During the workday, Neil Farber is a pediatric anesthesiologist at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. After-hours, Farber turns to his first love — an Israeli-style martial art that he helped develop.
“I’ve only been practicing medicine for 20-something years, but I’ve been doing [martial arts] for 30 years,” said Farber in a recent interview.
Farber, along with accomplished Israeli martial arts and self-defense masters Miki Erez and Moti Horenstein, developed a new system of hand-to-hand fighting and defense called Kavanah.
Farber calls Kavanah the first Israeli martial art. It is a marriage of sorts, based on systems of Israeli self-defense (Krav Maga, Haganah/FIGHT and World Survival Hisardut) and on Oriental martial arts. Students learn not only how to deter an attacker but also a total life style system that emphasizes total body and mental fitness and health, he said.
The philosophies of Kavanah come from the Kabbalah, said Farber, who has studied Jewish mysticism and practiced Jewish meditation for years. For example, one of its eight tenets is “I will practice tikkun olam, healing the world, and be a champion of freedom and justice.”
The name Kavanah is a combination of krav and hagana, meaning combat and defense. It also means intent and purpose.
Earlier this year, Farber, Erez and Horenstein also founded the International Kavanah Federation, an independent federation of Israeli martial arts schools and individual members. Now boasting some 300 members, the IKF encompasses “all the various existing and emerging systems of Israeli martial fighting arts and self-defense systems,” according to its Web site, www.kavanahfederation.com .
Farber is passionate about the federation’s breadth and its openness. “We don’t want to sell DVDs or videos. We don’t charge monthly fees. What we do is offer the chance for certified instructors and black belts from all Israeli martial arts to receive rank recognition and continuing education,” he said.
Commands in Hebrew
Farber had been practicing tai kwon do, the Korean style of karate, when he first learned of Krav Maga about two years ago and immediately began training with an instructor in Racine.
Krav Maga, Hebrew for contact combat, has been taught in Israel for many years and since the 1980s has been part of basic training for enlisted soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces, Farber explained. The term also has come to be generic among Israelis, akin to karate for Americans.
After years of hearing commands in Korean, Farber was struck by hearing a Korean trainer shouting commands in Hebrew. “This was the first time I could relate something Jewish to self-defense,” he said.
The method also had a practical and realistic side that excited him. “After 30 years of doing martial arts, I never felt comfortable dealing with violent people with weapons. After three weeks in Krav Maga, I felt comfortable.”
It also demands less memorization and includes more instinctive movements, he said.
After showing a video of the method to instructors at the tae kwon do school where he was teaching, Farber was offered an ultimatum — tae kwon do or Krav Maga. “So I left and started teaching on my own,” he said.
In the year-and-a-half since, Farber has blended Krav Maga with other Israeli systems and oriental martial arts to create Kavanah. He now offers classes through his own Dynamic Defense Center at two locations: a mixed ages class at the Logemann Center in Mequon and an adult class at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center.
Carolyn Destache, health, recreation and fitness director of the JCC, said she agreed to include Israeli Self Defense in the fall offerings after meeting with Farber. “He did a couple of demonstrations with me and it really excited me because it’s something that’s really energetic and seemed very practical. It’s something that people could actually use,” she said.
“Besides, people get a great workout in. It’s something different and that’s what fitness is all about,” she continued. “If people find new avenues to get their fitness in, it’s more fun for them and it makes them stick to it more.”
Farber and his partners are also developing Kavanah for Kids, which he hopes to teach at area schools.
“Eventually I’d like to open a school,” said Farber. “I’d like to decrease hours at the hospital and increase hours in teaching and seminars.” He is now training several people as instructors, one of whom plans to open an area school in January, where Farber will teach.
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