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Old 12-07-2011, 11:37 PM   #4
"Mali"
IP Hash: 7792792d
Anonymous User
Re: On being Female in an Aikido Dojo

Quote:
Anonymous User wrote: View Post
There's also the isolation. I hate when sensei tells everyone to find a partner of their size- I feel like everyone runs away from me. I hate how the males come out of the locker rooms laughing while I dressed out alone. I hate how techniques assume a male body. [Randomly] I also hate my frickin' gi. Thing is made for a guy- I have .7 waist and the thing feels like wearing at tent.

It grates on me. Most of the time I just tell myself I need to be better, to train harder, to put in more hours at home to smooth away rough edges and to work on reflecting on the lessons more.

Anyone else out there feel that way? I'm curious.
Well, I'm personally of two minds on this one. I'm used to being the only female in the dojo, or at least one of the few. Now that I have started Aikido, however, it seems we are close to a 50/50 split on men vs women. The difference is that a lot of the women ARE more fragile, weaker, and generally difficult to deal with when they are uke. I don't feel as though I am doing the techniques correctly, but they are taking the falls anyway. I generally prefer to partner with someone who not only has more experience, but also more size and strength because I feel like I *get* the technique much better..

That being said, the first few dojo classes I went to, I ran into this issue, but as the guys realized I wouldn't just 'give' them the techniques they relaxed in to working with me. If I were you, I'd probably try to talk about it with your Sensei. At our dojo we make sure that everyone has a two different partners for every technique and we make it a priority to work with someone different every single technique as well, if possible.

The gi is terrible though, I'm totally with you on that. I'm currently debating on whether or not I want to spent 40 bucks on just the gi pants from the Century line for women.

Finally, as for the guys coming out of the locker rooms laughing, well, it's what they do. It's easy to assume they are deliberately leaving you out, but I'm sure it's just a case of men not noticing what is going on around them. Either that, or I just have exceptional male students that I work with regularly that have already been beaten up by enough girls that they're used to it by now.
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