I purposely put a loaded title up so that people would take notice.
Here’s what I really mean.
I used to believe that men and women could both become profficient in the martial arts. MAybe I was naive or too idealistic. Now that a few years have passed I’m starting to see that almost no women have become profficient.
I find it frustrating to train with the women in my school. They inherently have what most men don’t, the most important aspect of kung fu…they’re soft. They bend instead of break. They redirect instead of staying planted and getting knocked over. They’re not over tense like men. Here’s the issue. They don’t seem to get past this soft aspect of things. You need the soft and the hard but women seem to lack the hard. They bend against force but then they don’t hit back like a whip. They just bend and get pushed over.
I’m not sure if I"m explaining this in a way people can understand. I train with this one girl who literally weighs nothing. She’s the size of a child…accept she’s an adult. I don’t feel I get any benefit from training with her. I get benefit from teaching her but not from training her.
Can women be trained the same way as men? If not then how should women be trained in kung fu?
Seriously, over the past 4 years I’ve trained with several women but only two could give as well as they got. One was very aggressive and had an excellent round house kick. The other was more like you describe. She’s very soft, flexible and quick. She’s uses all of this to her advantage. When her and I spar, I know that I could rush in and over power her so I try to fight her with more quickness and flexibility. It’s almost like she focuses on groin shots. She’s an excellent martial artist who really likes to focus on application.
I certaily understand where you’re coming from though. Most women simply aren’t as aggresive as men. I would suggest focusing on a different part of your game when training women.
Depends on what you have been exposed to. Among my elder brothers and sisters was Nancy Macdonald. She taught well and packed quite a punch. Among my younger sisters is Carina who doesnt just deflect.
Of course anyone-men and women will analyse their strengths and weaknesses.
Carina BTW makes very good wing chun dummies, wooden bot jam do-s, taichi wooden swords and other martial equipment. Her equipment site is at www.little-raven.com
Some people get it, some people don’t. It doesn’t matter if they are male or female. You gotta learn how to adapt the style you are learning to yourself, and then to the situation. That applies regardless of your sex.
I have trained with many women. The first person that I ever worked out in Wing Chun was a woman we did Pak for 2 hours. All I can say is that not only was my arm killing me where she was hitting me but my hand was also killing me from trying so hard to deliver the same effort that she was giving me. Look at it this way most women are soft and in the real world they are the most voulnerible to attack rape mugging etc. So if you are working with a woman it should be that much more important to be a good bad guy. The guy on the street won’t be nice. If the women you work with are soft it is most likely because the men they train with are treating them that way.
You don’t think others may wish that they had a better partner than you? You are supposed to be helping getting your partner better.
My bjj instructor told me that he had no problem having my sons, age 7 and 9, in the adult’s class. He puts them across from adults during the conditioning and tells the adults to keep up with the kids, they can not. My boys can do push ups,sit ups, mountain climbers and get up faster than any of the adults. He knows the adults push themselves harder not to be beaten by a little kid. They just don’t wear out as any parent knows.
You remind me of a guy that will be fighing in a cage in three months. He reluctanly agreed to roll with me when asked by the instructor. I am much smaller than he and am 45. I gullotined his azz:p
Being a good martial artist isnt about having “upper body strength”.
Women seem to have a more natural feeling hand and are great with finesse where many guys seem to think that its all about how much you can bench and forget entirely about whole body connectedness and the importance of structure, not strength.
As a quick case study, I train with one women who routinely whups the guys, stand up and on the ground.
Women’s strengths in martial arts are different. They have a lot of lower body strength, great flexibility, usually better balance, and they are great with intricate and flowing movements.
So instead of training them with light weapons and working on their kicking and groundfighting skill, most instructors teach them to fight like a man, which is just stupid.
Basically women have almost no upper body strength, but still have fairly strong legs and good hips, so they have a lower center of gravity, which can work to their advantage if they know how to use it. But most guys don’t understand that, and can’t teach them how to use it.
Anyways, my first sifu’s daughter was great at light weapons, so whenever I want to practice light weapons (like Jian), I just find the best woman in the school.
Believe it or not, the women are usually better than guys at that type of stuff. Guys usually try to muscle it and so they’re much slower. Not always, of course, but as a generalization.
Edit … anyways as soon as my daughter finishes up with this animal stuff (she’s got the first form down), I’m going to start her on staff (just cause I think that should be taught first). Then, onto the jian and then onto the needles.
That way, alls she has to do to protect herself is carry a nice hair comb or needles in her hair, and she’ll be able to fend off rapists.
You will rarely ever find a martial arts kwoon or dojo that really teaches women well. In fact most of the places i have been to over the years i have seen this lack of real training for women.
The only place that seems to have any credability for teaching women the correct way to defend themselves is the Sun dragon women’s martial arts school here in Austin Tx. Every where else seems to take it easy on women. There was a similar thread to this one a while back where i was labelled some sort of sexist because i was pointing out the flaws of how women are trained in this country and how men are physically stronger than women.
Women are attacked very differently from men and they need to be trained for the very serious real world threat of being raped or attacked from behind and such. only a few places really get tough with women in martial arts training and i will bet you that most women who get hit the first time in class, quit that very night and dont come back.
Maybe some of the women here on the forum could chime in with their experiences and maybe they could be HONEST in telling us if they truly feel like what they are learning is going to save their life should they be threatened or sexually assaulted.
i mean really is that kata going to thwart some guy who is hell bent on getting your pants down and brutally raping you as you tried to open your car door?
How about that mantis form or that choy li fut routine or whatever the bone head is showing you that week? do you think that it is helping you gals?
I think this is a good topic. Lets read from the women here.
Peace,TWS
MOST of the time women don’t get raped by “some hell bent dude who attacks them in the back seat of their car.” Most rapes are perpetrated by someone the woman knows and it usually happens in her house/apa
rtment/dorm room. Go figure. The movies have put a false view in our heads. I’m starting to disagree with the way this topic is going. Train women the way they are attacked? So that means a woman shouldn’t learn pak sao in a wing chun school since she won’t get mugged that way? I guess she should master swimming so it will be easier to slide her body out from under that of a gigantic man attacker.
I’m talking about KUNG FU training. How are we going to train women in kung fu??? I want to chi sao with that little woman I mentioned in the origional post and not feel like I can just pick her up and throw up out the window, go get a milkshake and then bring her back for more after I’m done. I guess she has to start working on hitting harder, aggressiveness in general, more speed, less sticking and more sensitivity.
But how? THe women I train with are too willy nilly. I’m not saying this about all women but I have yet to meet one that I like training with.
Personally I don’t think the average women is going to learn enough martial arts to prevent the attack. Therefore I believe most of these self defense classes should be focused on escaping and getting away. Teach these women a few basic forms to allow them to escape…then run.
I think one of the worst things they tell women is to go for the groin. To be very effective she’s going to have to hit the guy pretty accurately because if she doesn’t the rape might just turn into murder.
MOST of the time women don’t get raped by “some hell bent dude who attacks them in the back seat of their car.”
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well you misquoted me knight. reread it and quote correctly next time.
IN fact the truth about women being assaulted in the manner i wrote is VERY REAL. Knight is correct that the assault comes from someone that they know and knight is also correct that it happens in their house/apartment/dormroom. Of course sexual assaults DO occur outside the home and more often times than not will occur in an unfamiliar area such as a parkinglot.
but the issue is not where a woman is assaulted, the issue is training for the assault.
i dont mean to suggest that women shouldnt learn forms and such and not go through the same curriculum as the rest of the class. But i DO think that there should be exclusive classes for women to really train them to deal with the myriad of BS that they have to endure with respect to men.
the problem is that your going to soft on them too. if you feel like you can throw her and get a slurpee then come back. you should do just that. if its a style they teach the same way. its her fault that she choose that style. and this sounds like alot of it could be improved by sparring. everyone is diffrent. i am not a very strong guy. almost everone is stronger than i am includeing women i am almost taller then everyone too. so spar with her tell her mistakes and video tape her while its going on
then show her the tape and what she could have done better and etc.
so go harder on them. they willl figure the rest out on their own. if they take one punch then get outta there. its kung fu expect to get a little hurt
