Do women spar with men in your dojo?

[rivergirl]

Just wondering if it's normal for the women to spar with men, I've only been in karate for a few months, and the only other woman in the dojo is my sil. We were practicing last week and I ended up going against a male black belt and a male green belt and being injured in the process. I just wanted to know if it's an accepted thing for women to spar with men in most clubs.

[SaiFightsMS]

We did. It is part of the responsiblity of upper belts to learn and exercise control when sparring with younger, or lower ranked students.

[Cobosan]

IN our dojo women spar ONLY with men. They arent allowed to spar with eachother. WE constantly change our sparring partners so that you get the feeling how is it to fight with a small, large, tall, small, skinny, heavy ... opponent in real life.

[ninjanurse]

First of all there is no excuse for a higher belt injuring a lower belt in class!!! It shows a total lack of control. That being said...

My school encourages male/female sparring and there is no mercy expected nor is it usually received. The key is both must be aware of the intensityand skill level of the match and adjust accordingly-especially the senior belts!!! I have fond memories of being kicked out of the ring by a male BB (Laurie remembers...I went flying through the air- Of course I only weigh 113lbs so it's not too hard for a 180 lb guy to make me fly! ) during my first grading at the new school. He didn't know me from adam...and he made no judgements about my gender or skill. I popped up and went right back at it knowing that I had found the right school.

[Jussi Häkkinen]

I just wanted to know if it's an accepted thing for women to spar with men in most clubs.

Yes. And should be, since it helps women to get used to a stronger, bigger opponent.

Injuries depend on rules. If contact is allowed, some minor injuries (bruises, small fractures etc.) are usually bound to happen even when two equally sized opponents do spar. After all, karate is a martial art.

[Psilokan]

Women should certainly be sparring with men. Accidents are accidents, it would be nice if they didnt happen, but they do. Most often its the lesser skilled one's fault, as they can do unexpected things and just end up in the way of an attack that was meant to stop short of them.

We try to rotate at our club, however its a small one, so its not a large rotation. Personally I dont think you should be doing any sparring at your level, however that's an entirely different issue.

[Goju_boi]

at my dojo people volunteer to go and guys always volunteer to go with guys and girls always volunteer to with girls

[1st KYU]

Just wondering if it's normal for the women to spar with men, I've only been in karate for a few months, and the only other woman in the dojo is my sil. We were practicing last week and I ended up going against a male black belt and a male green belt and being injured in the process. I just wanted to know if it's an accepted thing for women to spar with men in most clubs.

you should forget this train of thought. everyone in the dojo is equal, there is no discriminating. this is why we where white gi's.

if you get injured and dont want to. Tell the person you are sparring, tell them to go lighter and if they dont talk to your sensei.

In my opinion people who just joined 2 months ago shouldn't being doing contact anyways.we dont do that until yellow.

[Grenadier]

In every dojo / dojang I've been to, the different sexes certainly do mix it up, unless we were preparing for a tournament.

[Karate-addict]

We let people do jiyu kumite only at the green belt (3.kyu) level with strong emphasis on control and not useing kime. And it doesn't matter if a larger person is sparing with a smaller person or a man is sparing with a woman, because on the street you will not be able to choose your opponent so why should you in a dojo.