Not much is known about in-service FBI agents’ daily life and routine due to obvious reasons like security. But as a Krav Maga enthusiast, seeing their cool fighting moves in the movies might make you wonder about their hand-to-hand combat training.
Unlike popular belief, there is no evidence to suggest that the FBI uses Krav Maga as the ‘official’ martial art to train its agents. FBI agents use various unarmed combat techniques to restrain and control a person in alignment with their objectives and the ‘necessary force’ policy.
In this article, we’ll explore why Krav Maga is not the official martial art of the FBI and what they train in instead.
Why Is Krav Maga Not The Official Martial Art Of The FBI?
Krav Maga is not the official martial art of the FBI, that’s certain. But how do I know it?
I went to the FBI website and looked at the training program potential agents go through at the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia.
Here you can check out the official FBI page detailing the training of FBI agents.
Further, I listened to many former agents talk about their experiences in the academy, within which they gave a pretty detailed view of their training. I’ll talk about it in the following sections.
Let’s understand why the FBI doesn’t explicitly deploy only Krav Maga and nothing else into their training programs.
1. Krav Maga Is Israeli, The FBI Is American
Krav Maga is an Israeli martial art taught to the Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers as the primary form of unarmed self-defense.
Krav Maga derives its techniques from various martial art forms like judo, aikido, boxing, and wrestling.
On the other hand, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the internal intelligence and security service of the United States and its primary federal law enforcement agency.
Thus an American entity relying solely on a foreign system doesn’t look good from several angles.
It doesn’t look good to an American citizen, it doesn’t look good diplomatically, and it doesn’t look good internationally.
Yes, Israel and the US have great diplomatic relations, but accepting a foreign entity as what you’ll solely rely on for anything (leave alone a life and death situation) raises questions about a lack of the presence of your indigenous system.
Further, other countries with whom the US has great relations might expect their martial art form to be official in the US law enforcement agencies or even the armed forces.
Because when you learn something native to some other country, you will be exposed to their culture and will get influenced as a citizen, which results in better diplomatic ties between both countries if many people indulge in that activity.
This is one of the biggest reasons governments worldwide spend a lot of money to try and run language and cultural exchange programs, especially in influential countries.
2. The Objectives Of Krav Maga and the FBI Differ
As a Krav Maga practitioner, you aim to neutralize the threat quickly. It is fair to fight dirty, critically injure someone, and run away, never to be seen again.
To get a rough view of what an all out Krav Maga attack would look like, do check out my article on deadly Krav Maga techniques.
Whereas when you’re in the FBI, you’re expected to show restraint, only use the bare minimum amount of the ‘necessary’ force for which you’ll get scrutinized later, and in very rare circumstances, are allowed to critically injure a criminal.
Further, you cannot run away. It is your job to stay there and control, arrest the person on your own or force them into a situation where they can’t escape until your reinforcements arrive.
IDF soldiers and law enforcement officers are encouraged never to get caught in an unarmed hand-to-hand combat scenario and to use their guns as a threat instead of controlling or killing someone.
Thus, even they have to deviate a bit from ‘pure Krav Maga’ many times due to the need of the hour.
3. Non-Dependency On Any Particular Style
The FBI doesn’t rely on any one form of fighting since it wants to incorporate the best techniques from different martial arts based on the situation an FBI agent is most likely to see in the field.
Krav Maga also takes the best techniques from various forms, but as I said earlier, the objectives are completely different. For example, Krav Maga teaches you some ground fighting and restraining tactics.
In contrast, a martial art like Brazilian Jiu-jitsu (BJJ) is all about ground fighting, control, and restraining a person. So, which one do you think the FBI will borrow techniques from? Of course, BJJ.
While implementing a BJJ tactic, an FBI agent would want to ensure that the culprit doesn’t pass out and die, so they’ll be taught non-lethal techniques. The FBI trainees do practice a lot of boxing too!
4. Might Never Be Made Public Even If It Is So
Even though I’ve linked to the training programs the FBI follows, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever get to know what exactly goes on behind the scenes as a common civilian. I mean, think about it.
What organization in its right mind would give away state secrets so openly? And yes, a government servant’s exact schedule and training program is a state secret.
What would stop terrorist organizations from training their recruits on the same model and make it better to outclass FBI agents?
Even the destructive forces in the world have their own training models, and it’s their classified secret, only accessible through intel, mostly via double agents, spies, etc.
You have to go through a lot of pain and put in a lot of effort to get access to the exact information.
Similarly, the ‘bad people’ would learn about the complete picture of the FBI’s or any other defensive entity’s training programs through the rats and moles they’re paying.
Thus, in our practical world, you can be sure that as a law-abiding civilian, you’ll only get to know a tiny part of what the FBI does or thinks like.
Even as a former agent, I’m sure there are things you can never talk about because it would jeopardize the state’s security.
5. The FBI Has A Custom Training Program
So, what does the FBI follow regarding a defensive training program? They’ve developed their own! You can read more about the training program of a new recruit.
There is a lot of focus on physical fitness, just like an IDF soldier, but the method is different. An IDF soldier may be thrown into a fight against six soldiers, attacking them simultaneously for 3 minutes.
In contrast, an FBI agent’s peak physical fitness test might consist of several rounds of sprints, pushups, situps, squats, etc. Both are exhausting in their own way but so different.
Another example is that an IDF soldier, just like an FBI agent, will know how to use pepper spray.
But I’ve yet to come across a training instance where an IDF soldier is pepper sprayed and then asked to defend themself or do something else.
Surprisingly, this is something regularly done to FBI agents where they’re maced in the eyes and then ordered to execute instructions.
Another example totally in line with the Krav Maga curriculum is negotiation tactics. The FBI, just like the IDF, teaches you about conflict resolution and negotiation.
Conclusion
Krav Maga is not the sole answer to any organization’s self-defense needs, not even the IDF. Yes, the FBI may use some parts of Krav Maga, but they use many other martial arts techniques.
They also have their own physical training (PT) programs to push the recruits to their limits.
Combining these two, they have developed their custom hand-to-hand combat program, a tiny part of which you can read about on their website or get to know through former agents.