The center, which opened in February of 1997, was the first training facility of its kind in the world-incorporating a full time schedule of Krav Maga self defense, fighting and fitness classes. The Krav Maga National Training Center became a training ground for civilians, law enforcement and military units.

Chief Instructor

In 1981 the Krav Maga Association of Israel and the Israeli Ministry of Education held the first International Krav Maga Instructors course at Wingate Institute for Physical Education.

A generous philanthropist in New York, S. Daniel Abraham, sponsored a delegation of 23 members from various cities in the United States to attend the course. The course was supervised by Imi himself who was then 71 years old and retired from his military career. The course was taught by Krav Maga head instructors, Shike Barak, Eyal Yanilov, and Ruevin Moimon. Darren Levine was selected to be part of the delegation because of his martial arts and boxing background as well as his involvement in the Physical Education Program at Heschel Day school near Los Angeles California.

The Krav Maga course was a six week intensive course consisting of 8 hours + of training per day for six days per week. It was a strenuous and exhausting six weeks, and by the end of the course only a few people passed. Darren Levine was one of them.

During the course Imi befriended Darren. At the conclusion of the course, Imi told Darren that he would come to the United States the following summer to teach and train him. True to his word, in the summer of 1982, Imi cam to Los Angeles and spent many weeks with Darren and his family, while instructing Darren in Krav Maga. Every summer after Imi’s visit Darren would either go to Israel to train in Krav Maga or Imi himself would return or send a top military or civilian instructor to the United States to train Darren.