Don't Hit Like A Girl!

[joesteph]

To tease a male into saying their aggression is feminine is to encourage them to discover their male aggression.

I disagree. It's an attempt, and it's misguided. And teasing isn't appreciated, certainly not by me, and it's no go towards my sons or I go into action.

Males, particularly during the formative years of pre-teen and/or teen, need positive encouragement, not "negative reinforcement" that masquerades as a motivator. (Do it better and I won't say [insert crass comment here].) I wonder how many school-age males have cried "dry tears" and given up because their own coaches/trainers and even MA instructors have been insensitive.

[Tiger1962]

I think sometimes things can get out of hand with an instructor's quest to make a class produce more effort. We all make mistakes. The good thing is you (Sensei8) acknowledged it and resolved it/apologized for it. That's a good thing.

On a number of occasions, I've had the assistant (female) instructor behave overly agressive (verbally mostly) towards myself and other students because she wanted us to try harder in class (or so she thought we weren't trying hard enough.) She really just wanted to throw her weight and rank around because she often acted this way many times. However, me, being older, knew she wanted to prove that although she was female, she had control of the class and could (attempt) to intimidate us to do what she wanted. If she was wiser and just followed the "be yourself" method, she would have realized she need not bully people to do what she asked.

Needless to say, the older adults often rolled their eyes at this. She went on to open her own school and I suppose she uses this approach with her own students who don't know her as well as we did.

The bottom line is there is a right and wrong way to behave and using phrases like "hit like a girl" or "hit like a guy" is not the politically correct way to run a class & get them to try harder. I think instructors sometimes say that to get a rise out of the student too. People (especially paying students) deserve better than that.

Edited August 21, 2009 by Tiger1962

[Patrick]

I think that you handled it well, Bob. I think it's an unfortunate saying that doesn't really have a place in a public setting, such as a martial arts class.

Patrick

[cathal]

To tease a male into saying their aggression is feminine is to encourage them to discover their male aggression.

I disagree. It's an attempt, and it's misguided. And teasing isn't appreciated, certainly not by me, and it's no go towards my sons or I go into action.

Males, particularly during the formative years of pre-teen and/or teen, need positive encouragement, not "negative reinforcement" that masquerades as a motivator. (Do it better and I won't say [insert crass comment here].) I wonder how many school-age males have cried "dry tears" and given up because their own coaches/trainers and even MA instructors have been insensitive.

You make a good point

[Rateh]

Let me ask you, Rateh, and any of the female members of the forums, of course, if you think that a woman has to work harder than a man in the martial arts (I'm trying to confine it to MA, not extend it throughout society) for respect/recognition?

Here's a second one. Without getting into specifics, a certain male student disrupted my MA class twice, each time with a female instructor. I spoke with a male instructor in another school, just giving him a few details, and he told me he's seen this before, that a male student would pull a stunt with a female instructor, but not be known to do the same with a male instructor. Do female instructors feel they have to assert their position more so than male instructors do?

In my experience, no, I have not had to work harder to gain respect as a student in any of the schools I have trained in.

Most of my teaching has been with children, and in general how much I have to assert myself does not have anything to do with gender. I have taught the occasional boy (generally around 7-9 years old) who shows discipline for the male instructors, but I have to constantly correct their behavior. In these cases I have found that the children were usually put in martial arts because a single mother wanted their child to have a positive male influence. Regular consistent expectations and discipline has always gotten through to them.

In teaching adults, sometimes males are hesitant to believe I know what I am talking about. They have never outright disrespected me though, and if they did I would treat them just the same as kids who are disrespectful. They'll either stay and find out I know what I'm doing, or they'll leave and miss out on the training, I don't care which they choose.

As I have thought about this, I have found that students in general are more respectful and disciplined as I have gotten more teaching experience. The "air" if you will that I demonstrate in my teaching is one of being in complete command of the situation. I think that helps with having students be respectful in class. I wouldn't say that is asserting myself, more like the way I carry myself.

Interestingly, all the adult women I have taught have told me they love having me as an instructor.

[DWx]

Me and my sister actually tell each other to stop hitting like girls all the time in training. We both take it as a joke and use it to motivate ourselves but there are definitely people in class I wouldn't say it to because they'd most likely take offense, then again there are people who would take it in a positive way.

[JusticeZero]

Anyone have any thoughts on telling females to hit like a woman rather than a girl?

[joesteph]

Anyone have any thoughts on telling females to hit like a woman rather than a girl?

It's a thought, like telling a boy to "hit like a man," but it may be just trying to rework something that just isn't appreciated. I like what my Soo Bahk Do teacher reminds my children, "Make a strong fist," because the younger they are, the less-clenched.

I'd advocate emphasizing strong punches and kicks, and just drop the outdated remark. An instructor can call out to a whole class of boys and girls, "Strong punches! Strong kicks!" It's inoffensive, even encouraging.

[JusticeZero]

I suppose. I guess i'm just trying to find a way to slip in the idea that one does not have to abandon being feminine to attack effectively; indeed, many of the attributes of good offense are based in attributes that fall more on the female side.

[Kempohands]

One of my favorite stories concerning this general subject...

I was teaching a kids' brown belt class once, and I was in charge of a sparring ring. I brought in one of the quicker, more aggressive brown belts who had just won his last 2 matches and put him against a girl who was a 3rd brown (black candidate) and one of the best fighters in the class. As soon as I pointed to his opponent he looked at me, took his mouth piece out, and said "But she's a girl."

"So what?"

"I can't fight a girl; that's not fair."

"I think it'll be fine, don't worry."

From the word "fight!" she absolutely overwhelmed him, not only with technique, but actually just imposed her will and was too aggressive for him to handle her offensive. After the match he was absolutely in shock that a girl had so decidedly beaten him. I took this opportunity to remind the class that being a boy or a girl has nothing to do with one's skill and ability, and that to judge your opponent by his or her sex could be dangerous and unwise.

Now, when I put her in with him originally, it was NOT to prove a point or put him into a potentially embarrassing situation. I was just trying to make a good match, as they were two of the best fighters in the class at the time. However, I was happy to be given this opportunity to bring up this idea of girls somehow being weaker and less capable then boys.

In the world of martial arts, this is unfortunately a pervasive issue. While there is certainly a biological distinction between male and female -- one which does indeed affect, in some ways, how a martial artist approaches certain parts of training, like self-defense for example -- this sometimes, unfortunately, translates to a divergence in the amount of respect or seriousness given to practitioners of different sexes.

So back to the original post, I think you handled the situation very well, and I am happy to see you caught your mistake. I've found myself in situations before where I said something to a student and realized after the fact that it was un-called for as well, and I've learned from them. It's a great thing when people are willing to see faults in their actions and better themselves.

On a final note, hopefully we can slowly eliminate these kind of remarks from the training halls as we try to help female students to be taken as seriously as their martial arts brothers. From what I've seen, we're not all the way there yet, and little things like recognizing situations like this can help us get there.

Thank you for the story sensei8!