happysod

Hanna,

Firstly, you were the one who brought up gender as part of the problem, was I meant to ignore that part of your query?

Your second point about "women always handle this the wrong way..." on re-reading my own reply, I can see how it would come across that was, which wasn't fully my intent. What I was meaning, which IanD so eloquently put, is that, despite ideals on society, there are often different ways in which the two sexes are taught to comport themselves.

In respect to the dominance issues, we all get them and from what I've seen in the dojo when it's between a young man and a women of equal or greater grade the problem does get exacerbated because women often take a more conciliatory role which is unfortunately deemed as a weakness by many young men. There is no true "fault" on either side, just a mis-translation of signals.

I've also had this happen to me on occasion (being a short unprepossessing man). Simple politeness, both within the dojo and outside the dojo can be misconstrued as a weakness. However, I've learned and what works (for me at any rate) is to go for a single strike-out rule and if a student starts telling me what to do (and they're either wrong or just unnecessarily verbose) stomp on it there and then. Any attempt to change it politely is futile, you can always draw back from this harsh a position later on.

With regards to your last example, I'd have to say congratulations actually. The young man in question had accepted you as a "true opponent" and was seeing how far he could get - should have dumped him on his arse as quickly as possible then apologised to the sensei if you felt the need.