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Old 05-12-2008, 02:42 PM   #28
Chris Li
 
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Dojo: Aikido Sangenkai
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Join Date: Dec 2000
Posts: 3,313
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Re: Starting an all-women's class

Quote:
Jennifer Yabut wrote: View Post
Erm...why do I feel like I'm repeating myself? We're simply looking for another way to increase the number of female students.
I'm just not certain why it would be necessary to recruit students by gender, race or any other such characteristic.

Quote:
Jennifer Yabut wrote: View Post
I don't know if this is something you can understand as a male. Since most women tend to be "smaller" then their male counterparts, it can be rather daunting for them to practice techniques on someone twice their size. Yes, we *should* be able to practice with *any* person, regardless of size or gender. But sometimes, it *is* helpful to work with someone closer to your size. When I was learning koshinage, I tried to partner with someone closer to my size (male or female) as much as possible. Working with a big guy simply wasn't helping me with the general "form" of that particular technique. When I got a *little* better (seriously...my koshinage still sucks), I started taking on bigger guys, but it took some time for me to get to that point.
I'm quite a bit smaller than a number of the women that I train with (I average around 125 pounds), and I often train with people more than twice my size.

Quote:
Jennifer Yabut wrote: View Post
My whole point is that different people have different needs. What works for one person may not work for the next. We're just trying to access those who may not be "ready" to take on a "regular" class yet.
Hence, the beginner's class - but why segregate it?

Best,

Chris

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