What is your reality???

What is your reality??

About five years ago I was on a weekend instructor training course for Krav Maga. These weekends courses usually mean drilling techniques to pass upcoming grades.

That weekend the material was gun and rifle threats. We’d pair up, one partner holding a rubber training gun or rifle, standing perfectly still — robot-like, no dialogue, no emotion, no aggression — while the other practised the technique. It all took place in a clean safe training hall.

For a couple of years beforehand I’d been noticing holes in the training and methods I was learning and teaching. The more I practiced these static, Hollywood-style drills, the more fake something felt.

We drilled through the morning and, before lunch, the others went off to get something to eat. I walked the other way to get coffee. Standing in the queue, I accidentally brushed past a lady carrying a tray with two steaming hot coffees. As I turned, I noticed someone who might have been her son — a big guy. If looks could kill, that look would have done the job. I said sorry, apologised properly, and both of them accepted it and moved on.

That moment was a lightbulb for me.

After spending hours repeating techniques that wouldn’t make sense in a remake of Platoon — let alone in a everyday altercation — the contrast between training and reality hit me. My reality wasn’t gun battles or urban gang warfare. My reality was the coffee situation: small, everyday interactions that can escalate in a heartbeat. Spilt coffee. carparking space being taken. A sharp word in the supermarket aisle. These are the things we all live with. potentially Leading to a more serious situations.

So I asked myself: why am I practicing for an environment I don’t live in?

It wasn’t a criticism of professionals. Military and law-enforcement folks absolutely need different training because their reality is different. If your job is to operate where blasts are going off and firearms are part of the daily landscape, you should train to meet that. This post isn’t aimed at them — it’s aimed at the everyday civilian.

If you’re looking or attending a self-defence or reality-based self-protection class, ask yourself the question. Does what they teach actually match your reality? Does it reflect interactions you encounter? Or are the instructors staging scenes from a Vietnam film and giving students a false sense of security?

If the course content doesn’t match with your life, move on.

What I learned stepping away from that instructor track was this: training must be honest about the environment it prepares you for. Technique without context can be dangerous — both giving false confidence and wasting time on skills you’ll never use.

So that’s my reality. The question is, what is your reality?