I know I am opening a big can of worms for myself here as, once again, it’ll be a man explaining (predominantly) to other men about the problems of women and how WE should deal with it.
Hopefully the women who know me will understand where I’m coming from and those that don’t will just think I’m an arse, and there’s nothing to say they might not be right (just ask the women who do know me 🙂 ).
I will try to avoid talking about the things I will never have an understanding of as I will never experience them, I may not always succeed (but that’s men for you 🙂 )
When I first started
writing I seemed to be constantly having a pop at classical karate,
that was pretty much just me going through the process of reconciling
what I perceived to be problems with “traditional” training and
the direction I wanted to go. I still see those problems as existing
but they just are no longer MY problems.
These days I seem to
be much more frequently taking a pop at what I see to be developing
problems within applied karate. Not because they are endemic and wide
spread (although some may be well on the way) but because they have
the potential to become so if we don’t nip them in the bud.
As with everything I write, these are just random thoughts and opinions based on what I see going on, not the final word of authority (I am not that man 🙂 ).
This has been bubbling along in the background of my mind for some time now but was brought to a head by looking at the group photo of a recent seminar I ran and reviewing the video footage of some of the stuff I taught, and the comments I made with it.
My thinking is that, unlike classical karate, we have the potential for a problem that they don’t really have to face big is a “biggie” for us.
Although there may well be culture and attitude problems in many “traditional” dojo that need to be addressed they do have the luxury of a training style and syllabus that is eminently suited to teaching males and females of all sizes, builds and ages in a single methodology. There are some limitations obviously but by and large they can do this at a technical level without issue.
However, practical (or pragmatic or applied, what ever flavour you want to apply) doesn’t have that luxury.
If we are billing ourselves as “practical” we have to define for what. Everybody thinks that is easy, we just define it a “practical for use as the physical aspect of an overall self protection strategy”.
But this is where it immediately starts to fall down.
The problems and resolutions I need to practice as a 60+ year old man are not the same same problems and resolutions I would need as a 20 year old man.
We can tell ourselves that at the stage where things have turned physical then it’s all much the same but I don’t believe that to be true. I am unlikely to be attacked in the same way as a 20 year old because the context of the situations I will tend to find myself in will most likely be very different and so the precursors and triggers and actual attacks are also likely to be different (as with all these things, there will be obvious crossovers).
I would also say that as a 1.9m 105kg (6’3” 16.5st, post Brexit 🙂 ) man the techniques, entries and angles I would apply would be very different to those desirable for use by a 1.7m 55kg man. Things I can make work easily would be just impractical for a far smaller person as the laws of physics still take precedence over technique.
The argument could be made then that I should teach and train techniques based on what will work for the smaller person as, if it works for them, it’ll work for anybody.
The problem with that approach (as I see it obviously) is that it just isn’t true.
There are angles that, as a large person I cannot achieve, there are shifts and positions that are just never going to work for me because I am never going to get under some things, or into spaces that a smaller person would find easily, and of course the (literal) elephant in the room, size and weight are a massive advantage, why would I not train to maximise that advantage where possible and so negate my main weapon.
So from a point of view that good body mechanics and principles are universal, technique and strategy are not and need to be appropriate to the context.
There is no “one size fits all answer” in practical karate. So, you (try to) train in a variety of ways that suits everybody and just add the caveats where necessary.
So, after a very long detour where I talk about how difficult it is for men, lets get back to me expounding my views on women’s problems (and I am aware I am digging myself some big holes by playing devil’s advocate but sometimes someone has to to get the conversation going).
Just looking from a physical perspective to start with.
The first issue that I see is the tendency to treat women in a predominantly male environment as just being “smaller men” (this can work in a “traditional” environment but not so much in a practical one)
Just from a physiological standpoint this isn’t true.
Your structure is different to ours, particularly in the fundamental area of the hips, the balance of lower body to upper body muscle mass is (typically) different and so your points of balance will be different and the relative power generation potential will be different. The upshot is that to assume what works for a small man will work the same for a woman of the same height and weight is potentially not true.
Your adrenaline response curve is also significantly different to ours so the immediate “boost” under stress will not be available.
The next issue is to look at the focus of the material.
Even in the most sensible places I’ve trained the majority of the “practical” material is focused on, having failed to avoid the fight, how to pre-empt, survive, dominate and escape from the fight.
All good things but they come from the premise that if things go do wrong you are going to end up in a fight!
I could make up some numbers (or do the research 🙂 ) but my understanding is that the vast majority of women are never going to find themselves in a one on one fist fight with a man BUT 90% of the physical responses we teach them are based on the assumption that this is the context.
So while we are teaching sound fighting skills, which (don’t get me wrong) are good things to know, great for building confidence in your ability and just plain good fun, are they really “practical” in that context?
So, and I know this will cause a few hackles to rise but, being treated the “same” as the men is not the same as being treated “equally” to the men.
If you were being treated equally we would have a lot more focus on a broader set of situations and solutions in training.
This post if getting quite long now so I think time to take a breath and come back with a part two once the first part has been pulled to pieces 🙂
RedFish Applied Karate 