Re: On being Female in an Aikido Dojo
The advantage for women, in my opinion, is that they understand that they lack strength in comparison to most ukes. This is also the same weakness for the men in that they will use strength and fail to learn proper technique.
I entered my dojo when it had women in the upper kyu ranks. I even chose one as my personal sempai for test preparation, even though she is easily thirty pounds lighter. We have a couple of females at the brown belt level in both the kids and adult classes. Recently, one of the adults earned her first dan.
At dinner that night, my toast to her was that she gave a new meaning to the sexist comment, 'fight like a girl'. It will now mean, 'to use good form with conviction'.
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