Women in Systema

[Arthur]

Arnisidor said:

I am not even registered--I drop in as a Guest and try to get more of an idea about the RMA.

If you register, I can make a special rank title for you of "Visiting Admin". See my first day off in 2 weeks, and I don't know what to do with myself

Arthur

 

[arnisador]

I registered, but no special rank is necessary!

 

[Rommel]

Today there were the most women I ever saw in class! A total of 3, The Lady, KDDK, and Prisca from Switzerzerland. Are there more in the satellite schools that train at any one time? I'm asking because I'm still trying to convince my wife to take up the art and I want to prove to her that there are a lot out there.

 

[jellyman]

We have a woman in our club who is doing quite well.

 

[NoSuchChick]

Rommel:

We have two women on Tuesday nights (I am one of them) and three females (including me) in our Saturday class (one is 12 years old- and doing great). But we do have some others stop in occassionally.

Jennifer

 

[TheLady]

Hey Rommel,

Maybe you should try, "It's better to lead than to follow" for your argument.

BTW: There were "4" of us in a night class last week.
I also have a feeling you'll be seeing some new faces at Mikhail's seminar.

Janice

 

[GouRonin]

Everyone knows that Systema has the hottest babes who can actually fight.

It's like, a fact. The sky is blue, water is wet, systema has hot babes who can fight, and d@mn it...you just can't get any hotter than that.

:iws:

 

[jellyman]

hot babes who can fight - isn't that a tautology?

 

[GouRonin]

Yes.


Glad I am not the only one who thinks this way.

 

[Arthur]

KDDK started a post on the Systema board 2 months ago, by refrencing this thread and including a link to it. While the thread has died down here on martialtalk, it seems to have continued over on the Systema board.

Interesting to see how a change in venue changed the flavour of the thread, especially since the flavours seem to be reverersed from what I'd expect between a general martial art board and a style specfic board.

At anyrate... I thought it might be interesting to swing the conversation back over here in light of what's been said on the continuation of the thread over on the Systema board.

The link to the thread is:

http://russianmartialart.org/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1463&start=0

This sort of reminds of when you get a six part comic story with the first 2 parts in Batman, the next two in Justice League and then the resolution back in Batman. Kind of neat.

Arthur

 

[NYCRonin]

SYSTEMA/New York counts 3 female's within it's group.

 

[arnisador]

Yes, definitely a different flavour over on the other board.

 

[arnisador]

Is there any tradition of Systema being studied by women in the Soviet Union? Were only men in the military exposed to it or was there a group of women who were trained in it also?

 

[Rich_]

Speaking for ROSS, it's fairly male-heavy, but there are some women; the ratio stays the same even to the top. The women there are mostly ex-army or police. And a few sambistas and judoka thrown in for good measure.

 

[NYCRonin]

I trained in Russia in 2001 - and there were a few women that were in Mikhail Ryabco's class. They were quite good - as good as the men in most part.

 

[jellyman]

NYCRonin is correct.

 

[Rommel]

I won't mention any names, but I've heard they kicked some of the senior students butts really good and some were only in their teens. Shows that systema is the ideal art for men and women alike.

 

[jellyman]

That teenage girl kicked my sorry *** quite a bit. I don't consider myself a senior, though. There was a red-haired adult woman, quite lithe, who kicked my but about as fast and easily as MR's senior male students.

 

[NYCRonin]

John - the fact that you could admit that...makes me respect you all the more.
I look foward to 'working' with you over the weekend (at 'The Gathering') very much!

 

[nelson]

I can't wait to train with Mikhail's female students! From the few videos I've seen, they're fluid, graceful and brutally effective


As for women in Systema, I can't even get my male friends to join a class...they take one look at my bruises and back away slowly :lol:

Janice

Sorry to jump into an old thread, but I stumbled over this whilst googling women in Systema.

I have been studying the system for around 6 months and LOVE it. I am the only woman in our group and initially had to convinve the boys to work with intent and that they wouldn't hurt me. I also train once a week one-on-one with our trainer and loved the reaction the first time I pulled out a decent strike at our group session.... they tend not to be so gentle now

I would love the opportunity to travel to one of the OS workshops, however being based on the other side of the world (Australia) makes the costs a little prohibitive. ONE day, maybe a few years into my study I will be able to justify that investment.

I have been trying to convince my male friends I train with in Kettlebells, kickboxing and cross-fit style training to come to Systema and they never come. HOWEVER we held our first Ladies-only session yesterday and attracted 4 new women, 2 of who stayed on for the session with the men immediately following after. The kicker that made them fall in love with it??? The first time they performed a take down on one of the guys and did it with ease - I recognised that light in their eyes! Hopefully this is the beginning of a stronger following of women and not just a curiosity thing.

<3 Nelson