Fighting and Writing, what is Krav Maga?

In one of my DragonCon reports, I noted that various authors have various reasons to have fight scenes in their novels: to honor those who have fought, to get realism in the writing, to come to grips with wars they've been in.

I'm not so high-minded.

There are some situations my characters won't be able to talk their way out of … in the case of A Pius Man, when there are people who start shooting up the Spanish Steps with a full on assault of automatic weapons and RPGs, then there is only so much good harsh language can do for my protagonists.

The same goes with my theories on close-quarters combat. Unfortunately, most of my early fight scenes were taken by watching stuntmen dancing in various and sundry TV shows and movies. In fact, one of my characters, Sean A.P. Ryan, was a stuntman before going into the mercenary business—which is the only way that I could justify some of the crazier stunts he went through.

Why not just use a real martial art? Really? Which one? Tae Kwan Do, which has been referred to as a sport by even black belts I've met? Karate, with kata dance routines that have about as much to do with an actual fight as ballet (I should know, I went for that when I was ten)? I had come across penjakt silat, an Indonesian martial style, in Tom Clancy's NetForce novels; it was very practical, but overly complicated for writing purposes. MMA hadn't been popular when I started writing, and that, too, is merely a sport (high kicks are nice, but MMA doesn't have to deal with being kicks between the legs).

However, a few years ago, I was exposed to a system called Krav Maga. Not in a standard media, but in a video game—Splinter Cell, to be exact. Yes, for you video game nerds, Sam Fisher is using an actual style of combat. They didn't just make it up as they went along

Later, I picked up novels based on the series 24, written by John Whitman. And, wow, it was practical.

And Krav Maga kept popping up in things I read. After a while, I took a hint, and I did some research into Krav Maga. I started by doing some research into John Whitman.

I discovered he was a black belt in Krav Maga. And he was more than an authority. He was apparently The authority in the United States.

For me, Krav Maga worked from a writing standpoint. It was simple, it was straightforward, and, most importantly, it used weapons. Not to mention that it was a style that was practical—a kick to the groin is a standard weapon, one that's practiced repeatedly; eye gouges are another tactic, one that I've never seen in a standard sparring match.

It was so much better for my writing, where all of my characters are … very practical. MMA is nice, and the fighters are all real athletes, but I don't recall the last MMA match that required having participants defend themselves against a knife, or one where someone is bleeding from bite marks.

I decided to look into Krav Maga a little.
[More below the break]

The Spanish Steps, A Pius Man, and why do I blow up public places?

The new, better graphic provided by Matt. 

Happy New Year, and welcome back everyone. I hope you enjoyed your holidays, your vacation time, and in New York, the twenty inches of snow. I'm still digging out.  And recovering from my Christmas Cold.  Yes, my vacation was spent indoors, coughing up a lung. Fun....



Many people who have visited my pages for A Pius Man may have noticed an odd photo. It has an image of an armored SUV driving down the Spanish Steps, in Rome. Why do I have it there, and what does it have to do with A Pius Man?



Not to belabor the obvious, but the latter question is easy to answer: a scene in my novel has the Knight-XV Fully Armored Vehicle going down said historic landmark.



And why?



Because it's fun.



To give a serious answer: public places are common targets in my novels. I've had two running shootouts that went past the New York Museum of Natural History, and ended in Central Park. One of them ended in Belvedere Castle. I had a scene that started in the Hudson River during the Macy's Fireworks display, and ended with two protagonists falling off of the Statue of Liberty. Another book ended at the Cloisters, another museum in New York cobbled together from dozens of different European monasteries.



One novel, which now needs to be rewritten, is especially egregious in public places being blown up, shot up, and otherwise trashed. I had a shootout on New York's Cross Island Parkway, a firefight outside Brennan's of New Orleans, threw someone out of the John Hancock building in Chicago, had a slow, stalking hunt through New Orleans' Bourbon Street, another shootout in a New Orleans City of the Dead, as well as a running chase throughout Boston's Quincy Market.



I had fun with that book.



I suppose I could blame my reign of havoc in public places on Alfred Hitchcock. I grew up with throwing a Saboteur off the Statue of Liberty, and having a blackmailer chased through the British Museum. I had fond childhood memories of Cary Grant hanging off of Mount Rushmore, and Jimmy Stewart saving a drowning woman underneath the Golden Gate Bridge.



So, yes, Alfred Hitchcock makes a good scapegoat.



However, public places allow for some great opportunities. Bad guys can grab hostages at will. Fugitive protagonists see every average person as a threat.



And, my personal favorite: the ability to walk the scene.



I sometimes get lazy in my writing. I can only create so many settings no one has ever seen before, and then I start muttering to myself, and I want to just get the Darned Scene Written Now. There has even been the odd sequence that I've cobbled together from video games (fans of Sam Fisher, pay attention).



But, in come cases, public areas, and tourist traps, come in handy. Especially when you're doing a walkthrough of Central Park and find places for your running shootout that aren't on any Google picture search. Walking around the Cloisters is the only way to find what the layout looks like near a perfect entry point from the Henry Hudson parkway, after using a bolt cutter on the chain link fence.

And public parks and attractions have a side benefit to them. They're nice and big, and easy to play hide-and-seek in. Granted, in my books, my protagonists hide, and the antagonists are seeking with an RPG.