Females, fear and training partners

I have just read Michele's thoughtful and insightful post: What women want - karate version, which in itself was a response to a post by Steve (BJJ blog) . Michele poses the question:

Do women want to be treated like training partners or treated like female training partners?

The basic gist of this question is: does a female karate practitioner want their (male) training partner to treat them as a woman first and a training partner second or just treat them as a training partner and forget about gender differences?

Judging by Steve's blog post this is a question that puzzles men, they appear to find it hard to interpret women's responses to training with them and therefore find it difficult to pitch how firmly they can apply techniques.

It seems that women's experiences of training with men varies greatly between clubs. Both Michele and fellow blogger Felicia have trained regularly with male partners. In my club the women rarely ever train with men (for ippon kumite or goshin waza), despite there being very few of us. Does this put me at a disadvantage? Yes and No! Yes, because I rarely get to train with the gender that is more likely to attack me so I don't know if I can make techniques work against them. No, because women understand each others psychology better and can often work sensitively and intelligently together. However, most women I have trained with are just not robust enough for me to train hard with and so I have to hold back a lot.

There are only 3 adult women in my class (plus a few teenage girls). Out of the other two women  I prefer to train with the black belt. Though she is much bigger than me (this size differential creates its own problems regardless of gender), she is fairly robust and strong. She also acts as my own personal 'sensei', guiding me through techniques and thus I learn a lot from her. The other woman, though she is the same kyu grade as me, is a lot less confident and robust so I can basically only 'walk through' techniques with her. I am not able to demonstrate what I am capable of when I train with her.

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to discuss this issue of training partners with my instructor. I am coming up to my 1st kyu grading very soon would obviously like to put on a good 'display' of ippon kumite and goshin waza. To do this I need a suitable partner - one that will let me apply techniques fully and is able to be thrown. I requested having my husband as my partner in the grading (even if he has a man as his partner when he demonstrates his ippon techniques). My instructor was fine with this idea and allowed us to train together in last nights session. We then demonstrated the full range of our techniques to him in a 'no holds barred' sort of way to show that I am robust enough to handle the throws, locks, strikes and take downs.

My husband makes an excellent training partner for me. He definitely treats me as a training partner first and female second. He knows that I need to be able to show that I can do this stuff in an assertive, confident way but also that I can 'take it' from him in an equally uncompromising way. I think we put on a reasonably impressive display. I certainly enjoyed it and felt very energised by the experience.

I do not have a problem training with other women. I enjoy training with my black belt partner and learn a lot from her. I don't mind training with my less confident brown belt colleague as it is an opportunity to try and build her confidence by encouraging her to do the techniques on me a little more firmly. However, I would like some more robust partners occassionally and for me that would mean training with the men. In this situation I would like male partners to treat me as a training partner first, taking into consideration age, size, strength and grade differences - gender would not be important if they did that.

But why are some women more fragile and lacking confidence that others? How can we help them? I have discussed in previous posts some of the gender differences that may affect training: Women in martial arts and Women's self defence - is it just an illusion.

I think that many women suffer from the 'fear factor' when they start learning a martial art:  Fear of getting hurt or fear hurting someone. I was no exception when I started but it all started to change for me about a year ago. Two things happened that helped me overcome my fear and toughen up a little.  Learning to breakfall properly had an enormous influence on me - my confidence soared once I realised it didn't have to hurt when I fell over! The second thing happened at my kobudo club. I was lined up with the jujitsukas to participate in a round of hip throws. I was still wearing a white belt at this club so Sensei warned the others not to throw me too hard. When it was my turn to be thrown by a 2nd dan (male) he seemed to forget my white belt status and threw me so hard I nearly bounced! I managed to breakfall, so I wasn't hurt but it winded me and shook me up a little - I wasn't expecting it! The guy involved got reprimanded by the Sensei.

Reflecting on the experience later I realised that he had actually done me a favour. If I could tolerate being slammed down that hard and not get hurt then what was I worrying about? It was a bit like being thrown into the deep end to learn to swim - you either sink or swim. I decided to swim. I've never really looked back since then and my confidence with throwing and being thrown has just grown and grown.

I'm not advocating that other women should submit to a sink or swim policy but I think every woman needs to think about what it is they are fearful of and look for solutions within themselves as to how they may overcome training fears and thus be able to thrive in their martial art and be a good training partner for others. Once they have achieved that it shouldn't matter whether they train with a male or female partner - their ability to be a good training partner will take precedence over any gender issues.

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Teaching karate to young children.

I had quite an interesting time helping out with the junior class last night. I don't usually know what I am going to be asked to do until I get there and the class has done the warm up. My instructor then tells me who he wants me to work with. This is fine when the task involves taking a couple of students through a particular kata, or if I am given a very specific task to do with clear instructions on how to do it.

 

However, the last couple of weeks I have been asked to take the new white belts to the back of the class and 'go through the syllabus' or 'teach them some basic blocking and punching'. I have then had them for the majority of the class. The problem for me with this is that I have had nothing prepared, no lesson plan and I've made it up on the hop! But six year olds get easily bored with just going through the syllabus and then they start moaning and fidgeting - then they start wandering away or messing about with each other.

 

So last night I went prepared! I had no idea until I got there whether I would be teaching the white belts again but just in case, I had some drills and tasks prepared that might make it a little more interesting and fun for my little charges.

 

In fact I had 5 white belt students - one new woman and four children aged between about 6 and 9 years. I had planned just to teach them the stances and techniques that they would need to know for their first kata, shihozuki. These are yoi, zenkutsu dachi, mawate, gedan barai and oi zuki.

 

I have noticed in previous weeks that a lot of white belt students have problems coordinating their arms properly for a gedan barai so I devised a drill using a belt to help them get the feel of the movement. Basically, I dangled a belt above their shoulder, clasping it in a way that would let it slide through my hands without falling when it was pulled. Their task was to reach up to their shoulder with the opposite hand, grab the belt and pull it down across the body to hip level - this hopefully emulated the movement of a downward block. The kids seemed to pick up on this quite well and were able to tug the belt quite sharply. We did this with both arms. We then repeated the task using only an 'imaginary' belt. On the whole they did pretty well, though there was still some confusion over pulling the non-blocking arm back into chamber so I might need to think a bit more about this.

 

We also tried doing the same drill but with a quarter turn to the left as the belt is pulled - this is the first step in the kata (turn left into zenkutsu dachi and perform a gedan barai). This was when I was reminded that young children don't have the same level of vocabulary as adults. I asked them to make a 90 degree turn to the left. One boy was extremely puzzled by this because degrees was something to do with oven temperature! I also came into a problem with the use of the word drill because that's something dad uses to put shelves up!

 

To get them to make a strong zenkutsu dachi I tried a pushing game. I got them to pair up and face each other standing in a left footed zenkutsu dachi. They then touched with their left palms together and on my count tried to push each other backwards. They soon found that success depended on getting a good bend on the front leg to push their weight forward and that if they had their feet in a line they were more wobbly and easier to push over. Well, it was fun and I think they understood what was being learned.

 

I found belts to be a very useful tool last night. We also used belts to learn the push/pull movement of a basic punch. Standing opposite a partner they had two belts and held one end of each in each hand. They then pull back with their left hand (causing their right arm to be pulled straight out in front of them). They then pulled back with their right arm and so on. I then got them to turn their hand over as it came back into chamber. We started in yoi and then progressed to standing in zenkutsu dachi. I was then going to progress to one partner stepping forwards in zenkutsu dachi as they pulled the belts to resemble an oi zuki punch but we were running out of time.

 

Overall, I think it went okay - I seemed to keep their interest for most of the time. We had to stop half way because they were desperate to learn how to tie a belt on and I realised we wouldn't be able to move on until they've had a go at this. Still, belt tying is on the white belt syllabus so it was useful even if it wasn't on my lesson plan!

 

Things I learn't about teaching young children:

 

1. They take a long time to get organised to start an activity - especially if it involves a partner

2. They are chatterboxes and like to tell you things, even if it is nothing to do with karate, so you have to keep bringing them back on task.

3. To get their attention you need to use their name - learning all the kids names is important.

4. They can get a little over boisterous when playing a push/pull games and you have to calm them down.

5. You never have time to complete the whole lesson plan - everything takes longer than you expect

6. You have to use language they understand but they have an amazing propensity to learn Japanese words!

7. They make you feel proud when they manage to do something well and are incredibly rewarding to teach (and occasionally frustrating).

 

Do you like teaching young children? Have you got any tips/ideas to share?

 

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Hot weather and wicked humour!

Britain has been in the middle of a heat wave these last few weeks - well a heatwave by British standards anyway! It has been consistently around 25 degrees C (that's hot for us) and there has been very little rainfall for weeks (that's dry for us). We moan when it's cold and wet and now we are complaining that its too hot and dry - really, there's just no pleasing us!

Anyway, training has been a hot sticky affair recently. I have taken to wearing my old, thin, cheap gi that I started with and others are training in t-shirts instead of gi jackets. We have the fire doors open and are taking more frequent water breaks to prevent dehydration. Heat exhaustion is a potential problem and Chris Littlefair has addressed this issue in his most recent post.

Something about training in the heat seems to bring the class together a bit more - it must be the sense of suffering together. It also seems to bring out the slightly wicked side of us girls - well there's not many of us so we have to stick together! Sensei was demonstrating a 2-man locking drill ( he's pretty keen on drills since we attended the Patrick McCarthy course) and was demonstrating on one of our senior black belts, Bruce. The locks were going on pretty hard - wrist locks, arm locks, head locks, standing up and on the ground. Poor old Bruce was being twisted around, locked up and thrown to the ground like a rag doll!

For some reason this struck us girls as being quite amusing (I'm blaming it on the heat) and so we 'innocently' asked sensei to demonstrate it again...and again...and again....It was about the fourth time before Bruce cottoned on to what we were doing (we're so cruel!). He took it with good humour though .... so, if you're reading this Bruce, we're very sorry - hope you're not too sore today!

On a more serious note though, training in hot weather does have its inherent dangers. Dehydration and heat exhaustion do need to be watched out for. Do you have any tips for training safely in hot weather? Does the heat bring out your wicked side........?

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Bo grading......

I had my second kobudo grading yesterday! This was another level one grading but this time with the bo. I have enjoyed training with this weapon and wish to continue with it at the higher levels. I think I partly like bo because it is a long range weapon, which makes me feel more secure, and partly because it feels like a 'karate' weapon. The bo just seems to complement karate better than jujitsu,with its strikes, blocks and sweeps. This may explain why it's my instructors least favourite weapon, he prefers the shorter sticks like the tanbo with which one can do jujitsu style throws! However, despite his preference for shorter sticks he is very skilled with a bo and an excellent instructor.

The grading session just had to be on the hottest day of the year so far, so I was glad it was just a short (15 min) kobudo grading rather than a long, intense (2-3 hrs) karate one! The grading officer was Sensei Steve Elliot (7th dan) who is a senior grading officer within the World Jujitsu/kobudo Federation - no pressure then!

Unfortunately, the day before grading I decided to do some gardening - without wearing any gardening gloves. Why did I do that? I always wear gardening gloves. Guess what? I developed a huge, painful blister on the palm of my right hand. Just what you need before a bo grading!!! Anyway, I smeared it with Germolene ointment (which contains local anaesthetic) - this stung like hell, then I sprayed some 'plastic skin' over it - this stung even more than hell!

One thing I learnt was that when I handle and manipulate the bo I tend to keep the bo towards the finger end of my palm so it hardly touched the blister, which was more towards my thumb, so the blister didn't really get in the way and I managed okay - lucky, hey!

Back to the grading! I had to demonstrate the following: bo walking, a short stance kata, two-man striking and blocking kata, bo manipulation and then two leg sweeps against a partner. Sensei Elliot was a fantastic grading officer, he was professional and authoritative but also encouraging and positive. He pointed out that I was slightly over swinging the bo during the bo walking (as if I was trying to chop my imaginary partner in half!) and my single hand, figure of eight, bo manipulation was a bit tense - pretend you're swaying with a boat Susan! Apart from that I was alright.

And the result...... passed with honours!

Nunchucks next.

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Is extreme physical training necessary for martial arts?

How much physical training is enough to become a proficient martial artist? I am always astounded by the amount and intensity of physical training that some people do. Is it necessary to do several hours of week of intense physical training such as push ups, abs training, bag punching, weight lifting, running etc? I ask the question because I don't do a fraction of what others appear to be doing!

The majority of my training is directly related to martial arts and most of this is done during actual classes. I have 5.5 hours of classes a week and probably do around 1 to 2 further hours a week at home - but this is mainly kihon or kata practice or working through some ippons or practising with my bo or sword. I only do a few minutes on the cross-trainer, some stretching, a few weights and sit ups as part of a warm up.

I find the warm ups we do in class can be quite vigorous. Half an hour of kihon or kata practice in class gets me in a sweat and makes me feel I've had a good work out. But is this enough? I consider myself to be fit, though not maximally fit. I think my muscles are reasonably well toned and strong but, again, not maximally so. Do I need to be maximally fit and strong to be a good martial artist? I'm not looking to be a champion in competition.

I think fitness is important in martial arts and it is tested through the gradings - particularly the higher kyu and dan gradings. But is extreme fitness important? It strikes me that the more intensively and frequently that one trains in physical fitness the more likely one is to acquire chronic and disabling injuries. How does that help you to be a better martial artist?

Funakoshi did not think that extreme exercise was necessary and that just through the practice of karate one would gradually improve fitness and strength. He advocated practising karate in small chunks, little and often seemed to be his desired target. For Funakoshi karate was the ultimate form of self defence. He thought the main advantages of karate as a means of self-defence were: "no weapons are necessary, the old or sick, or women, are able to apply it; and one can protect himself effectively even with little natural strength" (quote from Karate-Do Kyohan p.13).

So why is there now a tendency towards more extreme physical training? Is it that people who indulge in this type of training are just passionate about achieving extreme physical fitness and that this is independent (though related) to their passion for martial arts? Or is this level of fitness really desirable for martial arts?

What do you think? Is 'optimal' fitness sufficient or should we all be striving for extreme fitness?

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