The most badass women I know, all do martial arts.
Usually, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Not because BJJ has the market cornered on badass women. It just happens to be what I do three nights a week. In my school of about fifty students, only four or five are women. These women are typically smaller than 90% of their classmates. They also spar against men 90% of the time.
And guess what? Some are consistently more skilled than me. They’ll tackle me, smash me, and strangle me. They might get annoyed when they think I’m “going light” on them. I’ve had women scold me after sparring.
“What the *bleep* was that?”
“Sorry, just a little tired.”
I’m met with a frown and a head shake. The message is clear. Don’t go easy on me Louie.
It illustrates a fundamental idea: these women aren’t interested in sympathy wins. They don’t want a false sense of security. Their bullshit detector is well calibrated. They know the realities of being undersized, and despite their skill, being physically overpowered from time to time is part of life on the mats.
These women are extraordinary, in part because they’re so seemingly normal. None of them would call themselves pro-athletes. They have jobs and families. They’re no less “feminine” than any other woman. They can put on heels and makeup and be girly. But I know in all likelihood, they would wreck a potential assailant. Because I basically am that potential assailant every night. Me and about thirty other guys.
I’m not a big believer in “women’s self-defense courses.” I’ve seen lots of permutations. The weekend workshop. The seven-day course. The one where a guy in a suit attacks you. The one where you sit in a circle and do a lot of talking before hitting pads for thirty minutes. They will likely have that moment where the instructor tries to frighten you or provoke you into shouting “No!” and palm striking him in the face. Everyone wants to explain to you why their course is different. But the bottom line never changes: the women in these classes don’t strike me as anywhere close to the confidence and ability as the ones in my “regular class.”
I also get conflicted when I see instructors redirect women from the regular class into a women’s only class. I worry it creates a perception that there is a “real” class where the serious (mostly men) train, and a “women’s class” with a watered down version of martial arts.
The idea of a special women’s class seems like a good idea on paper. It’s true, women have a different set of considerations than men in self-defense. Why not make a class to address that? Create a supportive environment amongst other women, teach them the most relevant and direct self-defense moves, take some time to talk to them about victimhood. Maybe some light to moderate drills. They take a group photo, they leave feeling “empowered”. The key word is “feeling.”
Sometimes I feel like the people paying for these seminars are paying to feel good about themselves. On some level, I think they know it too. At the end of the day, it’s all staged. Even if an instructor “attacks” you to provoke a reaction, it’s theater. He’s not going to hurt you, you just paid him money. Instructors are going to make sure you leave feeling good about yourself. Whatever brief discomfort they put you in, they are not going to take your money, show you the harsh reality of trying to fight someone twice your size and send you home demoralized.
Who benefits the most? Probably the instructors. They make some money, but they get to play psychologist for an hour or two. Too many instructors take their martial arts credentials and try to extend them into areas they are completely unqualified for. Some are advertising themselves as experts on something as complex as rape psychology, which professionals go to school for years to learn.
Maybe it’s not the individual ideas that are wrong, but the larger premise. That you can learn self-defense, even at the basic level, with minimal time and discomfort. That you won’t have to get your hands dirty and your ego hurt. I don’t think it’s possible. No more than you could get good at any discipline in hours when everyone else spends years.
I’m not saying it’s all a scam. Most teachers offer these classes because, quite frankly, they feel like they have to. Women’s self-defense classes are becoming a mandatory box to check for schools. Just as instructors who don’t like kids feel pressure to have a kids program, they also feel like they should have a women’s self-defense program.
But unlike the kids class, teaching grown adults, each with their own history, about things as serious as rape defense is a whole different ballgame. There are real stakes for these people. Having a black belt might not be enough to prepare you for that.
So what’s the solution? Why not let your instructor stick to what they’re good at: teaching you their martial art. And for that, you should go to the regular class.
The everyday classes. No promise of quick results, or even that you’ll feel terrific on the way out the door. It’s advertised as a long-term commitment, not a crash course. If women really want to learn to protect themselves, they’ll have to do what everyone else does: invest the time and energy to train.
I won’t lie, it will be harder if you’re a woman than if you’re a man. You’ll be mainly training with men. On average, they’ll be bigger and stronger than you. Some of them won’t be sure how to treat you. Some will go too easy on you. Others will go too hard. You’ll need to get in decent shape. If you do a grappling art like Brazilian jiu-jitsu (which of course, I’d recommend!), your personal space will be invaded. You’ll have sweaty men uncomfortably close to you, often on top of you.
But I promise you, if you stick with it, you’ll get desensitized to all of these things. A victory in and of itself. Just wait until you start sparring with a guy off the street in his first class. You’ll take him down with a single leg and mount him as he flails wildly, heaving big breaths. You’ll climb on his back and choke him out, thinking to yourself, wow, that was easy.
Do that enough times, and you’ll get a special kind of confidence. The kind you can’t get from a few hours on a Saturday. It’s the confidence of experiencing a lot of defeat, followed by a lot of triumph against people who were legitimately doing everything they could to stop you. More than empowerment, it’s experiencing real, demonstrable results over and over. Knowing your limits but, also your upper limits.
Take the long road and get yourself in the regular class.
He runs a site called HighPercentageMartialArts.com, dedicated exclusively to statistics in martial arts.
He wrote a book about fanaticism in martial arts, called The True Believers.
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Great post! I totally agree. The pop psychology and limited training offered in those womens’ self defense classes is no substitute for the “real” thing. Even worse, many women will most likely take one single seminar and assume that they’re good when it comes to self defense in a real situation. That kind of thing needs to be trained consistently!
I couldn’t agree more. Whenever I am paired with another female during a self defense portion of class, I always wonder if it will work on someone who outweighs me. Oftentimes, when that happens I will ask one of the big guys to stay after so I can try it on him. Only after I do that do I really feel confident in a particular technique (and it doesn’t work 100% of the time.)
I agree to a certain extent. What I mean is, those self-defense seminars are NOT long enough to teach anyone the muscle memory needed to use the techniques months after class has ended when something bad is about to go down. However, I think those limited-time sessions are good as a way to get women INTERESTED in the ongoing class. Instructors should be up front and say, “Three sessions (or however many there are) are NOT long enough for you to gain the reflexes you will need. However, we do have this ongoing class…”