On the other side, jiu-jitsu does not ignore strikes. In Gracie Jiu-Jitsu you learn to close the distance on someone who is punching, to control him up close, and to protect your head when he is above you. If you want the full depth of the comparison against striking-based systems, I wrote a complete one on boxing versus jiu-jitsu for self-defense.

What happens when the fight closes into the clinch and goes to the ground

Many confrontations end up in the clinch or on the ground, not because anyone chose it, but because that is how human beings fight when there are no rules. Someone grabs your shirt in an argument over parking near Dizengoff. Someone charges in and wraps you up. There is pushing, stumbling, falling. In that situation the distance disappears, and with it a large part of any toolkit that depends on distance.

Krav Maga also teaches what to do on the ground, mainly how to get up fast, and that principle is right. The difference is depth. In jiu-jitsu the ground is not a place you flee from in a panic. It is a place you know. When you spend thousands of hours there against people who resist, you stop fearing it, which is exactly why you also know how to get up without taking damage, or to stay there when it is the safest place to be.

Krav Maga versus jiu-jitsu: a comparison table

	Krav Maga	Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Origin	Israel, the 1930s, later the IDF	Japan, then Brazil in the 1920s, the Gracie family and others
Main goal	Neutralise fast and get out of the situation	Control and submit an opponent, even one bigger than you
Main range	Standing, strikes and kicks	Clinch, takedowns and the ground
Weapons and multiple attackers	A central part of the syllabus	Less emphasis
Resistance in training	Varies widely between gyms	Full-resistance sparring in almost every session
Reliance on strength and size	Moderate	Low, the system was built for the weaker person
Safety over the years	Depends on the training method	A real risk, cut significantly by tapping and control
How progress is measured	Varies between organizations	Belts, and sparring that shows you where you stand in every session

So what suits you? Four situations

There is no single answer for everyone, but there is a good answer for each person. Here are four situations I meet again and again.

If you are looking for women's self-defense

The gap in strength and weight is the reality of most confrontations in which a woman is attacked. A system that leans on a powerful strike asks you to win in exactly the place where the gap is widest. Jiu-jitsu was built from day one on the opposite assumption: the weaker side has to win through leverage, position and timing.

At our academy, the women's group is the largest in Israel. About thirty per cent of our members are women, and every session has women at every level, from the first week to advanced belts. If that is your direction, I wrote a full guide to women's self-defense in Tel Aviv.

If you are over 40

After forty, the question is not only what will work on the day of a confrontation. It is also what you will still be able to do in ten years. The body recovers more slowly, the knees have more to say, and training built on absorbing strikes charges a price that accumulates.

In jiu-jitsu you can choose the intensity. You can train smart, spar with partners at your own level, and progress without ever stepping into a ring. Some of my most consistent students started at forty-five, with no background and no particular fitness. They did not come to be champions. They came to know how to protect themselves, drop a few kilos and leave the session with a clear head. Most of them are still here.

And there is another advantage that only shows up after a few months: BJJ is thinking training. Every roll is a problem to solve, not just a set of drills. People at that age, used to managing, planning and making decisions, find that their head is an advantage on the mat, not only their body. Instead of thinking "will my knee hold?", they start thinking "how do I get out of that position next time?". It is a small shift, and it is what makes people stay.

If you have already trained Krav Maga

Then you have an advantage, not a disadvantage. You already know what pressure is, you know the idea of neutralizing fast, and you have good habits of situational awareness. What is usually missing is the clinch and ground layer against full resistance.

People who come to us from Krav Maga usually progress quickly, mainly because contact does not startle them. They do not need to pick a side between Krav Maga and jiu-jitsu. They are adding a layer. That is what more complete self-defense looks like.

How to start jiu-jitsu in Tel Aviv

If you have read this far, the question is probably no longer "which is better", but "how do I test this on myself". The answer is simple: come to a trial class.

The Israeli Academy of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA is at 29 Yitzhak Sadeh Street in Tel Aviv. I recommend coming to a trial class with no pressure and no expectation of understanding everything. Nobody understands everything in their first session, including me 36 years ago. What you will understand is how sparring against real resistance feels, at a pace that suits you, and whether this is your place.

What does a session look like? It starts with a warm-up that prepares the body for ground movement. Then an instructor teaches one or two techniques, explains why they work, and you drill them in pairs, at first without resistance. The free part comes at the end. A beginner in their first session is not thrown into sparring against a purple belt with something to prove. They start with a limited scenario, with an experienced partner who knows how to let them work. And at the end of the session, almost everyone who comes to us says the same thing: "I had no idea it would be this tiring, and no idea it would be this much fun". If you want to read about it before you arrive, we have a full guide to your first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class.

Three things worth checking at any gym, ours or anywhere else:

• How much of the session is sparring against resistance, not only drilling.

• How beginners are treated once the free part starts.

• Whether you see people your age, and your build, who have trained there for years.

All the details on the classes, the schedule and the instructors are on the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Tel Aviv page. To book a trial class, the fastest way is to send us a WhatsApp message.

Frequently asked questions

Which is better for self-defence, Krav Maga or jiu-jitsu?

It depends less on the name of the system and more on the way it is trained. The deciding point is how much of the training is done against someone who genuinely resists. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has full-resistance sparring in almost every session, so the techniques are tested constantly. Krav Maga devotes more time to weapon scenarios and multiple attackers. Anyone who wants ability that holds up against a bigger opponent, especially in the clinch and on the ground, will find it in jiu-jitsu.

What is the difference between Krav Maga and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?

Krav Maga is an Israeli system focused on neutralising a threat fast, with strikes, kicks, weapon defences and work against several attackers. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu focuses on the clinch, takedowns and the ground, and lets you control and submit an opponent through leverage, even one bigger and stronger than you. The big practical difference is the training: in jiu-jitsu you drill against full resistance on a regular basis.

Which martial art suits women?

One that does not rely on strength and size. In a real confrontation the physical gap is the hardest thing to change, so an art built on leverage and control gives women the biggest advantage. The Israeli Academy in Tel Aviv runs the largest women's group in Israel, and about thirty per cent of our members are women.

Can you train both Krav Maga and jiu-jitsu?

Yes, and the combination works well. Krav Maga gives you tools for standing, for weapons and for reacting fast, and jiu-jitsu completes the clinch and the ground against full resistance. People who arrive with a Krav Maga background usually progress quickly, because they are already used to pressure and contact. And anyone who wants both worlds under one roof, striking and grappling together, will find them in MMA. I wrote a full comparison of the difference between MMA and jiu-jitsu.

Does jiu-jitsu also teach you to defend against strikes?

Yes, especially in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. You learn to close the distance on someone trying to hit you, to control him up close so that he cannot generate a powerful strike, and to protect your head when your opponent is above you. The sport version focuses on this less, so it is worth asking any gym where it puts its emphasis.

I am over 40 and out of shape. Is this for me?

Very much so. You do not need to be fit to start, the fitness comes from the training itself. In jiu-jitsu you set the intensity, you train with partners at your level, and you take no strikes to the head. Many of our long-standing members started after forty, with no previous background at all.

Where can you train jiu-jitsu in Tel Aviv?

At the Israeli Academy of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA, at 29 Yitzhak Sadeh Street in Tel Aviv, under Professor Itay Leibovich, a 3rd degree black belt in the Gracie lineage. A trial class is booked by WhatsApp message to 055-921-2431.

Bottom line: do not choose a system, choose how you train

Krav Maga and jiu-jitsu are not two football teams you pick between for life. They are two different answers to the same question, and each is good in its own domain. But if there is one sentence I want you to take from this, it is this one: your ability to protect yourself will be exactly as good as the resistance you trained against.

So before you sign up anywhere, ask how much of the training is real sparring. And if you want to see what that looks like with us, come to a trial class at 29 Yitzhak Sadeh, ask me anything, including about Krav Maga, and decide for yourself.

See you on the mats,

Professor Itay Leibovich

The Israeli Academy of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA, 29 Yitzhak Sadeh Street, Tel Aviv