At a young age Imi Lichtenfeld was an exceptional athlete, he had a good back ground in boxing, wrestling and gymnastics. He was even a Champion Wrestler in the Slovak National Wrestling Team.

In the late 1930’s, anti-semitic riots where threatening the Jewish population of Bratislava where Imi was living at that time. Imi and a group of friends, whom themselves had good backgrounds in boxing and wrestling, took it upon themselves to defend their neighbourhood. From the real street fights that Imi encountered, he realized that fighting in a sport had little to nothing in common to fighting in the streets. He began to develop a self-defence systems that focuses on real life threatening situations. Krav Maga was born in the streets.

Imi eventually escaped to Israel and began training the military in his fighting system. When he retired from the Military, Imi began developing Krav Maga into a Civilian System, to allow everyone to learn Krav Maga.