Beware of the "Dojo Bunny"

ok ... I had never heard of this term until I was reading through a woman's martial art site and although these occurrences of the "dojo bunny" have never appeared at my particular school, I thought I would make the male instructors and their senior male students aware of this predatory "animal".

 

So what typifies a "dojo bunny" -- it is a female who hangs out a the school just to be around the instructor or maybe a senior student. Some of these guys are powerful and exude confidence, an a lot of women find that attractive.

 

Dojo bunnies work their way into the dojo solely to develop a relationship with the instructor. Learning martial arts is the furthest thing on their minds. Some instructors have strict codes against personal relationships of any kind with students - friendships or otherwise!

 

(see our dating thread http://www.karateforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2809&start=0 )

 

But some do not, so sometimes the dojo bunny strikes successfully. The majority of serious female martial art students look down upon these dojo bunnies. They are pretty easy to pick out and eventually they go away if they don't get what they want. (... or if the rest of the serious women students declare "rabbit season" LOL) Sometimes theres an occasional convert (one who starts out with ulterior motives but changes into a serious student later). But thatis more of an exception than the rule.

 

The dreaded dojo bunny is easily spotted by both male and female students and are generally not taken seriously. These "bunnies" give serious women martial artists a bad name and 'most' men don't like them because they eat up space and the instructors time and attention.

 

But take heed --- they usually don't last more than a few months.

Hmm.....Dojo bunny........here's a story from my friend who use to be a TKD instructor. One of his assistant instructor received a letter one day from a female student, adult of course. In the letter she writes how about how the assistant inst. wants her by the way he looks at her and gives her the "goo goo" eyes.

 

Well that basically freaks out the asst. inst. and he asks my friend for advice in handling the situation. Needless to say, the asst. inst. has a talk with the female student to tell her that she is mistaken, and that was the furthest thing from his mind. That didn't help any because she went off calling him a bad inst./man and so on.

 

Now do you think she fits the description of a Dojo bunny, or is simply whacked?! When I initially heard the story, the first thought I had was.......fatal attraction

We have one of those in our dojo......needless to say she is a brownbelt in %90 less time than most others reach it. Also it is the main instructor the owner of the dojo who is letting her be the "Dojo Bunny" it ticks me off.

i dont think teachers should have relationships with pupils it doesnt do the class any good.

I agree

Does anyone know of any dojo ...um.... jackrabbits?

 

Dojo Jackrabbits being the male version of dojo bunnies

[color=indigo]Yes, monkeygirl - in my school I have noticed many of these students intent on flirting with the instructors! However, they all seem to work hard in class since my instructor would not allow a student to slack off or grade quickly just because he liked her! Or vice versa! I think this phenomenon takes place often in my particular school because of the fact that my instructors are very young. The owner and head instructor is only 33, the next highest instructor is 31. The other black belt instructors are 24 and 16. The non black belt instructors are 21, 21, 20, and 15. We also have some assistants that are younger! Sometiems after class these bunnies and jackrabbits will go out with one or more of my instructors. I know that nothing serious will ever really come out of this, and they are young people having fun! I don't see a problem with it. [/color]

 

When I read the title, I thought you were going to be talking about school hoppers!

 

 

Fortunately, (or is it?) I've never had such an encounter.

... same here KSN ... I never encountered this either ! That is why I brought it up! hee hee Dojo Hares hmmm... there are an increasing number of us bb "chicks" and instructors!

::edit:: Edited September 29, 2002 by Bon