A small-framed woman—just a little over five-feet-tall—stands with her eyes closed. She is trying to be unassuming. She is trying to be caught off guard. She inhales deeply, breathing in the scent of stale sweat, and waits. She doesn’t know when it will happen. She doesn’t know who will be involved. Just as her thoughts begin to drift somewhere safe, thick hands clasp around her throat. She instantly opens her eyes, seeing a man nearly six-feet-tall.

The woman’s body is locked into battle mode as she yanks back the attacker’s thumbs and swings her right leg between his legs—straight for the groin. She stops short of making contact and brings her leg back down. Nine men and women are participating in a beginning class at San Francisco’s Krav Maga training center, a place where size is not an issue and strength comes with training.

For men and women who want to feel prepared for life in the big city, this Israeli combat technique offers the skills they need regardless of size or gender. Krav Maga was developed in 1948 by Imi Lichtenfeld, a member of the Israeli Defense Force, shortly after Israel defeated Palestine for independence. Lichtenfeld created the Krav Maga method by combining the combat techniques of the Defense Force with the fighting techniques he had observed on the streets, and his methods were eventually taught to Israeli citizens as a mode of self-defense.

Today, there are over two-hundred Krav Maga centers in the United States, but instructors must be certified at the official Los Angeles training facility before they can teach or open a new center anywhere else. McKellar, a self-proclaimed “girly girl” who gets her hair highlighted every six weeks, says that before her first class she hadn’t worked out in three years.

“I could barely keep up,” she says. The chef from Atlanta, Georgia says she now considers herself an adrenaline junkie. “The instructor would say ‘Come on Angela. If that’s your best, fine, but try to push yourself!’ So I pushed myself as much as I could, and I felt so empowered!”

And because of her training, it could come as a big surprise to an attacker if the inconspicuous McKellar were to skillfully get out of a headlock by using her favorite move: kicking him in the groin, followed by as many face punches she can get in. “I have a long way to go. I don’t feel completely confident that I would come out of a fight unscathed, but I do feel that I could scare the crap out of someone, and they might run away thinking that I know more than I do,” she says with a definitive laugh.

McKellar is the perfect candidate for Krav methods, because the techniques focus on giving smaller people the ability to fight. Unlike other martial art forms, Krav Maga was designed with Israeli youth in mind, says Marcus Kowal, general manager at the Los Angeles center. Gabe Khorramian, an instructor at the Krav Maga training center in San Francisco, attributes the sport’s sudden popularity among women to recent references in mainstream media, like Angelina Jolie’s use of Krav Maga in Tomb Raider or Matt Damon’s in the Bourne film series.

The training center is tucked away in San Francisco’s lower Nob Hill, and the front entrance resembles the back of a warehouse. Once inside, the classroom is illuminated with natural light from a window that spans the length of one wall. In Khorramian’s class, the students’ faces are red and sweaty from a vigorous round of push-ups, sit-ups, and jabs. Khorramian calls out each move like a drill instructor, giving the students barely enough time to complete one move before naming the next. When it comes time for punching exercises, one partner grabs a punching pad from a tall stack in the corner of the room while the other closes her eyes and waits for her partner to push her with the pad. It could come from behind; it could come from directly in front of her. With the punching pad held firmly in front of her partner’s face, the attacked responds with a powerful grunt as she hits it with her fist.

“The most important thing to remember if attacked is understanding the situation,” Khorramian says, because intuition plays a large part in carrying out Krav Maga in a real-life situations. “Krav Maga is taught in a fast-paced environment, so you learn to assess situations quickly,” he notes.

Students are taught to first assess who and how many people are involved in an attack. From there, he says, “You can quickly analyze how to respond, run, or yell.” And the mainstream popularity hasn’t watered down the training. While the training is different for the law enforcement agencies that use Krav Maga in the U.S or the military, the eight-hour-long certification test, a final exam for training students, includes defense against knives and nonstop, full-contact fighting, Kowal says. The level-one class covers the basics, but as the training progresses students learn to fight in situations involving weapons. The longer you stay, the more military-like it becomes.

“At the same time we want to teach soccer moms who want a good workout,” says Kowal. Dusk falls as one student leaves the gym, duffel bag slung around his shoulder. He has just finished the session and is clad in khaki pants and a tie. As he makes his way home he blends in with the passersby, but there is a difference that drives a wedge between him and the others on the street. Like McKellar, he is more prepared on that walk home for whatever dangers might lurk around the corner.

“I’m not as concerned about the people around me because I do know about ten moves that would get me out of most of the situations that are commonly used to victimize women,” McKellar adds. “I don’t really feel stronger yet, but I know that’s coming. I do feel a bit braver.”