How do you get women to spar?

[koreantiger81]

When it's sparring day, there seems to be a huge decline in female attendance. WHY is that? Is it cause they don't like to mess up their hair, get sweaty in their sparring gear, or is it 'cause of the aggression? Any suggestions on motivating women to spar??

[chh]

I don't believe I've ever met a martial artist who was concerned about messing up her hair or getting sweaty. I guess I'd say it's the aggression thing, and maybe intimidation. If my dojo had a designated sparring night, I and one other woman would be there for sure, but at various times I have heard the few others we have say they don't like sparring. I'm not sure any of them would show up.

 

That particular day isn't the only opportunity for sparring in your school, is it? Seems like someone who doesn't like sparring will only change their mind if they start getting better at it, and there's no way to get better at it without DOING it. I kind of wish we did have a "sparring day," but not if it meant never sparring outside of that day.

[DemXanth]

Man, I love sparring. Do the people in your dojo have good control of their technique? Maybe people need to start out a little slower with people just starting. How much prearranged sparring do you do. Working on prearranged sparring will get them used to sparring in a controled situation and you can work up to free sparring. I always loved sparring to begin with but I guess there may be people not as comfortable with it. Maybe even some of the guys arn't comfortable with it but are afraid of looking like wusses.

[Sparky]

Sparring is a great stress reliever after a hard day at work. I enjoy it, but my instructors have told me that I need to be more aggressive. My injured finger has put my sparring on something of a hold, but I can't wait to jump back in the fray .

 

Our dojo has designated sparring nights which helps. Unfortunately, it seems like the adult classes in general do not like to spar. We do have a few, but we need more. One nice thing though is that because of the small sparring classes, I have the opportunity to spar more often with black belts. Fortunately for me, being a smaller size female, I'm allowed to spar in the kid's class as well...which is how I injured my finger in the first place .

 

Rachael

[SaiFightsMS]

Many women were brought up not to be aggressive. It is hard to break through what has been ingrained since childhood.

 

Maybe starting them off with more one, three and five step drills to learn how to make contact, block and begin to learn control.

[G95champ]

I don't know I may be a good teacher LOL but my girls in class reguardless if they are 10 or 50 tend to pick up on sparring quicker than the guys do. LOL. Now I prob. teach it a bid differant in that I always work with them and tell them to make contact with me. I guess they have a since of trust that I won't hurt them and they can open up and unload on me.

 

We sparred Thursday night and I only worked with 2 girls and 1 guy. Im beat to death LOL. Just from my findings girls like to hit guys. So if you can take the contact it tends to make them agressive.

[CheekyMusician]

Well at my club we spar almost constantly and we don't know what we'll be doing any given night until we arrive at the class so no one can dodge kata, sparring or anything else.

 

I hated sparring at first. I don't mind it too much now, but I'd rather do kata, pad work or practice techniques in mid air, but I realise that sparring is a useful tool to improve my karate.

 

I'm female and at first I was scared to hit other people in the class. I was scared I'd hurt them (especially the kids). I preferred sparring with the guys because they tended to be more critical and so I could learn more and plus I didn't have to worry about hurting them to the extent I worried about it when I was sparring with other women or kids. As you can imagine, though, most guys don't want to spar with females and avoid it if possible. Plus some of them have a habit of getting a little too rough.

 

I mean, I don't mind getting hit. I'm in karate so that's all part of the learning process to me, but when a 6'3 guy who is built like a brick wall aims all his might into punching you full on in the face, well lets just say that its a wee bitty difficult to remain standing. Mind you, I'd rather that than him trying to be overly gentle....that's even more annoying than getting knocked out!

 

I often feel that I don't like sparring because:

 

1. I might do someone a serious injury as I've not got too much control yet.

 

2. People might prefer to spar with someone higher ranked/different gender etc. from me and I might be being a burden to them.

 

3. Call me a wimp, but I do get a little scared that I'll get a tooth knocked out or a finger broken. Funilly enough, the thought of getting a leg broken or something doesn't bother me, but after years of orthodontic work that my parents insisted on I really dread losing a tooth and breaking fingers is a big worry to me as I'm a musician.

[WolverineGuy]

I actually had a female at our club refuse to spar because she thought that the sparring gear looked ridiculous...her words, not mine. *shaking head*

[Smith amp Wesson]

Play Malissa Ethridge music during sparing.

 

What ????You think I'm jokin ????

[tommarker]

treat them like equals and give them every chance in the world to learn.

 

We had a 4th gup woman completely wipe the mat with a visiting Sam Dan who was trying to patronize her skills. Unfortunately for him, he didn't know she was a 4th Dan in Ishhin Ryu and had started over in TSD from white belt.