Women in the FMA

*raises hand*

I can remove spiders from the bathroom.

Can't pick up after myself, though.
I'm also a black belt in "not sharing the remote control"

 

Im not anti men
they have their uses


im not a militant feminist either, they can be just as bad as the pig headed men.

 

Aww, I had this lovely mental image of you in your dungarees, short hair, comfortable shoes, driving an 18 wheeler :love:

 

Calm down stickgirl, No, No, pleeeeese put that stick down, you said you are a much clamer person now. Think happpy happy thoughts :Angel:

 

Hello Stickgirl (nice name by the way).

I think you've labelled me as a sexist pig, I am not. I train with women and I encourage them and what not. Besides, once sparring starts, and the mask is pulled down, I can't really see who's under it ... woman or not. I wouldn't have time to look carefully anyway, I'd be distracted by the sticks flying all over the place. So what I'm saying is that I spar opponents, not men or women.
And I don't underestimate women's abilities. I evaluate the abilities of each opponent individually, it my experiece, the women are usually not as good fighters as the men. That's a fact. You said when you first started you were giggly and clumsy, as the stereotype would suggest? Well, when I first started I learned to wield my sticks in about a week - like the typical male stereotype maybe? See, on average most men are geared to combat, that's not to say women can't fight. They just have to make more changes. You had to make changes right? You had to un-giggle yourself right? There we go ... that's all I have to say ... so far

 

Most men have to un-ego themselves in order to become a good fighter right?

As a matter of fact we all have to un-something ourself when we first walk into a class.

Anyone male or female can learn to weild a stick in about a minute but to be able to know how to fight with one and master it's skills takes years. It took me one second to learn how to hit someone with a stick but years to master my stick combat skills, as a matter of fact I am still trying to master them everyday. A week to weild yes anyone can do that, a week to really know how to really fight with them no. Impossible!

 

I think you misunderstood me, Pat. All I was trying to say, was that the average man has to do less "un-somethinging" than the average woman.
Also, what I meant by the "it took me a week" statement was that men on average get used to the weapons more quickly than the women, on average.

And why is ego a bad thing? Ego has saved my ass many time before.

 

"Well, why did you not say!!! But, I beg still to differ".
I have found in my 15 years+ of teaching that it can take a person longer to learn something than another person regardless of gender. I have also found that if your attitude is that you treat all of your students the same and train them exactley the same they will progress at the same rate (this is based not on scientific fact but on actual real expeariance), therefore if you train a woman the same way as a man she will if trained properly fight the same unless his/her personality prevents it.

Again I beg to differ and again i know from personal expeariance, "if trained the same, they will perform the same".

I never said it was a bad thing, ego won me over 40 full contact titles (I won them for myself, not my club, instructor or country). You have to have an ego to acheive anything in life, but I have found for men to become good competitors/fighters, they have to un-ego themselves, meaning that they have to accept that defeat is a thing that can happen 50% of the time in each and every conflict, many men cannot accept the fact that defeat can and will happen at some stage, and I have found that the ones who think it cant happen all too often find that it happens quicker for them than it does for the rest, they then give up and sulk.

Cheers

Pat

 

And finally???

am I too late to join this debate? anyway here goes ...

Of course women should fight men in the FM arts - and any art for that matter if they want to....

surely - skill and fighting spirit are the two main attributes needed for competition? and in most arts I would guess this means there really should be no need for gender or weight categories? Categories start to exist when there are rules of engagement - it seems in the filipino arts there are generally less rules ?

in the Warriors Eskrima system (Institute of Filipino Mattial Arts - headed in the UK by Guro Krishna Godhania) several women have acheived apprentice instructor level (black belt) which has full contact sparring (as real as possible in modern society) with and without weapons as part of the syllabus and the black belt grading....

I might add that during the grading they fight any instructor who happens to be available and normally give a very good account of themselves. In one memorable grading my friend Ninette had to be dragged from one instructor who she was repeatedly punching in the head after taking him to ground - a real case of red mist!

As society moves forward and more and more women realise that opportunities exist for them to express themselves in sports and martial arts we will see the gap close between women and men. Look at how this has happened for example in athletics and marathon running. how many guys out there would bet on beating Paula Radcliff over ten or twenty miles?

Of course the "average" guy is bigger and stronger than the "average" girl but more and more exceptional ladies will join the Arts and continue to close the gaps and often overtake.

Take care everyone and lets hope we only use our arts where it's fun and not where it's needed.

Marcie

 

Well Put, could not have said it better myself

 

I agree with everything you said, except for the "gap closing". I see no change in the athletic records. The fastest man is still a whole second faster than the fastest woman.

 

Thank you Marcie!

I knew I could count on you to add some female FMA perspective to this discussion ..... (be sure to check out her web site !!!)

BTW .... Welcome to MAP!

 

You know, when I saw "Last Post by KickChick" I thought for sure this thread was closed. Or am I just predicting the future?

 

I take my moderating responsibilities a bit more serious than that my dear Scarlet.... (and I bet I am faster than you too !! )

 

You mean faster in terms of outrunning me, or faster in terms of out kicking me? ... Because I won't challenge you on either

 

And twenty or thirty years ago that 1 second gap wolud have t

Thanks for all of your supportive replies! However, Scarlet I still beg to differ on "except" bit!! Here goes....

And that one second gap twenty or thirty years ago would have been two three, four seconds. ...who knows?

The lady Golfer ( I forget her name, Laura something) competed with the men and came in the top ten I think...

And I can't think of any guy that would have been able to compete with Olga Corbett or Nadia Comeneczski (not sure about the spelling on that one) in thier gymnastic disciplines...

Torvill and Dean? Well half was female!

It's all about opportunity. My sister is a primary school teacher and she coaches touch rugby. The girls love it more than the boys. Ten years ago this would not have been available. Physical sports for girls were not encouraged. Women generally grew up with little or no chance of expressing themselves physically or developing much co-ordination. In the sixties and seventies it was the boys who learnt to drive cars at seventeen and not the girls. That's why there aren't yet many female rally drivers or racing drivers. The opportunity then wasn't taken as it is now.

Lets have another debate in fifty years. I may have stopped doing Martial Arts by then and just be walkng up mountains, after all, I'll only be 94. But I'll be proven right on this one

 

Women train just as hard as men in athletics, and yet the men still run faster. There is a genetic limit, and you can't break it unless you alter your genes. As for the female golfer competing and coming in the top ten, you think ... that's just grabbing at straws the way I see it. It seems that the only sports that are not male dominated are those that have separate divisions for men and women ... which explains why almost all sports have separate divisions.

 

Let's make some "fair" comparisons here now!

Certainly you would think that the very best male sprinter would be faster than the top most female.

Leroy Burrell, who stands 6 feet tall, currently holds the men's world record for 100 meters at 9.85 seconds, which turns out to be a velocity of 5.55 heights per second.
Now, Florence Griffith-Joyner, who stands 5'6-1/2' tall, holds the women's world record for 100 meters with a time of 10.49 seconds, which is a speed of 5.64 heights per second. Using fair velocity comparisons (in heights per second, not meters per second), the fastest woman in the world is almost 2 per cent faster than the quickest man!

I can give you some other studies which support the idea that women are equal to or better than men as long as fair comparisons are made.

But we're not discussing "sprinting" here.... and that is why I invited Marcie here to discuss her experience as a female involved in FMA.

 

yeah, and midgets could slam dunk if they were bigger...
*holds head in hands at nonsense being spouted*

"Congratulations, Mr. Smith - you're the worlds fastest man - in the category of asmatic couch potato. If you were fit and fast you'd be awesome! Here's your gold medal."

1) maybe someone should read about the law of diminishing returns...
2) How come shaq isn't the worlds fastest man if height and not gender is the determinant?
3) are midgets really the worlds best basketballers?
4) There are 5' men that can run the 100 a fraction of a send slower - that doesn't bode well for women, does it..
5) If I could hop the 100 in 18 secs, would that make me the worlds fastest man?

I'm just poking fun at this spurious logic, that's all

having said that, everyone can do everything, its the journey not the destinantion and all MA's are equal.

 

My Dear Scarlet

Which bit didn't you understand ? Oh I see... all of it!

No grasping at straws from me - the lady golfers' achievement that I couldn't remember exactly was because I just thought it was unremarkable when I heard about it!

Top climbers and mountaineers are more examples - the top free climbers seem to be women, Alison Hargreaves was as good a mountaineer as any man - she summitted everest without oxygen and very quickly .... Female mountaineers 50 years ago - No I don't think so!

I assure you it is about opportunity and development and as I said the gap is closing and will continue to do so. Genetics? well as women develop (and I guess evolve too) they may even overtake men...

....and Scarlet my dear if you don't believe it then Frankly I dont give a damn!

Take care train hard and remember this famous quote:

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.