Female Karate Sensei

[Alan Armstrong]

Has anyone had a female Sensei in Karate.

While attending Shotokan not one female student was present.

While in many other styles there were female CI's and students.

Has Karate changed with equality and diversity or is it still a male dominated activity?

[Lupin1]

When I was a kid my instructor's wife helped teach the class.

I'm also female and helped teach the kids a lot. I think it's really good for the girls to see and for awhile we had many more girl students than boy students.

When I first came bak to karate as an adult, the adult class was all men. I was the first female to train with them in years (it's a very small group). This one guy who was a brown belt at the time took awhile to get used to working with me. He kept saying he was afraid of accidentally hitting me in the chest. He got over it, though. It was awkward for a few months, but eventually I just became part of the group.

[CTTKDKing]

I can't say if diversity has changed across the entire area of martial arts, but a close friend of mine was certified as a Sensei in our school's primary system of Sho Biyn Ju last year. She's the first female Sensei in the system nationally, but per the UMAA there are only 3 Sensei's in the system period so maybe this isn't an ideal example.

I also had a friend from a previous job who started training under a female Sensei in Kenpo years back. She ran a school on the other side of CT from me, and from what I understand, she was very talented. I do not know if she's still running that school though.

I've seen many female black belts but not a lot certified as Sensei's which is a shame, especially in self defense oriented styles. I feel like in some cases, people might find women Sensei's more approachable especially for those cases where someone is looking to learn to defend themselves after something bad has already happened. I know I've personally worked with several female victims of rape and assault, in this way over the years and while it worked out fine, I think they would have been more comfortable in the beginning with a woman teacher.

Or maybe I'm thinking in a sexist way here, I dunno.

[catlike]

When I was young (7 or my sensei was a really lovely lady called Debbie. Full of energy, very engaging with the class but didn't take any nonsense. I gave up karate when I was about 10, and didn't really care for it until a couple years ago when the itch needed scratching again.

When I returned, I thought about Debbie, and how she'd affected the way I approached everything in my 'training', even though I never treated it as such when I was a kid.

As it happens she's not training any more, but she teaches Zumba. At the same venue I returned to in a different school. Sounds complex, but it's the local YMCA, they rent the gym out, and there's a zumba class before the karate school some nights.

So casually one evening before class I went and chatted to her. Said she should come to karate one night. Obviously she laughed and said she trained for 20 years at karate. Then I told her she was my inspiration and I thanked her for everything she did for me all those years ago. Was a lovely moment, and I really hope I can pass that gratitude on to my son when he's ready to start training.

[Nidan Melbourne]

When I first started I had two amazing Female Instructors albeit didn't have the title of Sensei. As my club awards the title of Sensei at 3rd Dan.

At my club we have more females than males, and the same at my old club.

At present my club only has 4 female instructors, and only 1 regularly teaches alongside me. The other 3 are semi-regular at when they come and teach.

I'd like to think that things have improved with the equality factor. But I have found that both males and females quit for various reasons.

When I teach, i give the statistics as it is to my students here in Australia. And I am blunt to my female students that they canot take learning how to defend themselves lightly because they are female.

And every single one of my students learn that they should treat others regardless of gender the way you would want to be treated. And that at no time should you verbally or physically harass someone.

[Spartacus Maximus]

Although it is a fact that karate and perhaps martial arts in general have mostly been taught by men to other men, women have also been training and teaching throughout the ages up to now. There are a few notable women experts in the history of karate.

One such woman was the one who became the wife of Matsumura Sokon, the founder of Shorin ryu karate and personal chief bodyguard of the last three kings of Okinawa. This woman was an expert martial artist from a noble family. She had the best training and education her rank could get and would only marry a man who was equal or better than her at martial arts. Many experts challenged her, but she beat them all easily.

There are many accounts of how Matsumura got to marry her. Some say he bested her, but others claim the neither could win and that they married after realizing they were of equal skill.

A woman will usually have a very different way of teaching and thinking about martial arts than a man. For this reason alone, if one has the opportunity to learn from a female sensei one should take it without a moments hesitation. Personally the chance never arose, but I must admit some of the most competent karateka I have ever met have been women.

[skullsplitter]

Ours is female. She's had this school for almost 30 years.

[sensei8]

Nowadays, female Sensei's/CI's are much more abundant than they were whenever I first started back in the 1960's, and remained that way up to the 1980's.

Of course, the ratio's are affected by locations, culture's of the immediate area as well as to the region, and so on and so forth.

Slowly but surely, female CI's are not hard to find. Male CI's might outnumber female CI's, but not by much, imho.

I've a book, that I bought some long time ago, that has CI's, both female and male, that offer sound advise over a plethora of subjects geared for instructors of the MA, and the female CI's found in this book outnumber the male CI's by a very wide margin.

I've female instructors, and our Hombu has female instructors. Unfortunately, there are more male instructors than there are female instructors, but not by much.

I've had female instructors teach me, but only whenever I would be cross training. Top notch instructors...each and everyone of them.

[Trailer_Ape]

Yes, sure have.

Bill and Nadia Spivey were a husband/wife duo that taught a Japanese style of karate that I have no idea how to spell because I was 11 and never read any of the paperwork. It sounded like Cheecha Ryu?

Just recently, when my (current) school changed their schedule to one that kinda clashed with mine, I took a couple trial classes at other places. One of them was a Shotokan school with a female instructor. I have no idea about her abilities, as a MA'ist or fighter, but she sure ran a tough class. I train Kajukenbo and left her dojo banged up.

Gender doesn't create any preconceived notions with me. Nor will it keep me from training somewhere. Heck, it might even be better as they are likely to have a little more insight on the idea of being up against stronger opponents. Even now that I'm grown, I'll train under a female instructor.

[JR 137]

My CI and his wife co-own the dojo. I've found that to be a common thing. She hasn't taught since I've been there due to a few concurrent and long term injuries, such as a shoulder replacement surgery. By all accounts she's a very good teacher - she's meticulous in teaching and correcting technique, and she runs a very strenuous class. A few people joked that when they'd see her car in the lot, they'd contemplate not going in if they weren't ready to be pushed really hard. Hopefully she'll be back on the floor soon.

She's the senior-most female karateka in Seido Juku, having started in 1976, and was one of the first group of women to be promoted to 6th dan. She started during the time Nakamura first started Seido, and it was still Kyokushin in all but name. According to everyone I know who was around during that era (not just Seido), women had it really tough. A lot of men thought they didn't belong and would try to prove it by going harder on females. Thankfully we've moved past that as a society.

Nakamura formed a women's group in Seido Juku to address the lack of women in the organization. The group became obsolete and was dissolved about 8 years ago. Seido is nearly 50/50 men/women, so the group was after several years of consistency in that ratio.

I've never trained under a female CI, but both dojos I've been a part of had female instructors. I haven't viewed them any differently than male instructors. Every teacher brings something different to the table, regardless of gender. There have been female instructors who are better and not as good as male counterparts; gender didn't have anything to do with it.

I'd have no problem joining a dojo run by a female. My criteria for joining is quality of instruction, not gender.