There’s a voice in my head screaming don’t do it. Don’t. Not now. Not ever. Walk away while you still can. Don’t mess with a woman with a penchant for saving lost dogs—literally—the dog savers are the worst. Never, ever. The absolute worst. Talk about pent up hostility. And this gal’s got something like seven different dogs—all strays, all saved. She’s a textbook case. Look it up—Hidden Rage 101. Probably the only thing worse than a dog saver is a famous actress turned dog saver. It’s just simple logic. Plus—this is Shannon Elisabeth we’re talking about. Very actress. Very famous. Sure, you’ve seen her in American Pie and Scary Movie, but there’s her early, low budget, work too. A little ditty called Dish Dogs that no one wants to talk about anymore. I did my research. I saw the movie where she plays a stripper with a penchant for leather and whip-cracking. I know they always type cast in those low budget movies. Famous sadomasochist turned actress turned dog saver—the rock bottom absolute worst. And that’s not the half of it. In less than ten minutes, I’m going to let Shannon Elizabeth’s kick me in the balls.

I’m going to let Shannon Elizabeth kick me in the balls because kicking someone in the balls is part of what this girl does for fun. She also gouges out eyes and rips ears and pulls hair and punches kidneys and elbows noses and knees ribs and any other number of serious damage inflicting maneuvers. Basically an all around party girl. She does those things because that is what one does when studying Krav Maga (the words are Hebrew for “contact combat”), because Krav Maga is all about those low down and dirty street fighting tricks and because I was curious to see what happened when a woman like Shannon Elizabeth (lithe, gentle, kind, gorgeous) started studying an art like Krav Maga (not lithe, not gentle, not kind, not gorgeous). Then again, we all know what happens to the curious.

Obviously, they get kicked in the balls.

I’m standing in a well-padded room at the Krav Maga National Training Center in West Los Angeles. Eight hanging bags are strung out across the room and behind them stands a life-size foam rubber comic book muscle guy used for target practice. There’s a small plastic arsenal spilling from a closet: baseball bats and knives and handguns and machine guns and enough pads to outfit the Raiders. And then there’s Shannon Elizabeth, gussied up in hand wraps and bad intentions, throwing kick after kick into one of those pads which is being held in place by our instructor Wade Allen.

For the past seven months, besides saving lost dogs (I’m not making this part up—Shannon may be the only woman to have graced both the cover of Playboy and Animal Fair in the same year), she’s been studying Krav Maga as part of her research for her role as a cop in the up-and-coming romantic comedy Tom Cats. Apparently Shannon’s one of those actresses who really likes to prepare for a part, so this time around she decided it was time to get a few dirty tricks up her sleeve. “I did ride alongs and hung out at the station and then I started talking to the cops about how they trained for actual combat situations and they all started mentioning Krav Maga and this guy named Wade Allen.”

Wade Allen doesn’t look like he’s spent the better part of the last fifteen years learning new and exciting ways to kill people. He doesn’t froth at the mouth and his nose doesn’t splay to one side and he doesn’t stutter when he talks. But looks can be deceiving. The reason his name came up when Shannon was quizzing the cops is because Wade probably trained those cops. He’s one of twelve experts who spends much of his time training everyone from the Burbank Police Department to the FBI to Seal Team III in Krav Maga. So, if you haven’t heard about it yet, it’s not because of lack of effectiveness, but rather because Krav Maga isn’t pretty. In fact, compared to the spate of Jackie Chan meets The Matrix martial arts extravaganzas currently in Hollywood production, Krav Maga seems downright ugly.

“We’ve got a saying in Krav Maga,” says Allen, “if you want to kick someone in the head, well, first kick them in the balls and when they fall down then kick them in the head.” And here’s the reason, that Kung Fu kick to the head may look great, but it’s not going to win the fight. Krav Maga, on the other hand, was designed not to lose.

It’s founder, a man named Imi Lichtenfeld, was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1910. By age 20 he was an international judo, wrestling and gymnastics champion. By the time he was 21 the Nazis had arrived in Eastern Europe and he spent the next ten years fighting Fascist Anti-Semitic thugs and realizing that much of the technique he had learned in traditional martial arts didn’t have any real application on the street. In 1948, after emigrating to Israel, Imi was asked by the then fledgling government to develop a fighting system for their military. Since men and women of all ages serve in Israel’s army, the system he devised had to work for everyone. Back then Israel was poor and in a hurry, so the system he developed had to be easy to learn and easy to remember and most importantly—since this is Israel we’re talking about—losing wasn’t an option. Losing meant loss of life and loss of country and loss of culture so basically Imi developed a fun for the whole family cheap and easy fighting style that never loses.

In 1981, a man by the name of Darien Levine imported Krav Maga to the United States and since that time it has slowly begun gaining ground as one of the deadliest and most effective fighting systems around. “A lot of people haven’t heard of us,” says Wade, “because you don’t see Krav Maga in competitions. We’re not into fancy stuff and we don’t pull our punches. We’re here to teach people how to survive a violent encounter on the street. That’s the point.”

A typical Krav Maga work out isn’t like other marital arts. The system was developed for real world situations so verisimilitude is the rule. There are no fancy clothes and no bare feet. The standard is sweats and sneakers though in some classes people train in everything from three piece suits to high heel shoes. Class begins with a hard core cardio work out. They tend to partner people up for inspiration purposes and I have to tell you, the cardio portion of my work out was damn inspiring. I started out lying on my back with my ankles wrapped around Shannon Elizabeth’s ankles and we’re doing sit-ups. We’re using each other’s body as counter-weights and we’re using each other’s ego, machismo, chutzpah—whatever—for motivation. More and more sit-ups. Not to mention that Wade’s standing over us screaming “Come on! Do another! One more!” And I already know that Wade’s the kind of guy who can kill us both in a blink of an eye with both hands tied behind his back which can be pretty motivating as well, but Wade’s wrap your ankles around her ankles idea—now that’s real innovation. I’m thinking maybe we could package Shannon and sell her on late night tv as the ultimate abs workout.

We move from traditional cardio to what they like to call “cardio-fighting.” One of the core fundamentals of Krav Maga is reaction time. Basically, if you want to stay alive then accept the fact that you’re got to go zero-to-ballistic in an instant. This sense of preparedness is incorporated into the training so when I set up for a kick or a punch or a elbow, I don’t first assume a fighting position and then follow that with the strike.

“Act like you’re in a bar watching Monday Night Football,” Wade tells me.

“So what does that make Shannon—the cocktail waitress?”

But I get the point. And then, on his signal, I come completely awake and alert and begin delivering punches and groin kicks in non-stop succession.

“In a real fight you don’t get to quit,” says Wade.

So I go from lying face down on the ground and nearly asleep, to a full-bore punching machine. And if going at a heavy bag non-stop in three or four minute cycles isn’t enough, the whole time I’m hitting the bag, Wade’s bashing into me with a thick pad.

“Just ignore me, fight past me.”

Absolutely. And the next time I get in a bar room brawl on the high seas, well dammit, I’ll be ready. And then Wade yells “Drop” and I fall down and go back to shut off and asleep for thirty or seconds before it’s time for the next round and the next round and the next.

And then, after we can barely lift our arms, it’s time to begin working technique. Technique in most other martial arts can mean anything from practicing katas, which a long series of linked movements, to working out with arcane weapons, but since very few people are mugged with a throwing star, Krav Maga focuses more mundane situations like what to do when someone tries to choke the ever-living shit out of you. Since we’re focusing on a frontal attack so Wade demonstrates by facing me and grabbing me around the neck and driving me backwards. He grabs hard enough that I end up with bruises around my neck for the next few days. “You have to train as close to reality as possible, so when it happens in real life you don’t just freak out and shut down the minute there’s some contact.”

The contact part is what has me worried. See, the defense from the choke starts out simple enough. Move with the attack, twist out of the choke, then trap the hands. The part that comes after the trap the hands is the brutal assault of today’s lesson. In Krav Maga it’s not enough to break free and run away, that doesn’t insure peace and harmony. Peace and harmony are achieved by an elbow to the face and a swift kick to the groin.

Wade keeps telling me not to worry.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “Shannon’s got pretty good control.”

“Pretty good?”

“She haven’t kicked anybody in the balls for at least two months.”

Now I know that there are men out there who would relish this situation—the sick bastards—I just don’t happen to be one of them. But I am curious to see if Krav really works. You should know that I outweigh Shannon by a good forty pounds and that she’s already told me to really let her have it. So I do.

Let it be said that I must have choked her fifty times and she got away from me each and every one of them. Let it also be said that she’s got great control. I didn’t sing soprano. I didn’t vomit. I didn’t see stars. I escaped intact.

“Great,” says Wade, “Now it’s time for headlocks and knees to the groin.”