Are women disadvantaged in striking arts/styles?
- Thread starter Hanzou
- Start date
Cirdan
Senior Master
This is one of the most profoundly stupid posts I've read for a long time assuming this isn't a troll.
So a woman is weaker than a man but beating her up will make her mad...to do what? Firstly one should never fight/spar when angry, easiest way to lose. To put a woman up against a man who is stronger and who is hitting hard is only going to end up with an injured woman who will be put off martial arts for life. Teaching men to beat up women is a stupidity in a class of it's own.
Students who are weaker, male and female, need to be taught techniques to spar/fight. Funnily enough that's why we have martial arts classes.
I've been in martial arts a long time, I've not seen anyone 'babied' let alone women. No one in their right mind wants to hurt people, again we teach people how to spar not just throw them into a sparring class with no instruction. Beginners in martial arts, and I notice that's exactly what you are often have unrealistic ideas of what we do. If you want to hurt people go to a place specialising in that, it will cost you I imagine.
Hurting people and full potential shouldn't even be in the same sentence, the two have nothing to do with each other. Instruction, training and mind-set help you reach your full potential, bashing people recklessly is useless and pointless. In a good martial arts club if a senior grade see you just thumping someone who is a lower grade/beginner/weaker than you they will often mete out the same treatment to you, and rightly so.
If you aren't a troll you need to look at your perceptions of martial arts, what they are, who we are and what we do. If people, not just women, are weaker then proper instruction and training is needed, getting people 'mad' is dangerous and incredibly moronic. To even suggest it is at the very least naïve, at worst provocative trolling.
That place is called prison.
Should we use the same tactic with children? After all men don't want to hurt children in class either.
Believe it or not but martial arts are not actually about hurting people. Self defence arts are about preventing harm, sport arts are about competing safely. If you are in a martial art to hurt people then you are doing it for the wrong reasons.
OP
OP
Hanzou
Grandmaster
But at what point does someone in the martial arts learn to take a hit, and to hit larger/stronger individuals? That's who is likely to attack a woman; someone significantly bigger and larger than she is.
I don't necessarily agree with Tonyjw86, but he does have a point. There are MA schools out there that coddle women in order to keep them coming to class and paying the dues, lulling them into a false sense of security. We shouldn't go out of our way to hurt our training partners, but a black belt in any striking art shouldn't be flinching or completely turning her head away when she's getting hit either.
If they are 'coddling' women to keep them in martial arts and paying it's not the women's fault nor is it about not wanting to hurt people, it's a cynical move designed to make money. It has nothing to do with gender strength, weight or size, they will be doing that to everyone they can.
A black belt shouldn't be flinching, you are right but again that's nothing to do with gender etc it's to do with bad instruction.
None of these should be reason to strike someone forcefully until they break down either into anger or in injury mental or physical.
If I, as an instructor, strike with a given level of force, then it is reasonable to assume that the student will accept this as being an example of the appropriate level of force for the exercise. I don't "actually want to hurt" anyone, especially in a training environment. The level of force used in striking will depend on the particular exercise, the particular student, and the particular preferences of the people involved. The idea that an instructor would intentionally hurt a student is reprehensible.
Perhaps you'd care to expand on your statements a little, because I really hope you didn't mean this the way some are reading it.
Not everybody trains for the same reason, and there are plenty of people who have absolutely zero interest in full contact sparring. They can still benefit from training.
OP
OP
Hanzou
Grandmaster
I agree.
I think its a larger cultural issue more than anything else. Heck, even in my gym I instinctively go easier on my female partners.
OP
OP
Hanzou
Grandmaster
Aren't most women participating in martial arts for self protection and exercise?
If someone new comes into a class with no knowledge of martial arts, they may well be 'in their shell' and may well be frightened to hurt someone, this has nothing to do with gender or strength, it's a lack of knowledge of martial arts. No amount of striking them forcefully is going to teach them anything other than they don't like martial arts and that we are all thugs.
IF someone is learning because they want to be able to defend themselves then the appropriate techniques are taught and as Dirty Dog said an appropriate use of force is used. No one likes being hit, not even pro fighters! they tolerate it and try not to be hit but that doesn't mean they like it. Same as hurting people, even pro fighters don't like to hurt people, that they can do it is part of the training, it's not done for enjoyment but to win.
As for hitting someone hard until they lose their temper that is just moronically ludicrous, what does that teach?
IF someone is learning because they want to be able to defend themselves then the appropriate techniques are taught and as Dirty Dog said an appropriate use of force is used. No one likes being hit, not even pro fighters! they tolerate it and try not to be hit but that doesn't mean they like it. Same as hurting people, even pro fighters don't like to hurt people, that they can do it is part of the training, it's not done for enjoyment but to win.
As for hitting someone hard until they lose their temper that is just moronically ludicrous, what does that teach?
I don't know, and I really doubt you do either. I've only met, talked, or trained with a tiny fraction of the women involved in the Martial Arts. Certainly not a large enough subset to qualify as a statistically valid sampling.
But training for exercise (which is a perfectly valid reason for training) does not in any way require full contact sparring.
Would you hit them hard to make them lose their temper or would you teach them to defend themselves? going 'soft' on women is demeaning to the women and cheating them out f learning to defend themselves properly.
I had one student who insisted he didn't hit women even when sparring, he wouldn't defend either to give me 'a chance' I said fine I have no compunction about hitting men. I broke his nose.
I can't speak for sporting martial arts but the object of a self defence art is to not get hit. Learning how to take a hit can its own set of problems, such as the tendency to want to exchange blows in a 'fight' or get a false sense of security because they have only have ever been hit with padded gloves on their body armour and therefore think getting hit skin on skin is the same. In a self defence situation you can not afford to get hit even once. There is a big difference in getting hit in sparring and getting hit by an attacker in the proverbial street. Exactly how does a small man or woman, or child learn to take a hit from a 300 pound street thug or someone with a weapon? How do you learn to take a hit in the groin, throat or spine?
There is a difference between looking after students and coddling them, but you are right about black belts not flinching or completely turning her head away.
OP
OP
Hanzou
Grandmaster
No, that's the part I don't agree with.
I agree, which is why going easier on my female partners is something I need to work on. Not hurting women is simply how I was raised, so its very hard for me to deprogram myself to go full blast on my female partners.
Well that's just a dumb move on his part. I would never not defend myself from a woman partner. Good way to get choked out.
Had to do that as well, the guy said he wouldn't tap to a woman so when I got the choke on he wouldn't tap. He came from kick boxing, had never done grappling before ( it's gay he said) and was supremely confident I wouldn't take him down or tap him out. It wasn't difficult to be honest so little credit to me. We don't often get idiots in, most are used to working with females in Afghan etc so know better than to disrespect women's strengths, most come from training. If they are also arrogant in the battalion they get smacked.
Despite what some people might think, learning self defence does not require full contact sparring to be effective. It is certainly an option but is is not essential. I know plenty of people who have not done full contact sparring that are perfectly capable of defending themselves.
Similar threads
