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Old 08-15-2000, 11:29 AM   #8
ScottyC
Location: Indianapolis, IN, USA
Join Date: Jul 2000
Posts: 17
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Hmmm... Let's start off by saying that I don't believe I tain differently with women than I do with men.

Now having said that, I must admit that I vary my training with _every_ person I work with. That seems pretty "aiki" to me.

Uke's size? Yeah, that makes a difference, depending on what you're doing. Does it make any one size *preferable* to another? Nope. Different, yes. Preferable, no. You need to execute techniques differently on a 6' 6" 300lb person differently than on a 4' 11" 100lb person. And, in general, women tend ON AVERAGE to be smaller than men. So, ON AVERAGE, MANY women may be treated differently than MANY men. But not necessarily due to their gender.

Other factors are equally important, though. Are you training with a newbie? Depending on the personality of the newbie (which you simply have to judge on a case-by-case basis), you may need to work with them "with kid gloves" until their confidence builds up and they feel more comfortable in the situation.

On the other hand, some newbies need to feel some of the power (for lack of a better word) to understand the potential and to be motivated to stay.

There are a zillion other factors, of course: uke's experience, your perception of uke's abilities, any prevailing injuries, how tired you and uke are, etc.

None of these factors (IMHO) are based on whether uke is male or female. However, I have an unsupported belief that if you took a statistical sampling, one would find that ON AVERAGE women tend toward a certain set of behaviors, and men tend toward another.

Neither is "good" nor "bad". Anything taken to an extreme can be bad. Furthermore, there are enough people who do NOT fit this theoretical statistical sample to make it useless to try and prejudge people into neat little categories.

Train with people of all types and flavors. You can learn a lot from working with different types of people. Worst case, you get practice "blending". Best case, you can even learn a lot more.

Thus endeth the sermon. ;^)


Scott

ObNonAikido: Hi, Jun. I'm back!
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