Everyone has a stack of old magazines lying around the house somewhere, and whether you’re walking past a newsstand in the mall or sitting in the dentist’s office, you’re going to be tempted to pick up a magazine and flip through the pages. Magazines are everywhere, but what are they exactly?

On one hand, magazines are a mechanism for providing people with current information on a broad range of topics on a regular basis – usually monthly, but in some cases even weekly.

However, the word magazine was originally used to indicate a storehouse for grain or gunpowder, so how did the term come to be associated with a periodical publication?

The first periodical to use the word magazine in its title was started in London by Edward Cave in 1731. Cave used the word magazine in the name of his ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ to suggest that this new publication was a storehouse of information, providing all the news that a civilized person needed in order to keep up to date on what was going on in the world. Cave’s magazine was tremendously successful, and within a few years several spin-off publications began to appear in London and in the United States.

Magazines have gone through a complex evolution over the years, and it is instructive to think of magazines as belonging to one of three distinct categories: trade, news, and consumer.

Trade magazines are designed to inform the members of a particular professional or occupational group, of items of specific interest to them. Individuals and businesses purchase subscriptions to trade magazines, and most of the content is written by and for people in the trade – for example, accountants or school teachers. These magazines are generally not available to the general public, and any advertising that they may contain (usually not much) tends to be directed at members of that trade.

News magazines, which in the case of publications like ‘Time’ or ‘The Economist’ are often published weekly, are directed at a broad readership. These magazines are designed to provide a single source through which readers can catch up on news, current events, and hot topics. They are available in bookstores, at newsstands, as well as by subscription, and the moderate amount of advertising that they contain is quite varied with respect to products displayed, and quite general in terms of the approach taken in the ads.

The vast majority of modern magazines fall into the consumer category, and these magazines are directed at highly specific segments of the population, whether dog-lovers, gardeners, brides-to-be, or people who want to get rich. Consumer magazines usually contain a number of small articles that deal with topics of interest to the targeted group, but in most instances the bulk of available space is devoted to advertising.

In consumer magazines, advertisers have the opportunity to pitch well-defined mixes of products, in a way that speaks directly to the targeted group. For the marketer, this means that they are getting maximum penetration with their message, and for publishers this means that they can rely on the advertisers to generate the bulk of their revenue stream. With consumer magazines, actual sales of the magazine are a secondary consideration. What matters is that potential advertisers think that, through magazines, information about their products is getting directly into the hands of those people who are most likely to purchase what they are selling.

Every time you pick up a magazine that catches your interest, even if only to browse through it briefly, you are one step closer to buying something, and if magazines are doing what they are designed to do that something is not going to be the magazine.

When looking for a Krav Maga (KM) instructor, who should you listen to? Moni Azik with Commando Krav Maga or David Kahn with Israeli Krav Maga? Or should you follow the Alain Cohen or Darren Levine style of Krav Maga?

Each one is a master in this field, but each one has a different method of instruction. Let’s take a closer look at the top instructors so that you can decide which one is right for you.

1.) Moni Azik with Commando KM is certainly one of the most famous experts. He has a very polished web site and has been featured on the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, Fox News, and a whole host of nationally syndicated magazines.

Commando Krav Maga (CKM) is unique in that it provides training through traveling classes in most major American cities as well as Canada and European venues. These bootcamps are for certified instructors as well as the general public. You can even schedule some private lessons with Moni Azik the day before or after one of his CKM Boot Camps.

2.) Another expert and instructor is David Kahn with Israeli KM, a school in New Jersey. David Kahn trained under Grandmaster Haim Gidon, who is the highest ranked KM black belt ever promoted by founder Imi Lichtenfeld. It has been said that “David is quite possibly the most connected with honest to goodness Israeli special ops guys of anyone in North America.”

David Kahn has written one of the essential books for the for the method called Krav Maga: An Essential Guide to the Renowned Method – For Fitness and Self-Defense.

3.) There’s also Alain Cohen, who heads the KM Federation. His specialty is security and close protection. He is a security consultant for large firms and has written several books including Israeli Defense System Krav Maga.

Alain Cohen also has a DVD course and a seminar that travels around the United States.

4.) Darren Levine is probably the most well-known instructor in the United States and has a center in Los Angeles, California. He has one of the largest studios in the world called KM Worldwide Training Center. He also has the largest reality based self-defense organization in the world with over 240 licensed schools and claims to have trained over 500 law enforcement and government agencies.

Darren Levine is a prosecutor for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and was awarded a Founder’s Diploma by Imi Lichtenfeld for Special Excellence in KM. Imi awarded this diploma to only 2 individuals in the world: Darren Levine and Eyal Yanilov. These diplomas were given to the people that Imi wanted to be the future leaders in the field.

5.) Eyal Yanilov with the International KM Federation is another Master and holds the unique “Founder’s Diploma of Excellence,” which was given to only one other instructor, Darren Levine.

Offering one of the first classes for American citizens, Eyal Yanilov has been teaching instructors’ courses around the world, under the auspices of the Israeli Ministry of Education and the International Krav Maga Federation (IKMF). Eyal Yanilov is the key force in spreading the method throughout the world.

Hopefully, you can now identify the major players in the Israeli self-defense method. Each expert has his own personal style of instruction, and each instructor appeals to a different demographic.

Whoever you choose to follow, realize that Krav Maga is a “no holds barred” method of real-world self defense on the street.