A Rule Nobody Liked

Many years ago, I had a student who had been through many gyms before coming to Krav-Maga. He was used to drinking water whenever he felt like it, wherever he trained. At my classes, though, a simple rule said otherwise: during the 1.5–2 hours of training, no drinking water.

He started to argue. He brought me "modern scientific" arguments about hydration, physical effort, health. All correct, in another context. I explained that the rule didn't come from a whim, but from the way I myself had been trained — from the way martial arts classes were generally run. And from something deeper: preparing for survival means, among other things, learning to control the mind over the body, including under uncomfortable conditions. A 1.5–2 hour training session without water harms no one's health. But it can show you something essential about yourself — if you're willing to find out.

I didn't manage to convince him through arguments. So I ended with: "It's your decision what you think and do otherwise. But at my classes, you're not allowed to drink water. If that doesn't suit you, and you don't trust my decisions, you can leave. But if you stay, you no longer contest this rule."

This story isn't about water. It's about a much broader current, one that today influences nearly every form of training — physical, professional, personal.

The Current of Comfort

We live in a time when comfort has become, almost imperceptibly, the main measure of quality. A good gym is one where you feel good. A good course is one that doesn't push you out of your comfort zone. A good instructor is one who never contradicts your perceptions.

This isn't a coincidence. It's the result of a simple economic equation, felt by every provider of education or training: the less effort you ask for, the more people you attract. And the more you ask for, the fewer remain — even if those who stay go further.

This is how the compromise forms on both sides. The student weighs effort against desired results, and the general tendency is to seek as much of the latter as possible, with as little as possible of the former. The instructor weighs training effectiveness against the need to keep enough students to continue — and the general tendency is to gradually give ground, in order to keep people close.

The result of this fragile balance: standards drop quietly, almost imperceptibly, year after year. No one explicitly decides "let's make training more superficial." It happens naturally, through thousands of small concessions, each one seeming reasonable in its moment.

What Has Actually Changed

A few decades ago, a student felt privileged when an instructor agreed to train him. The shared premise was simple: the instructor knows the path, the student doesn't yet. From this premise came a certain trust — the student followed instructions without contesting them at every step, because he understood he didn't yet have the reference points needed to judge the process correctly.

Today, the relationship has partly reversed. The student often believes that paying a fee gives him the right to decide how, how much, and at what pace he should be trained. Instead of adapting to the system that could take him further, he expects the system to bend to his momentary wishes.

The issue isn't that anyone is morally wrong. The issue is a practical one: someone at the beginning of the path cannot yet know what the whole path looks like, nor the destination. They may have hunches, intuitions, preferences — but they lack, by definition, the experience of someone who has already walked that path. That's why choosing a good instructor — and then trusting the direction they propose — remains one of the most important decisions in this process.

Imi Lichtenfeld, the founder of Krav-Maga, used to say that this martial art is suitable for everyone — but not everyone is suitable for it. In other words: the method works for anyone willing to learn it properly. But whoever comes expecting the method to bend to them, instead of bending to the method, will never truly benefit from it.

The Path Through the Current, Not Around It

The good news is that this current, however strong, doesn't force you into anything. You can consciously choose to swim differently than most.

The first step is to recognize the current. Once you clearly see the mechanism — how comfort gradually and almost invisibly becomes the only criterion for choice — you can start asking the right question: am I looking for a pleasant experience, or a real transformation? The two don't always exclude each other, but they don't automatically coincide either.

The second step is to redefine what a good training session means to you. Not one where you always feel comfortable, but one where you consistently leave a little more capable than you arrived. Controlled discomfort — the kind that comes from a safe setting, guided by someone experienced — isn't a sign that something is going wrong. It's often the only sign that something is actually changing.

The third step is to understand the difference between performance and endurance. Survival isn't about how well you do under optimal conditions — there, you don't need to survive, you just need to enjoy yourself. It's about what you do when conditions aren't optimal, when you don't feel like it, when your body or mind demands a break that reality won't give you. And how you handle that moment doesn't depend on what you want in that moment — it depends entirely on how you trained beforehand.

This is, in fact, the whole point. Not control over the water you drink in an hour and a half. Control over your own mind, in the moment when circumstances give you nothing for free.

A Choice, Not a Fight

You don't need to reject comfort on principle — it has its place, as rest between stages, not as the standard of the process. You just need to consciously choose, every time, when to accept it and when to set it aside for something more important.

If you want to raise your understanding and abilities to a higher level, in a professional setting that's attentive to your safety, I'll be waiting for you at the beginner weekend course, yellow belt, starting January 2027. I don't promise you life will become easier — I promise you'll become more prepared for it.

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László Pethő
Instructor, therapist and mentor
Romania's first Krav-Maga instructor