Before We Talk About Us,

Let's Talk About You

You're here because you know that the world isn’t always safe.

Maybe you’ve felt uneasy walking to your car at night, worried about protecting your family, or just want the confidence of knowing you can handle yourself in any situation. You’re not looking for flashy moves or a black belt to hang on the wall—you want real, practical self-defense that works when it matters most.

If that's you, read on.

A masked gunman during a home invasion for an exercise at Krav Maga Lake Norman.

Imagine walking through life with unshakable confidence, knowing you have the skills to stay safe, protect those you love, and never feel like a target again. Whether you’re here to gain street-proven self-defense skills, build mental resilience, or push your limits in a way the gym never could, you’ve come to the right place.

A class in session at Warriors Krav Maga Huntersville, NC location.

ABOUT WARRIORS KRAV MAGA

Here is a 30,000-foot view of the site so you can learn about us.

We are the headquarters of Warriors Krav Maga. Located in the Lake Norman area of the Carolinas, we offer training in the Israeli military’s tactical defensive system.

There are a lot of different Krav Maga organizations, so what sets us apart? We believe we can prove that we’re the most complete Krav Maga organization in the US. What do we mean by that? Not only do we teach you the techniques of Krav Maga but we incorporate two bonus concepts because they’re critical.

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SIVA

S.I.V.A. is an acronym standing for

Selection

Isolation

Verbal

Attack

Understanding this is what gives you the edge when it comes to your personal security.

Selection: All crime begins with the selection of a victim (or car or house, etc.). If you can learn how criminals pick their victims and learn how to avoid being chosen, that's a soft skill.

Isolation: Getting you alone comes next. Criminals don't like witnesses, so they wait on the periphery of crowds, and once they've selected their target, they follow them. Once they're away from the safety of numbers, that is when they'll attack.

Verbal: Criminals use questions or verbal attacks to place the intended victim off guard. A classic being to ask you the time so you take your eyes off them to look at your watch or phone. Now you've been selected, isolated, distracted, and are ripe for the plucking.

Attack: Now comes the step where martial arts schools begin teaching you. Notice they've missed three crucial steps in self-defense.

Soft Skills

Our soft skills training helps you avoid being targeted in the first place. You’ll learn situational awareness, how to recognize danger early, and how to avoid an attack before it starts.

We also teach verbal de-escalation techniques

—the same kind used by hostage negotiators—and how to spot the subtle cues that signal a pre-fight attack.

Master these, and you may never need your hard skills at all. And really, isn’t that the best way to win a fight?

Sun Tzu thought so.

Nick Hughes, chief instructor for Krav Maga Lake Norman while working as a bodyguard.

A criminal in a hotel from a news story about a woman attacked outside a hotel room.

Moral Ethical Obligation

We have an ethical and moral obligation to teach self-defense. We aren't in it for the money like so many schools seem to be, and that's another huge difference between us.

Every year, we do fundraisers for battered women shelters, Hope House, and organizations that exist to shut down human trafficking. We also believe that if everyone learned our system in our community, we wouldn't have a significantly violent crime rate.

On top of that, we go beyond punches and kicks. You’ll learn tactical first aid, what to do after an altercation

(legally and mentally), how to handle an active shooter, defend against car jackings, and more.

That’s the difference between learning how to fight and learning true self-defense. It’s why we proudly say we offer the most complete Krav Maga training in the world—and it’s what our students love most.

We teach the avoidance and awareness skills of a professional bodyguard to help you reduce the risk of ever having to fight at all.

A Krav Maga Lake Norman women's self-defense class.

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No Kids

There is a horrible trend in martial arts whereby someone figured out the target market is 8-year-old boys. They lock the parents in scary long contracts, they nickel and dime them to death, and they turn into daycare centers with after-school programs cleverly disguised as martial arts training.

If you've been put off by that, come and check us out. We're an adult (and teen) only learning facility designed for professionals by professionals. Our Chief Instructor has spent his life dealing with non-consensual violence and is one of the very, very few instructors of this military art who's actually served in the military.

As we're fond of saying at Warriors Krav Maga, not all Krav Maga is created equal.

Imi Lichtenfeld, founder of Krav Maga in a gi.

What Is Krav Maga?

Born on the battlefield, perfected in the street, but what is Krav Maga?

Krav Maga is the tactical defense system of the Israeli Defense Forces. It was created by Imi Lichtenfeld in the late 1940s.

Krav Maga (pronounced KRAHV muh-GAH) means “Contact Combat” in Hebrew. It is, like most military-based unarmed combat systems, simple to learn, aggressive, and easy to remember under stress.

Imi was born in Hungary in 1910 and excelled at boxing, wrestling, and gymnastics. Due to antisemitism that threatened the Jewish population, he became involved in groups that patrolled their neighborhoods to defend themselves. Here, he quickly discovered the difference between what worked in sports and what worked in the real world.

In 1940 he fled the growing threat of Nazism and made his way to Palestine. In 1948, David Ben-Gurion established the State of Israel. It was there that Imi's fighting ability was discovered, and he was appointed to teach unarmed combat to various combat units. Later, he would be appointed Chief Instructor for Physical Fitness & Krav at the IDF School of Combat Fitness. He served with the IDF for about 20 years before modifying it for police and civilians.

Self Defense, Not Sport

Krav Maga is designed to be learned quickly, unlike traditional martial arts, which can take years to master. It deals with real-world attacks, such as multiple opponents, armed assailants, and muggings.

Unlike sports systems (which spend their time training to beat one person who weighs the same as they do in a padded environment with doctors, referees, and rules), it is concerned only with reality.

A faceless thug brandishing a knife to show difference between self-defense and martial arts

What Is Warriors Krav Maga?

Many of the organizations teaching Krav Maga have neglected to modify their instruction for a civilian market. Punching someone in the windpipe is great if you’re an Israeli commando fighting a terrorist. The same technique in a bar on Friday night will get you into legal hot water.

Just what are the legal ramifications of the techniques you’re learning? Unlike many organizations, we teach our students those ramifications because we believe there are two fights to win. Number one is the physical fight, and number two is the equally important “legal” fight.

Newspaper headline about a martial artist sentenced to prison.

A headline to show the importance of learning the legal ramifications of self-defense.

Those same organizations are also neglecting to teach what we call soft skills. They comprise 75% of self-defense.

Things like situational awareness, avoidance, de-escalation strategies for verbal conflict, recognizing pre-fight warning signs, and so on.

Again, most organizations begin with you in a fight. We believe, in many instances, we can recognize an assault before it reaches that point and teach you how to do that as well.