Poll: What percentage of your aikido dojo is female?

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AikiWeb Poll for the week of December 16, 2001:

What percentage of your aikido dojo is female?

I don't do aikido
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%

[michaelkvance]

A related but interesting question: what percentage of your yudansha are women? The discrepancy between percentage of mudansha vs. yudansha that are women seems alarming :/.

m.

[guest1234]

Well, I haven't peeked at the results lately, but the dojos I've visited seem to be about 10-15% female, so you'd expect say one in ten yudansha to be female. Probably a bit less, since women are generally smaller and so may get slowed a bit due to injury, and certainly childbirth. Since many dojos don't have more than ten yudansha, I wouldn't be surprised many dojos don't have female yudansha. I would think the larger ones might hold true to the 10% or so.

What I find disturbing at my present dojo is the skill of female kyus seems less than that of their male counterparts at the same kyu level. I hope it is not to encourage an 'affirmative action' like promotion of women.

As a woman, I'd prefer senseis not focus too much on if we are making it high enough, any more than they'd be asking 'are there enough African American yudansha'. If you want more women to start with, there are ways to work on that, but don't worry if there aren't many blackbelts.

[lt-rentaroo]

Hello,

At my dojo, we are about half & half. The majority of my students are children (I teach beginners classes for a Youth Center on an Air Force Base). There is another martial arts instructor (Kempo) on the base who has more students, but most are boys. It seems parents prefer that their little girls learn how to defend themselves in a less competitive and violent (no punching or kicking as defensive techniques) manner.

Works for me, I've found the girls listen better than the boys and learn the technique names quicker. The girls don't try to muscle their way through a technique either, instead they focus on proper form.

Also, there is nothing cuter than a six-year-old girl tossing her twelve-year-old brother on his butt in Kotegaeshi :)

p.s. The dojo I visit on a semi-regular basis is about half & half as well, with more women yudansha than men.