It’s the 20th Anniversary of The Bourne Identity and we have to be honest with you; folks are still curious if it’s true that Matt Damon used Krav Maga. People tend to make this inquiry after they’ve watched Jason Bourne kick ass! In the movie, Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne and while Damon focused extensively in hand-to-hand combat training and boxing, he never took Krav Maga classes, or real life self-defense training. In fact, IMDb states that his training was a combination of Filipino Kali (Filipino Martial Arts) and Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do. IMDb also credits Jeff Imada as having trained Matt Damon for such intense fighting scenes.
Of course!
Reality Based Self Defense
Movie magic happens in every scene, the skills Matt acquired undoubtedly helped him put on a good show, but we also have to credit the camera work and “fight coordination” that was done throughout every fight scene. The camera work is shaky to give the viewer the full effect; thus any error in the fight sequence could be removed without too much trouble. You might ask yourself, so if it is not Krav Maga, could I use some of those moves when fighting?
Probably yes, but only if you are an assassin that cannot remember ever being an assassin — or better yet, you are someone playing that role. Martial art fights like this are not reality; and nothing about them includes reality-based self defense. The fact is, however, that coordinated fighting looks great on film! There are many movies that have incredible fight sequences and The Bourne Identity is one of them.
Not Krav Maga Fighting
But here in The Bourne Identity, the fighting scenes are not Krav Maga based. Krav Maga is intended as self-defense technique designed to disable your opponent. It is designed to keep you alive! That is not to say that Krav Maga training cannot be seen in movies. Quite the contrary, there are many movies that feature Krav Maga training….
Stay tuned! Click on the krav maga in movies link below to find out which ones are our favorites!
