What features does a class on fighting need to best serve women students?
This is an excerpt from the June 2018 House Lionesse panel on women's fighting. The panelists discuss how fighting classes can best include women students.
I've always felt that classes geared towards fighting shouldn't really have much of a difference for women, besides maybe the the briefest explanation about some of the body mechanics. Just very quickly that there isn't that much of a difference. I think it ties into other topics about encouraging female fighters in general. With classes the best way to serve the fighters is to make sure that you can find a way to encourage them to be there in the first place. And don't try to single them out! They're another fighter, there to learn the same stuff that everybody else is there to learn. There's not going to be enough of a difference to make a difference. And one of the biggest things is, if you hear anybody making comments about female fighters being different or any of that--just shut it down and make sure everybody knows that they're all there for the same reason. It's all equal, so you just have to make sure that they feel like they're included with everybody.
I think if you're gearing more for a female fighter, what could help is teaching more along the lines of--if you have a height issue, teach them how to close the distance, how to get in and do infighting. If it's a matter of strength, teach them how to get around those powered through shots, right? We're not gonna have the same hard-hitting thing to where we can just plow through those shots. We can go around those shots, we can do different things with blocking, getting in different angles and whatnot, using the strength in our legs, letting that help us with the distance. It's more along the lines of how a girl has to fight a guy differently then they might fight another woman.
Let them be an equal participant in that class. Treat them like the other fighters on the field, there's no difference in the folks that are there to learn and compete. But I would also say, speaking mostly from my time at SKBC, that in a lot of those fighting classes, I'm the only woman in those classes and a lot of these guys feel the need to prove that they are knowledgeable or they are good fighters. And they do that by talking a lot during the class or getting up to demo something and being like “I got this!” You know, there's a lot of posturing and trying to compete with each other to jockey for who's the best fighter out there. And that can be kind of intimidating to women students because now you have to compete just to be heard. So I would say, if you're teaching a class with women students, make sure that you're listening to what they're saying. If they feel comfortable enough to raise their hand and speak, take advantage of that! It's a different perspective, but also if they're trying to participate in this class and they don't feel like they're being heard or their opinions are being shut down--it's discouraging! And they may not want to move forward and compete or fight or participate in that area. I don't think that asking for special attention is correct, I don't think that's what I'm doing--but I'm saying that if you have a female fighter in there, make sure her voice is also being heard. If she's kind of quiet, maybe ask! “Hey, what do you think about this particular thing?” just letting her know that her voice is welcome.
