Post: #26

Sounds like a great way to wind up in a jail cell.

Aloha!

Post: #27

I have sparred with women quite some times in both BJJ and Kickboxing, fairly easy in the later, just a leg flying over her head is enough for her to be in check. In BJJ quite honestly it was the worst thing that could happen to me in practice, even rolled with girls whose boyfriends where my training buddies...sick.

Post: #28

When I was in my teens, I participated in a martial arts tournament in order to earn a spot on my school's demo team. As it turned out, one of my opponents wound up being a girl. I didn't really want to fight her, but I wanted to be on the team, so I didn't have much choice. I knew if I went hard, I'd look like an asshole, but if I went easy on her, she'd come after me with everything she had -- and I certainly wasn't going to risk the embarrassment of losing to a girl.

About ten-to-twenty seconds into the match, I hit her in the solar plexus and knocked the wind out of her. After that, she started crying and the match was over. At first, I felt a little guilty for making her cry, but then reminded myself she chose to compete. Thankfully, I never had to spar another female after that.

Post: #29

Depends on the martial art, depends on the girl, depends on the guy rolling with her, and it depends on your attitude.

I'm a BJJ guy so I'll limit my comments to that.

BJJ is one of those martial arts where superior technique, especially in the kimono, can trump a strength differential to a degree.

There are some LEGIT female BJJ players, and they tend to be quite technical precisely because they can't rely on strength.

Being tough doesn't make you technical and being technical doesn't make you tough.

Personally I love rolling with women who have decent baseline technique.

You can relax and flow, try new things, give up positions, get different reactions and have a play.

Plus women smell so damn good.

Most of the girls I've rolled with have a pretty humble attitude but there was one girl I rolled with who had a very nasty attitude.

She was a good purple belt who competed a lot and had really good technique.

She was American and had a perpetual scowl and sneer on her face and in everything she said.

We got partnered up for a roll and went after me like it was the Worlds and tried to kill me.

So instead of playing her game, I just knee barred her.

So what did she do?

She flipped the fuck out!

Whining about leg attacks being dick moves and how you can't do knee bars at purple belt (give me a fuckin break).

She looked to the instructor, who could give a shit haha.

Basically she was all about rolling hard until somebody whooped her ass.

Truly, a lot of dudes have this attitude too, like "hey, you can't do that!" even though whatever you did to beat them was a perfectly legal and legitimate move.

Ours is an MMA gym and so we're big on head fast passing, grinding, crossfacing the shit out of people and basically making dudes as uncomfortable and out of breath as possible so they give up a position or submission.

But then when you roll with guys from a BJJ only gym and do some of that stuff they get pissy attitudes because they have their own idea of what 'legit' bjj looks like.

I used to have a problem with women in jiu jitsu but over time I've changed my opinion.

It's very much a matter of your own perspective because you can learn new shit from everybody including white belts and girls, and wrestlers, and sambo players, and aikido dudes (wrist locks FTW).

In terms of checking bad attitudes, I treat men and women the same.

On the mat we're all just a bunch of assholes in a bathrobe and if you act like a jerk somebody WILL humble you.

How you respond to that is completely up to you.

oss

Post: #30

I´ve trained few times with girls. I think it´s nonsense to analyse this. The purpose of sparing doesn´t have to be winning over opponent. It can be letting each other try going into different positions. And that´s what you do.
I even see advantage in this. When you fight, you use strenght and I must say I am strenght-type and use strenght as my main tool. But if you do sparing with a girl (or guy with really low weight), I totally have to abandon strenght-side of fight and that´s when I can focus on technics the most.

But I would never think about winning/losing in this case.


I realized that first time I met my girlfriend was at sparring in MMA gym (few years before we met and got together). We both don´t train anymore, but I was focused on BJJ, while she on stance. So if I don´t use any power, she would probably be much better and faster in stance. But I could knock her out with one hit of course.

Post: #31

Technically skilled and undoubtedly courageous as some girls are, they have no business trying to be fighters - the idea is fundamentally ridiculous. I had to 'spar' with one once or twice, and it was a complete waste of my time - I couldn't stop laughing at the absurdity of it, it was like playing with a kitten with a piece of string. Pretty quickly my coaches stopped asking me to do it. I think they recognised how absurd it was, but they had bills to pay so they kept quiet.

The difference between sparring a 130lb girl, and a 130lb guy is night and day. I know some 130lb dudes who can give much bigger guys a very bad day in the ring. I've been in with one of the top 130lb girls in the UK, who boxed out of one of my old clubs, and I more or less just stood there and laughed whilst she hit me and got more and more pissed off. I wouldn't have dreamed of doing that with a 130lb dude.

Personally I think sparring a girl is a total waste of time, and it takes you completely out of the right mindset. The few times I did it I didn't feel like a fighter, or a guy training to be a fighter, I felt like the patsy in a social experiment, or some bizarre circus act where everyone is in on the joke except you.

Post: #32

I have yet to spar with a female and not gone into child play mode. There was one who was technically sound enough to put up a fight when I rolled far below half strength. but even then it was always defense until I would give up weak positions so I'd have something to work out of to stay entertained.

Like someone else mentioned, it's good for them to have a level of comfort when faced with the difference in strength. but more often than not for the dude, it's not the best use of time.

Post: #33

In my experience the only person benefitting from sparring across sexes is the woman. It's good for them in terms of self defense but I don't think it prepares them to fight other women. Ive never seen a woman and man spar where the man wasn't pulling punches.

Also side note, the "she's hot" hype surrounding Rhonda Rousey is garbage.

Post: #34

My boxing coach gets us to spar a girl from time to time when said girl is preparing for a comp. I don't have to do this anymore as there are newbie guys who do the job. The rule is that we will almost exclusively use the jab and defense. Ive sparred two, one a state champion, the other a national medalist. While they're technically good, they have no speed or power, it's like fighting in slow motion for me, and I'm just a novice level amateur competitor.

One time one of the girls was coming at me too hard and ignoring all the very light jabs I landed repeatedly on her as a warning. Normally she's supposed to reset and try to come from another angle plus be more defensively responsible. After a bit of nonsense, I decided to throw a light right hand on her and stun her right away. Since then, and after seeing me hit the heavy bags and other guys (I have a rather heavy and pretty good right cross), she has realised exactly how much stronger men are and how we're holding a lot back against girls. She's actually a lot less cocky now and a better boxer as a result.

I agree with cascadecombo, it always benefits the girls, but not the best use of time for us.