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Old 05-12-2005, 06:17 PM   #18
giriasis
Dojo: Sand Drift Aikikai, Cocoa Florida
Location: Melbourne, Florida
Join Date: Jun 2000
Posts: 823
United_States
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Re: Spreading this wonderful budo

Also Chris the other key word I used was "unwelcomed", so please don't quote me selectively to make a point. That one little, tiny, detail of a word put my point in agreement with yours not contrary. I agree with Janet regarding the soft-tissue injury and there is a whole definent creep factor going on here.

This goes back to the whole question of "how do we keep women in the dojo?" Need I remind you guys (yes, you men on this website) that you always ask, "why do women leave a dojo." This is one example why a woman leaves a dojo.

One example to help keep a woman in a dojo is do things such as: listening and believing what his ex-girlfriend said is true and that the line was crossed for her. Determining whether something crosses the line depends on the gut reaction of the person invovled. Intent and context is a big part of that, but intent does not have to be spoken actually, often it is not spoken. So we're still stuck with someone's gut reaction to the situation. If the situation felt wrong for her, it was wrong for her. Who are you to say what she can or can not feel? That gut reaction should be respected and that person should have an avenue of redress, which apparently she did not feel that she had hence her leaving the dojo and not wanting to talk about it. She should be respected enough where she feels comfortable talking to the head sensei or at least a sempai female in the dojo. And respected enough that the head sensei will actually attempt to bring a resolution to the situation. What kind of resolution will depend upon what the head sensei, who is hopefully unbiased, determines as appropriate. She should not be told that "she's just imaging it" or "she's misunderstanding the situation." These are dismissive comments. Instead, it should be "if you felt uncomfortable (validate her feelings), why not talk to sensei about it and do you want me to go with you?"(and suggest a way to address the situation) .

A sensei should know and needs to know that one of their students working on their behalf has a "creep" factor to him, whether malicious or not, and that this "creep" factor has the potential of crossing the line with some people, in this case a woman. He needs to know this so that he can watch out and make sure he doesn't cross the line -- again. It's real sh*ty that the woman in question felt that she couldn't even talk about it. Apparently, she tried to go back after the first incident but it happened again the second time she returned. I don't blame her, especially if she didn't feel like the dojo was addressing the issue appropriately enough. Maybe she won't talk about because someone in the dojo dismissed her concerns??? Perhaps they ignored her situation and just thought SHE was misunderstanding the situation. Maybe she felt like her concern could not be addressed in the dojo? Who knows? We don't. But, I bet you the original poster has a pretty darn good idea what happened and what is going on in his dojo. I'm sure he'll do a great job, as he has heard the first hand account of the situation, and he will figure out an appropriate response to the situation if not to the present on but to any future one as well.

Last edited by giriasis : 05-12-2005 at 06:19 PM.

Anne Marie Giri
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