A question for the women

[Joab]

Have you experienced any sexism at your school? The reason I ask is that one self defense teacher I had hated teaching women and didn't believe they were tough enough. While talking to an all male class, he stated "Do you notice there are no women in this class? Could it be my attitude?" He talked about not even returning the phone calls of two women who left messages in his voicemail because "of the way they sounded" Do you or have you ever found this kind of attitude in your present school or one you have attended in the past? I think women really need self defense more than men, as they are targeted for rapes far more often than men. Women are normally physically not as strong as men, hence they need to know techniques that at least give them a chance to survive against a male attacker.

[Andrew Green]

I think you;d best find a new instructor, that one sounds like he is there more to show himself how tough he is and have a little intellectual make out session with himself then to actually teach...

[terryl965]

Any instructor that has that type of attitude should not be an instructor in my eyes.

[bluekey88]

Agreed. Some of the best martial artists I know are women...that dude is living in his own fantasy world...a rather unhealthy one at that.

Peace,
Erik

[Joab]

I think you;d best find a new instructor, that one sounds like he is there more to show himself how tough he is and have a little intellectual make out session with himself then to actually teach...

Joab: That's not him at all, he merely hates teaching women. And I'm no longer a student of his.

[Joab]

Any instructor that has that type of attitude should not be an instructor in my eyes.

Joab: Well, he has the right to choose who he teaches. There is a cost, he is barely making ends meet, not surprisingly, not teaching half the market makes it tough to survive financially. To be fair, he sometimes teaches women, but he doesn't like to do it. Not very often, but sometimes.

[Joab]

Agreed. Some of the best martial artists I know are women...that dude is living in his own fantasy world...a rather unhealthy one at that.

Peace,
Erik

Joab: Perhaps. But my question was to women, do you find bad attitudes out there in any school you have attended?

[MrsM]

Our school is family oriented and I have felt very welcome there. In the adult classes there are more men than women, but I have never felt excluded. I even participated in a Fight Class and have been invited to roll with the guys in BJJ. Our school is owned by a husband/wife team, so that might be part of the reason for the open atmosphere there.

[Tez3]

There's choosing who to teach and there's hating half the population. Frankly he sounds like a bad instructor, I imagine he didn't teach anyone well.
Joab if you require a question specifically from women, posting on the female forum would have been better.

I teach men, some don't like it and they leave, thats tough. Their loss.

[searcher]

My Wife ran into this type of attitude while we were training at one particular school. The school had not produced one female BB in its history, over 31 years at that time. That is, until My Wife came along. I was an instructor at the school, but did not teach her classes. The males in the class would try to run off the females by beating the crap out of them while sparring or during self-defense training. I took it upon myself to take over her training and I prepped her for the class. She ended up knocking out 2 guys in one night, out cold. After she made her move to turn the tables, I made the announcement that if anyone wanted to hurt her they would have to spar with me. But the funny thing is, she earned the respect she needed on her own. Occasionally we go back to that school and do a little sparring and once in a while she has to remind them that she EARNED her BB the same as the rest.


FYI-in the schools 40+ year history, there have only been 24 BBs.

[hkfuie]

I have heard of two local instructors who will not teach women.

I have nothing good to say about that, so I won't.

I have only trained in schools that welcome women. I think most good guys want to protect women. From what I have seen of my instructors, they think the best way to do that is to teach women to protect themselves.

[Joab]

Our school is family oriented and I have felt very welcome there. In the adult classes there are more men than women, but I have never felt excluded. I even participated in a Fight Class and have been invited to roll with the guys in BJJ. Our school is owned by a husband/wife team, so that might be part of the reason for the open atmosphere there.

Joab: Thanks for the input, your the first on this thread to answer my question. Glad to read your in a good school.

[Joab]

There's choosing who to teach and there's hating half the population. Frankly he sounds like a bad instructor, I imagine he didn't teach anyone well.
Joab if you require a question specifically from women, posting on the female forum would have been better.

I teach men, some don't like it and they leave, thats tough. Their loss.

Joab: He's actually a very good teacher who merely hates teaching women. We all have our problems. Yeah, I probably should have posted this in the female forum, I didn't know there was a female forum, I'm relatively new here.

[Joab]

My Wife ran into this type of attitude while we were training at one particular school. The school had not produced one female BB in its history, over 31 years at that time. That is, until My Wife came along. I was an instructor at the school, but did not teach her classes. The males in the class would try to run off the females by beating the crap out of them while sparring or during self-defense training. I took it upon myself to take over her training and I prepped her for the class. She ended up knocking out 2 guys in one night, out cold. After she made her move to turn the tables, I made the announcement that if anyone wanted to hurt her they would have to spar with me. But the funny thing is, she earned the respect she needed on her own. Occasionally we go back to that school and do a little sparring and once in a while she has to remind them that she EARNED her BB the same as the rest.

Joab: Way to go for your wife and for you for sticking up for her! Must have humbled those guys and perhaps made them rethink their attitudes!


FYI-in the schools 40+ year history, there have only been 24 BBs.


Joab: Yeah, the self defense teacher I'm thinking of hasn't graduated many black belts either, no women.

[Joab]

I have heard of two local instructors who will not teach women.

I have nothing good to say about that, so I won't.

I have only trained in schools that welcome women. I think most good guys want to protect women. From what I have seen of my instructors, they think the best way to do that is to teach women to protect themselves.

Joab: To be fair, the self defense teacher I'm thinking of is all for protecting women and has been happily married for 39 years. He dedicated the reprinting of one of his books to her. And he is something of a legend in self defense circles, although I won't give out his name. I'm just curious as to whether women have found this attitude in other schools. I'm all for teaching women self defense, I want them to be able to knock the crap out of a rapist!

[Tez3]

My chief instructor and I run our club so there's no attitude of being anti women allowed. Most of out students are soldiers who are used to training and working with females. If they don't like it they either don't come in or keep it very quiet.

[Aefibird]

I've occasionally experienced less than positive attitudes towards female martial artists (such as a guy who was attending this karate seminar that I went to who point-blank refused to pair up with me, even though I was a Dan grade and he was a Kyu grade. I was one of only 2 female students on the seminar and he'd been fine doing partner work with the other males but when it came to his turn to work with me he wouldn't and he wouldn't pair up with the other woman there either).

Often it's not been an overtly negative attitude, just a way of speaking or behaving, such as once when I was a 3rd kyu and paired up with a 1st kyu and the guy spent all the time minutely pointing out in great detail exactly where I was going wrong with this particular technique...until Sensei came across and said how well I was doing it. ;)

I've also found that some guys either go in full-on when sparring (which I don't mind, I like a bit of contact) and try and show off how strong they are, or they take it the other way and seem almost afraid to make contact with a woman (which IMO won't help female students if they get attacked for real).

[Aikikitty]

I've never had someone "tell" me anything, but I've experienced the "attitude" every now and then over the years. All the guys in my class were great, but I remember when my mom and I were still beginners in Aikido, there was a more advanced guy in the class who went through a stage of avoiding us. I don't know if it was because we are women or partly because we were still beginners and he didn't want to "slow down" for us, but I remember that whatever the reason, it hurt and it was discouraging.... :(

I remember the occasional man who would come to our class (most were very nice and had no problem practicing with us) and one guy in particular was a blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do and had a real attitude. He made a point of doing whatever technique we were working on really hard on any woman he partnered up with (he almost sprained my wrist) and when it was our turn to do it on him, he'd buck up and be as difficult as possible. I remember our sensei came to the rescue by "demonstrating" on the guy to me how to make the technique work on someone being difficult. Sensei gave him a taste of his own medicine and the guy never came back. :uhyeah:

I remember similar experiences at a couple of Aikido seminars. Some guys would only want to work with me or my mom as a last resort and then be extra rough, or they'd seek us out and "try to make us pay for daring to show up". I did prove my ability to one of the guys on one seminar though and he didn't bother me after that.

Last summer, I was interested in cross-training in BJJ (my boyfriend was doing it at the time) and there was one girl in their class. He felt sorry for her because even though most of the guys were nice, most went out of their way to avoid partnering up with her. (She is smaller than me so I wouldn't be surprised if they were afraid of hurting her, but she was paying to train and she's tough.) I understood what she was feeling and I attended a trial week of BJJ and really enjoyed myself and me and the other girl paired up with each other when the other guys wouldn't work with us. A few weeks passed and I was saving up to enroll in BJJ when the other girl had to quit for school and finances. My boyfriend had to stop going for similar reasons. To me, it's more than just learning the techniques that makes martial arts great, but also the people itself and the atmosphere. Maybe someday I'll have a better opportunity to try BJJ, but I'm not willing to pay good money, drive far in traffic, to participate in a class that most of the guys don't even want to pair up with me.

Now, I'm the only remaining female in my Aikido class (all the others dropped out from real life getting in the way) and I just got my shodan and the other guys treat me like a member of the family. One of the guys goes out of his way TO be with me as he says he learns more from training with me (or any other woman) than he does from the guys because I can't power my way through a technique like they sometimes can get away with. Also, the guy I mentioned in the first paragaph comes to class when he can and he is now is so impressed with some of my techniques that he makes me blush when he keeps praising me over them.

But I hope that the guys reading this post and all the others in this thread realize what a difference the bad attitude towards women of even just a couple of guys in your class can make. Also, I know a similar thread like this not too long ago having to do with guys favoring a "pretty" girl in the class and ignoring the others. A girl friend of mine who used to do Tang Soo Do for many years had to deal with both such attitudes and she finally didn't want to renue her contract at that school because of it.

Robyn :asian:

[Grendel308]

I've only once run into one instructor who when he HAD to teach me was an absolute dick and always made a point of hurting me. It didn't help that I laughed at him. He power tripped on everyone, but he didn't refuse to teach any of the guys. This is 1 guy, out of say 15 different instructors that had a negative tude. Everyone else has been between excellent and phenomenal. An example, in the last class before Rodrigo (Munduruca) left for Brazil, he grabbed the instructor taking his place and made him respondsible for keeping my technique clean. there are instructors who will spend as much time as needed to solve your unique problem even if means the class gets dragged along on occasion.
I think the bad ones, like the general population, are heavily outnumbered by the good ones.
lori

[Jade Tigress]

Have you experienced any sexism at your school? The reason I ask is that one self defense teacher I had hated teaching women and didn't believe they were tough enough. While talking to an all male class, he stated "Do you notice there are no women in this class? Could it be my attitude?" He talked about not even returning the phone calls of two women who left messages in his voicemail because "of the way they sounded" Do you or have you ever found this kind of attitude in your present school or one you have attended in the past? I think women really need self defense more than men, as they are targeted for rapes far more often than men. Women are normally physically not as strong as men, hence they need to know techniques that at least give them a chance to survive against a male attacker.

I have not experienced even the slightest bit of sexism at either of the two schools I've trained at. My instructors have welcomed women into their classes, we don't get treated harshly, nor are we treated with kid gloves. I have been taught that I can be effective against a much larger, stronger opponent.

It saddens me to hear the negative experiences of others in this regard. Those instructors should be ashamed of themselves, that is not the attitude of a true martial artist.

[Drac]

Any instructor that has that type of attitude should not be an instructor in my eyes.



It saddens me to hear the negative experiences of others in this regard. Those instructors should be ashamed of themselves, that is not the attitude of a true martial artist.

I agree 100% on both of these posts..

[Sukerkin]

We've touched on this subject a few times over the years and those who know me here know also that I am shamfully old fashioned when it comes to the implicit ill-manners of laying hands on a woman :o.

However, I have a related question that may be difficult (or easy) to answer. Whenever we've talked about this the posts that come in from our lady compatriots mostly fall into the camps of complaining that fellows go too easy on them (my failing) or too hard. How do you know that the chap in question isn't the same with everyone? Is it easy to determine if he performs the techniques with the same intensity with all his partners, be they man or woman?

[Aefibird]

How do you know that the chap in question isn't the same with everyone? Is it easy to determine if he performs the techniques with the same intensity with all his partners, be they man or woman?


Obviously, I can't speak for all the blokes I've paired up with who have been like that, but I know for a fact that some of the guys who have been my sparring partner have either been excessively gentle/soft when compared to their usual way of sparring, or have been overly rough. I know it through either watching them during partner work and observing their normal manner, or through talking to other people (men) who have been paired with them.

An example was one chap who came to train with my karate club. I was senior student and the only BB female. The guy who came to train with us was a brown belt, but had been at brown for years (had moved between various dojos but never graded for black, for various reasons).

Anyway, we were doing some one-step sparring at one point in the class and Sensei had used me as uke to demonstrate the techniques he wanted to do. As it was a mixed grade class the focus was on keeping it simple and apropriate for the lower grades, but with an added 'twist' thrown in for higher grades to work on.

I can't remember the exact combo of techniques we were working on but it was probably something simple like a basic block and then strike such as punch or backfist. I do remember that higher grades had to use a locking technique on the end of it. Anyway, I was paired with the new guy and when it was my turn to attack he used a lot of force when countering and excessive force when performing the lock. I tapped my 'free' hand on his arm to signify enough and that he was hurting me but he ignored me and proceeded to hold the lock on for a further 8-10 seconds, causing pain.

I didn't say anything to him (I can take a bit of pain and thought that maybe he hadn't felt me tap) but when we practiced the technique again and he did the same again and then again afterwards I said something to him about it. His response was along the lines of the fact that it does people good to feel pain and that weaker people (from his meaning I knew he was talking about women) shouldn't be protected from 'reality'. Now, I'm all for a bit of reality, but there's practising a technique well and then crossing the line into deliberately injuring your partner and he was well over the line.

Class continued and we kept swopping partners for various drills.

For the last one-step drill of the session I was paired up with him again. This last technique Sensei had said to the higher grades to use our knowledge to add 1-2 apropriate techniques to the simple drill he was teaching the lower grades.

The other guy was hitting excessively hard again, but I wasn't saying anything to him about itand just carried on training until the final time through when it was his turn to defend. He performed a block, some counter attack and then proceeded to kick me straight in the groin.

The worst of it was he was pretending it was an accident, but he couldn't stop himself from smirking as I was bent double and trying not to spew (yes guys, it does hurt as much for a woman!! lol).

It took over 2 weeks for the swelling in my groin to go down and longer still for the bruising to fully heal.

Some might say that I should have blocked his attack, but the idea of one-step sparring is for the attacker to do one attack and for the defender to block and counter-attacked without being counter-blocked. It gives the defending partner a chance to have a "sitting duck" target who is there to be attacked - a useful sparring tool for lower grades to help develop correct technique and apropriate targeting as well as learning appropriate contact when working with a partner.

IMO that guy used excessive force when sparring against me for the simple reason to show off and to prove he was stronger and better than a mere woman.

Downstairs, after class one of the other guys came up to me and said "we're not all like that you know". I think the poor chap was thinking I was gonna have this real negative image of male martial artists after my experiences with this one eejit.

Thankfully I've trained with so many great male martial artists, decent guys who respect my ability and my time in training and who in turn I respect back, to ever let my experiences with a few numptys taint my view.

[Sukerkin]

That definitely sounds a very clear case of a chap with a problem, no doubt about it :(.

You handled it as well any any person could be expected to Aefibird :tup:.

[Aikikitty]

How do you know that the chap in question isn't the same with everyone? Is it easy to determine if he performs the techniques with the same intensity with all his partners, be they man or woman?

First of all--Wow Aefibird! What a horrible thing to have happened to you by that jerk! :flammad:I'm glad that he didn't ruin your view of male martial artists and that you're blessed to work with great guys. :)

Okay--Yes, it's like Aefibird said in her first paragraph. Sometimes you can just tell by how he's acting with you, but it's extremely obvious when you watch how the guy trains with other guys. It's easy to tell when the guy is training "normal", all out, or if they're afraid of "breaking" us.

I have no problem if a guy I don't know comes in and is overly gentle with me until he sees that I can handle being thrown around and adjusts up so we can practice "normally". In fact I'd do the same with anyone I never trained with before until I saw what they could handle. I'd rather that any day than a guy being a jerk and trying to hurt me (or anyone else) on purpose.

Robyn:samurai:

[Twin Fist]

I PREFERE to teach women.

teaching men is a pain in the butt, since most men think they already know how to fight. You have to PROVE to them that stuff works, and then thier ego gets bruised, etc.....

in short, a pain

women know what they dont know, and when you show them something, they listen

and they learn.

I think because every woman out there has at some time in her life notfelt safe, and they hate it.

So when you show them something,t hey soak it up like a sponge.

[Phoenix44]

I've experienced subtle sexism at the schools I've trained at, but nothing as overt as what you're describing.

I once met a guy in a restaurant who taught at a local martial arts school who told me, "I'd never teach a woman a reverse punch, it's a waste of time. I'd just teach her to claw with her fingernails." I thought, "Well, if YOU can't teach me to throw a good reverse punch, I'll find SOMEONE who CAN!" (And I did)

I wonder why that teacher "hates" teaching women. Is it because he justs hates women?

Or is it because he doesn't think he can teach them to become really good at self defense? Because if it's the latter, I don't really know why ANYONE would want to train with him, and I'd hardly consider him a "very good instructor," nor much of a "legend."

I mean, think about it: he can teach a 6' tall, 200 lb man to defend himself, but not a 5'2" 115 lb woman? Um...

[foggymorning162]

I am very fortunate to train in a school where over 50% of the instructors are women.

[girlbug2]

I have trained at all of 2 places and I am happy to say that I have never experienced sexism that I am aware of :). It is shocking to me that, in this day and age, there can still be instructors out there with these attitudes towards females. Perhaps because about half of my current school's instructors are female, there is almost what I would call a pro-female atmosphere during training.

When it's time to partner up for drills, most people tend to choose somebody about their own height and weight and that usually means that the women most often end up pairing together, but not always. Sometimes there's an odd number, or even once in a while I'm the only girl in class. There are even a few certain guys I enjoy pairing with because we've become friends and it makes training fun, but lately I've realized that that's a bad way to progress for me at least, it makes me get too lax on my power if not also technique.

Possibly some of the stronger guys do go easier on me when I partner with them, but I counter that by encouraging them progressively to strike the pads harder and harder. I want them to get as much as possible out of their training, just as I do. At the same time I want them to know they won't break me. To my way of thinking, I practice to become tougher, mentally and physically, and I do not want anybody to "go easy" on me. So far I don't believe any of the men have gone the opposite direction in striking too hard just to prove something. There is an atmosphere of mutual respect that I believe comes from the top down, as the head instructor himself is a devoted husband and father to girls and perhaps that greatly influences him to encourage and mentor the female students.