Golan Group teaches Krav Maga to federal agents

Boca Raton, Florida-based Golan Group, a versatile security company which has a major presence in Central America and which is steadily expanding its operations in the United States, has completed an eight-day training course during which its instructors trained federal agents in diplomat and VIP protection. Thomas Pearson, head of operations for Golan Group, said that the course was not only rigorous, “but there’s a lot of instinctive habits the students develop like disarming an attacker or getting really pro-active with their SUV.” Pearson added that “Essentially we put an Israeli security spin on our procedures so the student can better eyeball a crowd and know how to react.”

That Israeli spin was evident, among other things in two words in Hebrew participants told us they learned — “Krav Maga,” or “contact fighting.” Instructor Tzviel (“BK”) Blankchtein, general manager of Owings Mills, Maryland-based Krav Maga Maryland, instructed the students in the self-defense method which is the official approach of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) approach to hand-to-hand combat. The method has been developed for close-quarter combat in trenches, but many of its elements are suitable for dealing with terrorists, criminals, hijackers, kidnapers, sexual predators, and in many other situations in which one can see the white of the enemy’s eyes. “That’s not just for eye-hand coordination, rather it cultivates the proper mind set.”

Pearson said the course was taught to a select team of seven agents from DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement based in Texas.

Golan Group was founded in 1986 and has more than 5,000 employees.