How to Hit a Woman
You don’t need a woman who has trained in martial arts for 20 years to tell you that men feel uncomfortable hitting women on the mats. They’ve been taught all their lives that hitting women is wrong, so when they find their way to my mats and are expected to strike a female partner as part of their training, even with the barest amount of contact, they are understandably reluctant. This post covers how to deal with that.
Start Off Slow
If the woman is new to martial arts training, go easy to start with until they are mentally adjusted to receiving contact. This should be done with all beginners, regardless of gender. And if you’re a beginner yourself, the level of speed and contact you use should be very light anyway until you develop a good sense of control. Then as the person progresses (and as you progress) you can increase the level of contact gradually so that the person can start to understand the effects of strikes to different areas and so they can better assist their partners with their targeting.
Don’t Coddle Her
As a woman starts getting more comfortable with contact while training, you should increase the level of contact gradually until you eventually get to a level that is comparable to what others take for the same level. This advice should be applied regardless of gender, but many men never bring up the level of contact with women because they feel uncomfortable hitting a woman with any force at all. While it may be true that you might not be able to hit a smaller woman as hard as a much bigger man, she should still get the benefits of higher intensity training that is scaled appropriately for her size as it becomes appropriate for her level. If she never gets this, she’ll be coddled and won’t become stronger at taking hits. In the worst cases, I’ve seen women with black belts that can’t even handle the barest levels of contact and as result don’t receive the same level of respect as the men of the same rank.
Advice for Women
As a woman who wants to be treated equally, be free with your encouragement to the guys. If you’re comfortable with contact, let your male training partners know that they can hit you and help them find the level of contact that you’re comfortable taking. It’s a lot easier for them to feel comfortable hitting you if you encourage them to do so. Also, if your dojo uses contact strikes to the groin, you should wear a groin protector. It hurts us too, it’s just a different kind of pain, but also men will feel a lot more comfortable hitting you down there if they know there is another layer.
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Women jiujitsu practitioners…
Please please please, wear a cup on the mat. "Jills" are available. That way, men won't cringe when they have to do a groin strike.
Darn it, I do this! I may have heard you say, once or twice, "Hit me! Your not hitting me, come on!" Funny how gender bias affects you subconsciously.
How far can I go with this person, how hard should I hit him/her? These are difficult questions to begin with but especially so when it comes to women… Most of the men at my dojo tend to go very easy on them (not good), sometimes I tend to overcompensate by going too hard (also not good). It’s a thin line in any case and a lot depends on the woman in question: if they have experience in other arts (especially close-contact ones) they tend to be pretty tough and training with them is interesting. Others are just naturally gifted and more apt at physical activities than others. In any case training with women is generally fun, as long as they‘re not barbie-dolls and expect to be put on a pedestal.
I wonder what we could do to make our dojo more ‘female friendly’ so to speak: in the beginning we had three female members, one left, one is out because of a busted knee (she also does BJJ so we have nothing to do with it) and one is still training. Any suggestions? I think it might be due to the fact that our classes tend to be pretty fast paced (which might be difficult to handle as a beginner) and most of our members tend to train pretty intensly. Yet I don’t think we’re ‘macho’ per se: we don’t discriminate in any way and there’s not contest of egos. In the gym where we train there’s also thaiboxing-classes (a pretty hard sport I’d say) and they have close to 10 women training with them). One thing my sensei should try to avoid is getting too graphical in his descriptions of techniques: last week he was teaching some silat-moves (silat is a very aggressive and very violent fighting style) and he went “from here you can break his arm, step over and kick his face, then you turn, sit over him and gauge his eyes”… man, even I was impressed let alone the few onlookers who left soon after that. He’s anything but violent (he’s a very friendly and easy-going guy) but when he gets on the mat he changes and goes into fighting-mode, sometimes I think he becomes some kind of warrior-kami and enjoys it just a little too much. Or perhaps it’s just the fact that women tend to dislike the martial arts, I don’t know (in most clubs women tend to the minority). You’d think a style that teaches self-defense would be pretty popular in this day and age… What’s the ratio men/women at your dojo?
Zara
Zara, until you get to know a woman (or any new student for that matter), contact should be very light. As they become more comfortable with their training, you increase the level of force to one that is in the range that is consistent with your dojo's normal training. The amount of force used on a woman will generally be slightly scaled back if they are smaller than the average men, but then some women can handle a bit more, so it's up to you to keep the lines of communication open so you can strike the right balance with each woman (or person for that matter).
In my case, I probably hit the women in my dojo harder than any other person and they are able to handle it. But I do communicate with them to make sure they are ok with the level of force. Once they themselves know what they're comfortable with, it's easier for them to guide their partners so they know how much force to use.
As for being "female-friendly", I wouldn't go out of your way to do anything that would interfere with your usual way of doing things, unless you're going to start a female-only class. It is a simple fact that women in general aren't all that interested in martial arts training. My dojo, which is run by a woman, only has 3 female students out of 25 currently. I consider my dojo to be as female friendly as it can be without compromising the dojo's training atmosphere. After all, we're not doing crochet class here, it's a martial art. You can't please everyone, so you just have to run things the way you want to run things and attract people who want what you offer.
It seems to me that the more women you HAVE, the more women you GET. It can be very intimidating, as a woman, to walk into a new MA gym and look at a class of 40 people and every one of them male. Not only do you think, "There really isn't anyone my size and weight that would be good for me to train with", but you wonder "WHY are there no women? Are the teachers misogynist, are the male students unwelcoming?" It takes a gutsy woman to plunge in and start training at a new place where she's the ONLY one. But once she's there, the next prospective female student who walks in will see her on the mat and feel more confident about signing up.
When I started at my BJJ gym, there was ONE woman who trained there regularly, and I almost never saw her because she mostly went to advanced classes (she was a blue belt). It was really scary for me to go in there. My biggest worry was whether or not the male students would be accepting and willing to work with me.
Not only were there no other women to work with, there were very few smaller-sized men. Everybody was big and heavy. It's a real challenge to learn a brand new MA when all your training partners are twice as big as you, twice as strong as you, twice as heavy as you- and you have no technique yet
to even the playing field at all.
Soon after I took my courage in hand and joined up, another woman joined up- and that seemed to be the tipping point, because after that, when a female would come in to check out the gym, she would often see one of us on the mat. When a new woman signed up, we would make a point of being welcoming and help them get to know their way around the place. They don't have to spend their very first class doing drills with the Incredible Hulk and feeling, "I will NEVER be able to do this"
In the last few months, we've had six or eight new women sign up- it's great- I hope we are able to keep some of them.
As far as how hard to hit- good communication is essential. I often give feedback, "You can go a little harder" "A little less weight on the ribs, please" and I often ask my training partners (whether male or female, but especially if they are newbies) "How's this pressure? Do you want me to go lighter, harder?"
-Savage Kitsune
Savage Kitsune, thanks for your comments. It's true that it really helps to have other women in a club, particularly in the BJJ world in which gender and weight class is important. That being said, I've signed up every single woman I've had try my class, despite the fact that I don't have many training with us. The trouble is that I just don't get that many inquiries from women in the first place.
I trained in a BJJ school for over 2 years and only saw one other woman in that dojo the whole time. It didn't really matter to me though since I was learning it more for self-defense purposes than for use in tournaments so it didn't really matter who I rolled with.
Thanks again for commenting! It's nice to hear another woman's insights. 🙂
The woman who left told me it was a personal matter rather than our fault per se, she did mention she felt a bit lonely and intimidated when she was the only female on the mat. When new people come in for a try-out class (we offer two free classes before signing up is required) I try to accommodate them as much as possible and reassure them we’ll take it slow and that’s it normal to feel awkward and clumsy. I fully agree with your position: we’ll do what we can to keep the threshold as low as possible but we won’t lower our standards and our core business is still effective self-defense and not aerobics or a social gathering. I do feel good when I can help a woman realize she too can do what we men do and she shouldn’t be a victim when threatened or attacked. I think a major factor would be to have a woman in the dojo who’s very good and relatively high ranked, a role-model (as I’m sure you are for your female students) is very motivating and it’s irrefutable proof the art is suited to women and a high level of skill isn’t a male prerogative. In any case I believe in the thesis that women who stick with it will generally attain higher levels of skill than their male counterparts, the woman who left attained yellow belt and her test was by far the best we’ve seen (especially her attention to detail and technical expertise) and most of our members practice another martial art and/or had previous experience. That’s what you get when you can’t rely on strength or mass: you’re forced to develop your skills and hone your techniques to counter physical advantages. In JJ technique is everything and good JJ uses very little force (we borrow the opponent’s), that’s why women and small individuals thrive in it (at least when they keep practicing). My old sensei teaches workshops aimed at senior citizens (he himself is a little over 70 years old), I don’t know how realistic this is and how effective it would be in reality but the very fact it’s still possible to practice this art at an advanced age is proof of it’s flexibility, softness (at least in application, the result is usually the opposite) and principal orientated nature.
Thanks for the advice Lori and for your story, Kitsune. It made me realize it’s not easy for a woman starting in the martial arts and we really should pay them more respect.
Zara
PS: Lori, would you mind if I contacted you through email? I’d like to ask you something personal.
Sure, Zara. You can contact me by email. 🙂
re: making the dojo more female-friendly
I'd never want or expect the guys to act differently because I'm in the dojo. I *like* being one of the guys, just treat me the same as any of them.
I do have one pet peeve: have a clean restroom and locker room. I've moved a lot over the years, and in most dojos it goes without saying. In others, well, it's abundantly clear that the guys and I differ on our definition of "clean bathroom". When I'm hoping against hope that I won't need to use the loo, it's hard to feel at home.
I’ve read your article, twice, and all comments, to be thorough. There is a lot to think about.
I trained for a couple of years and enjoyed the process, it was all about personal growth. I ignored the awkward moments when my training partner seemed to be uncomfortable or tried to mask disappointment by being paired up with me. Not all men were like that. But some. I can remember feeling the same disappointment if I was paired up with a younger partner who just wasn’t as physically able as I was. Those days I spent more time encouraging. There was always a skill or lesson to master and I always thought of it as not women vs. men, etc… more like I would never be a physically strong as my partner, but I was mentally tough. The goals I brought with me on the mats never changed. It was always about ‘getting better everyday’.
I never wanted to be treated any differently, never. I saw that as ‘death’. That was when after two years of dedication to my Dojo I encountered a challenge that I would never be able to overcome. Some Sensei had moved on but this particular one stayed. He was one of those ‘olde world gentlemen’, chivalry should have been his middle name. Which is fine in the real world maybe, but not in class, unless he treated the men the same way, and he did not. So I started noticing a shift in attitude from some of my partners, which hardly makes sense because some I have trained with since I began. But that’s what I had to face. He was teaching more classes to compensate for the other Sensei who had left and they noticed his attitude towards me and followed his lead of course. I did speak to him privately but he didn’t see what he was doing and became defensive. I had no choice but to leave.
So speaking from experience, what I would love to see is this subject being brought out in the open, after a class maybe. It’s great to chat about it and bring up the subject online, it’s a great start maybe, but if there are to be major lasting changes this needs to be discussed openly with same kind of respect and dignity, the same frame of mind that the class is being taught and in which the students learn.
It’s a great topic, and I am glad you brought it up.
Peace.
I just try to make it a general practice at my dojo myself. But I recognize that many dojos don’t have that mentality coming from the leadership. In such cases, students need to take the initiative like you did. Too bad it isn’t always enough. But even if the instructors aren’t on board with this, I would just encourage women to try and communicate with their partners to help improve their training relationships. Thanks for commenting. I’m sorry to hear that your situation led to your leaving the dojo. Hope you found a better place to train.
There’s a huge gap in my training but I’m not giving up! Thanks for ‘listening’. I enjoy visiting your Blog, reading about your experiences and dedication to JJ and MA.
Hello. Unfortunately I am responding from my phone with a low battery but, felt the need to respond to this one. I read down to #4 and have to agree with Lori. Gender immaterial, you’re job as a instructor or training partner is to enable quality training. Whether your partner is male or female, young or old you will have more of a positive impact on their training if you asses them first and gradually increase your intensity. Great post and some great comments. Food for thought….