Do women spar with men in your dojo?

[papaschtroumpf]

In my dojo, 5 year old girls spar with 30 year old guys...

Dude, I love Kyokushin... @_@

Happened to me at a belt exam, and even though it was Shotokan 3 step sparring (non contact) it was really hard for me because the kid was afraid of me (I'm a big guy) and throwing his punches about 4 feet away from me, so I had nothing to block/parry most of the time since they were not even reaching my "space"

On the other hand when I was on the attack it's difficult to have good form when you attacker is 4 feet tall (and you though Shotokan had *low* stances?)

That said, the best way to fail the exam would have been to show lack of control and hit the kid in any way when attacking/counter-attacking.

[Atalanta071]

Well... In our dojo, there are only about three of us girls in the adult class. Kieran, another lady, and me. We always spar the men. The first person I sparred was a guy (even though he was half my size... It was my first month and I still didn't have my Gi by that point). Last time I sparred in the adult class was something else for me. My mind couldn't grasp the concept of getting off-line. In fact, I think the one who had the least amount of mercy on me was Green-belt-boy (my friend/boyfriend.). He left a few brusies. Grrr... Thanks a lot, Blaise (the green belt).

[Karate_Girl_07]

Our school is an equal opportunity trainer. The women are brutalised equally along with the men

Lol, that's hilarious, I know what you mean. Men and women fight quite often in my dojo. I fight guys all the time, it doesn't hurt that there are only two regular girls in my class, lol.

[karatekid1975]

I tested this past saturday for my 1st gup/kyu, and I could have sworn that my master instructor put me up against black belt males on purpose .... Anyways, it was so much fun to be able to just "let loose" on these guys. I was fired up and nervous. So it kind of helped my nerves to just go at it with them.

But I also sparred a female that came from another school that was all sparring (sport). I read her like a book There was another female that was mad cause I hit her during sparring ... go figure. I wish I sparred one of our female instructors, who is awsome (she would have whooped on me though).

Anyways, I'm just rambling about the sparring part of my test .... I'll shut up now LOL

[BLueDevil]

well, my school is still fairly new so the number of women is very few and they dont spar at all but if a dedicated woman wanted to spar i dont see why it would be an issue

[mlee]

Yes we do. As a matter of fact I was doing a self-defense knife attack scenario thing with a woman where we would each take turns attacking with a plastic knife, then defending.

[shoshinkan]

I think its important that women are treated like men and men treated like women in relation to karate.

However that doesnt rule out the respect that we should show our 'partners' when training and in my mind the degree of contact should changed according to each individual and their expierience and skill, not sex.

from my expierience women tend to be extremly skillfull in martial arts, often putting us blokes to shame anyway.......................

Ah and yes women spar with the men where I train

[Bloke]

Men and women spar with each other in the dojo I train in and we fight knockdown Karate. As long as you are sensible it can be extremely beneficial to both parties.

Osu!

[Hecklerboy]

Men spar with women and kids with adults at my dojo. Our instructor tells the men in private not to punch the women or the kids too hard.

[SenseiMike]

LOL, I have 2 women in my dojo. I actually offer a women only class, but so far it's empty. Anyway, these 2 girls are from the rugby team at the local university....they usually spar harder than the guys, I'm almost scared of them myself