Racism at the dojo

[Treebranch]

Yeah, I was treated differently because of my previous experience with Mexican Judo. Judo know if I have a gun or Judo know if I have a knife.

[Martial Boy]

We lern how to apreticiate each other, so we are all good people.

[Treebranch]

There are people who are cool and people who are not and they come in all different colors and sizes.

[Ironberg]

Amen!

 

I'll have to say that I've been fortunate, and have never come across any prejudice or racism in the dojo. It's one of the most friendly places in my mind (that is, until some unlucky, uncontroled technique lands in sparring).

[turonaga]

we do not promote non-japanese yudansha higher to fifth dan. does that make us racist?

[aefibird]

I've never come across any racism in karate (certainly not at my club, we're very multicultural), although I have come across sexism at a few seminars and such that I've been to. Needless to say, there's one organisation (who will remain nameless on this forum!) who'se events I will NEVER be attending again after one of the instructors told me that he didn't think women ought to be promoted above purple belt. What he was meaning was women didn't ought to be promoted above men and he couldn't take the fact that there were many women at that course who were far superior than he ever would be...

 

I've not come across racism or sexism in Aikido. I'm the only female student in my club at the moment and the guys in my club are brilliant with me, although they did get very embarassed last week when we were doing front flips and I landed on the mat at the feet of my instructor with my undone gi top revealing everything!!

[ramymensa]

That was niiiiiiiiiiice

 

Sorry ...

 

In our dojo we're quite a bunch of females and my instructors are doing all they can to promote us and help. Sometimes I feel we are given some more atention, but in a MA world driven by men I think it's OK.

[Fenris-wolf]

we do not promote non-japanese yudansha higher to fifth dan. does that make us racist?

 

As I don't know the "full story" I can't really say... But it does sound pretty dodgy. Why?

 

And in reply to the main topic, no we don't have any racism in our club. Although there was this unfortunate incident where one of the women left because her boyfriend had a chip on his shoulder.

 

To elaborate: She's asked our instructor about fighting and he said he didn't think she was ready. The next session, he worked her really hard and seperated her from everyone else to do some hardout stamina. Unfortunately when she told her boyfriend about it he went mental saying Mark (trainer) was rascist (they're both Maori) and she shouldn't go back again. That really p*ssed me off! Because

 

(a) it was pretty obvious he was just testing her out to see how her fitness etc was

 

(b) she didn't even talk to Mark about it, just stopped going and she was doing really well

 

© Mark, rascist? Good god, his girlfriend's Chinese and none of the other Chinese/Japanese/Maori/Samoan people in our club have had a problem!!

 

I mean, come on. We lost a good woman (we don't have many serious ladies) because her boyfriend's a paranoid t*sser!

[Karateka]

I have encountered racism not in my dojo itself, but in the association I am affiliated with. I made a request that I would like to take my black belt test despite the fact that I hadn't completed all the requirements. My instructors felt I was ready for a long time and I met all the testing requirements except for the fact that I hadn't gone to the 2 mandatory seminars. I only went to one. I figured that this wouldn't be a problem considering there have been many considerations for others who didn't go to these seminars, and I was considered to be better karateka then them. Anyway, my request was denied and I was blacklisted for making allegations that my association was fraudulant in its own practices. However, a Japanese Karateka from my dojo was allowed to do his Shodan test without having gone to any of the seminars. Another one from my dojo, this time a Romanian, went with only doing one. There is not a lot of Indian (India Indian) people in my association and most live in one area of town, Richmond BC. Since that time, mud has been thrown my way and as I said before, I have been blacklisted. It would have been a big deal if I actually gave a rats a**, but I just settle on being better Karateka then anything the other Sensei's put out. Oh well!

[Thuggish]

racism... racism... hmmmm. well, there is a separate water fountain for the colored folk, that doesnt work, and separate toilets... but thats really about it.