women training partners?

[drunken.master]

A female judoka friend of mine (the karate 5th dan I mentioned earlier) told me recently she was grappliing elsewhere with a guy who accidentally got his hand inside her gi and didn't take it back fast enough -- so she whacked him a nice solid elbow to the head. There's a good lesson on keeping focus!

Ha ha ha! That'll teach him!

[Sam]

Well good luck to him!

That thing with the Gi reminds me over the one girl i train with, got kicked right across the chest.... looked like it hurt quite a bit

[wer]

That thing with the Gi reminds me over the one girl i train with, got kicked right across the chest.... looked like it hurt quite a bit

I considered getting one of those fancy chest protectors for sparring (designed by that sparring champ woman, I can't remember her name), partially for protection but also because I thought it would be so frightfully distracting to a couple of the opposite sex sparring partners at the karate school that it would be really funny -- they thrash me every time, so it would be my only hope. But that would be cheating. And so far I haven't gotten really badly whacked in the chest while sparring full contact.

Maybe I've been lucky so far, but from what I've felt and seen so far I think that doesn't hurt as much as some of the accidental injuries I've seen some guys get when they're not wearing the appropriate protective gear. Rule #1, learn what safety gear's important (whichever sex you are) and WEAR IT! For your safety, and because your partner will feel awful if you get badly hurt. For my training right now, my essentials are the huge tae kwon do chest protector if people need to practice hitting me, and my shin pads for one of the karate classes. And a good mouth guard depending on what we're working.

Do any of you know whether it's more common to have women in MA in the UK than the US? I just ran across a UK MA protective gear site that sells women's pink boxing gloves!

[Adonis]

Yeah I gotten past awekward stuff about grappling with opposite gender I just see it as training.

wer: you grapple in a thick gi. So what do you do when you have no-gi? lol!

[Atalanta071]

wer: you grapple in a thick gi. So what do you do when you have no-gi? lol!

Ugh... I'd rather not think about that... So far, I've managed to avoid grappling with the teenage boy in our dojo, and I'd like to keep it that way.

[glockmeister]

I think if you don't train hard with the women, you are robbing them of some valuable self defense tactics. A rapist isn't going to "go lightly" or pull and strikes, if they grab a woman, they will grab hard, pull her hair, etc. I think this should be stressed to both male and female students to put self defense in the proper perspective.

[Lady Kitana]

hey first off let me say this is a great discussion, some good points raised so here is my two cents. First off I get offended if they take it easy on me because I am a girl I know I am not very big Iam 110 pounds but that don't mean I can't take a hit . If I do I say good hit and keep going , my teachers will have a couple minutes of sparring then he will have us change partners which I like because I like sparring with different people with various belt levels.

I was sparring with one guy and I asked why is he hitting me harder he said he don't want to hurt me lol I said I be more concerned on what I am gonna do to you , from then on we sparred on an equal level.

[Sam]

about girl MAists in the Uk.... dont know whether there are more here than in US.... but we're about 50:50 in our classes girl and guys

[Adonis]

sam then you guys got more female martial artist. becaues in most schools in the US its more predominalty male classes. accept the women's only type classes then obviously its all just women. LOL!

Do any of you think maybe the factors I said before becasue of societys conditining and personal belief systems about men not hitting women and supposed to being there protectors as welll as women doing things lady like. those are the biggest factors as to why some women don't go for more contact and men not wanting to hit them harder or as hard as they do other men?

[wer]

sam then you guys got more female martial artist. becaues in most schools in the US its more predominalty male classes. accept the women's only type classes then obviously its all just women. LOL!

Do any of you think maybe the factors I said before becasue of societys conditining and personal belief systems about men not hitting women and supposed to being there protectors as welll as women doing things lady like. those are the biggest factors as to why some women don't go for more contact and men not wanting to hit them harder or as hard as they do other men?

I agree on both counts -- the only classes I know of with more than a few women are the ones that are really just martial-art influenced aerobic classes.

And I know that growing up, I was never taught how to hit (no wonder they say "he punches like a girl" -- would have been nice for someone to teach us!) and we were never offered wrestling in high school. That was back in the 70's so I'm hoping things are improving. And my big brother had it drilled into him never to hit a girl. That didn't count for sisters, of course, but I don't think he's ever hit any "real" girl. I've had a LOT of catching up to do, and am still fighting that "deer in the headlights" reaction when a punch comes towards my face. And I was resistant to the groundwork when we started it, but it's true that you've really got to know what to do when you wind up on the ground -- just watch some of the MMA fighters and you can see that.