Distance Management — The Three Ranges
Every engagement happens at one of three distances. Knowing which one you're in tells you which tools work.
Krav Maga, like every striking-and-grappling system, categorises engagements by the distance between defender and attacker. The names vary across schools, but the three ranges are universal.
Long range — kicking distance
Roughly 1.5 to 2.5 metres. The attacker cannot reach you with a punch; he must step in. You can reach him with a front kick or a long teep to disrupt the approach.
Tools that work here: the front kick to the groin, the push kick (teep), and most importantly disengagement — at this range you can simply leave.
Tools that don't: punches, knees, elbows, grappling. None of them reach.
Medium range — punching distance
Roughly 60 cm to 1.5 metres. Both fighters can land hand strikes. This is the boxing range, the range most movie fights happen in, and the range Krav Maga moves through quickly because it's the most dangerous symmetric range.
Tools that work here: palm heel strikes, hammer fists, the 360 defense, simultaneous defense and counter, distance recovery (step back to long range or burst to short range).
The doctrinal note: Krav Maga's preference is not to fight at this range. The system prefers to either escape (back to long range) or commit (burst into short range and end the engagement). Standing at medium range trading hand strikes is what sport fighters do; it's what Krav Maga teaches you to avoid.
Short range — clinch distance
Under 60 cm. The fighters can touch each other with the elbow joint. This is knees, elbows, headbutts, and the start of grappling.
Tools that work here: knee strikes, elbows, headbutts, eye gouges, throat strikes, the front-choke defense family.
Why Krav Maga prefers it: at short range the defender's gross-motor tools work, the attacker's hand strikes lose power (no room to extend), and the engagement ends faster. Krav Maga deliberately collapses distance to here rather than fighting at medium.
The transitions
Most engagements move through all three ranges. The defender's job is to know which one they're in right now and pick the appropriate tool — and to never spend time in medium range that they don't have to. The retzev principle compresses these transitions into a continuous flow: short-range counter → push-off to long range → disengage.
How distance is drilled
Beginners learn each technique inside its native range. Intermediates drill range transitions — burst-in drills, distance-recovery drills, kick-then-clinch combinations. Advanced students drill all three ranges inside a single scenario (an attacker who closes from 3 metres, throws a swing, ends in a clinch). This is the bridge from technical practice to scenario competence.