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Old 01-30-2005, 02:03 PM   #6
giriasis
Dojo: Sand Drift Aikikai, Cocoa Florida
Location: Melbourne, Florida
Join Date: Jun 2000
Posts: 823
United_States
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Re: Women and Everybody Else in Aikido

Quote:
Everyone needs to be brought along in ways which support their own requirements. Not just using a cookie cutter approach which worked with small groups of exceptionally tough males in Japan.
Ledyard Sensei,

I'm glad your addressing this issue as it is very important to me. But the quote above is key. I like to be treated according to my own individualities and I believe one can easily as much pigeon hole people into "train women like this and train men like that" as easily it has in the past as "train young Japanese men like this." I made a rather lenghty response over in AikidoJournal http://aikidojournal.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6752 I won't repeat it here, but I have questions, is the answer really changing the ranking structure or is it to truely delve within our own psyches' as well? For the most part the problems I have faced are not really a result of "gender disparities" but dealing with jerks in general. I am well aware of the differences at least organizationally, but how much of that difference is really related to a conflict of cultures rather than just gender bias in general? Because for the most part my experience is quite similar to the man's experience?

Anne Marie Giri
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