How do you get women to spar?

[karatekid1975]

Hehehehe that is an ego deflater if I ever heard one

 

Anyways, I'm female, and I hated to spar at first. I was afraid to get hit. But I just got in there a did it. Now I don't hate it. It's more annoying now than anything, because of the sport stuff going around. I want to use hand techniques, and take-downs, and we can't (sometimes they do, but not always). We can only do that when we do self defense.

 

And yes, I hate the gear. I don't mind the cloth foam arm and shin pads, but the helmet makes me sweat. I sweat like a guy anyways, and it makes it worse. I don't mind sweat from a good workout, but that thing makes me too hot. Like it traps the heat in more or something.

[ninjanurse]

I tend to agree with Sai. It's the way most women are brought up and it sometimes takes a lot to break that mindset. It is hard to find agressive female sparring partners to train with too which doesn't help matters either.

 

[karate_woman]

I can't really relate, as I always enjoyed sparring. I have met a few women who are afraid to hit/spar with other people because they might hurt them, though.

[Guest]

We had a girl who was afraid of hitting people and that was her reason of why she didn't like to spar. She became more open minded when we had 5 of the black belts line up and we had her hit us as hard as she could in the abs. That helped release the tension, but in addition to that, we had the other females who like to spar talk to her about it and help build up their confidence in sparring. We had one girl who didn't wan't to do it because noone told her, so we told her to get up and spar and she did it. Now she loves it.

[DeeLovesKarate]

I'm female. I've always loved to spar, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just that feeling. The exhileration of pure adrenaline on the mat. Never been afraid of getting hurt. It's happened many, many times. I've had a few nice bruises, black eyes, etc., but I keep coming back. Once I'm out of physical therapy for my knee, I'll be doing it again. It's just amazing to me. I've found that people who don't like to spar, usually end up liking point-sparring. It's less riskyy, I guess. Rounds and such. Start off with point sparring after the have good technique, then 1 minute rounds, light contact, then gradually increase it. I think it's just one of those things some people need to get used to by trying it in modification.

 

Ous,

 

Dee

[theswarm]

i hated sparring when i first started now it's one of my favourite things.

 

There was some point when I hated kata too but now i'm practicing it alot more at home and liking it - As soon as you take every move apart and practice and perfect every technique and movement it is so rewarding.

[karatekid1975]

I agree there, theswarm. Same with me.

[glingglo]

i think bag training is a big help to people who are shy about sparring. once they get to like the feeling, moving on to a human partner is easier. personally, i love to spar, but i think i was so eager to learn because i had been practicing on a bag for several months first. i got to a point where i was itching to fight someone and there was no room left for being intimidated.

[Kyokushin]

I found when I had students who were intimated like that it helped if I let them be the offender and I only defended their techniques. That way they could try things w/o worrying about getting hurt. (If they're really freaked out like someone else said just stand there and let them hit you a couple of times. Most likely it's going to be pretty light anyways and will help them to be less stressed about striking people.) This kept them from having sloppy punches/kicks that were five feet away from me anyway. After they got used to that I just gradually added in more counters until they were free sparring just like anyone else. The biggest complaint I've heard from females is that they don't like getting bruises. So maybe teaching them footwork to evade strikes would help since your not gonna get hit as much as if you use a block w/ your arm, which if you did that on some full blown techniques would break your arm anyway. Try sneaking in about ten min. of sparring sparadically so that the scarred people can get a chance to try some of these more controlled approaches and then they won't be afraid to show up come sparring night:-)

 

Hope that helps!

 

OSU!

[jushin]

I would treat them like equals and try to get aggression out of them.