men and women

[Rob Cavinii]

The women at our gym are always thankful because rolling with all people and all sizes gets them ready for tournaments. And its good for the guys because it humbles them a little when they tap to the women, teaching them to never under estimate others.

[Cora Sek]

We don't have any women at our gym for me to relate to this topic, but we do have girls. There are about 3 girls at our gym and Cora is one of them. Sometimes we would get new kids who come from other gym to train as a visitor who doesn't know who she is. They would blast through the rest of the girls and when they get to Cora, they thinking the same thing, ground and pound. They are always super aggressive with the girls, I guess in an effort to please their dad or something. One time this big boy who got about 20 lbs on her, came in and got her in a headlock. Cora was just chill rolling and didn't think he was going to be that aggressive. So he got a headlock on her and start grinding away on her face. I'm sitting there recording everything. Then Cora realize this dude is really taking it serious so she put her hand on his head and slam his head to the mat, took his back. He powers out of it and she rotate under him getting him in guard. Right away she put him in her rubber guard and I saw her grinding her elbow on his chest, not even trying to get to anything else. I know she was mad, so she just grind that elbow on his chest, the boy almost cried. Then her triangle came quick, she hooked his leg and just squeeze, release, squeeze, release, not trying to tap him out. She held him like that until time ran out. I have never seen her like that before. When it ended, the boy's dad yell at him...all I heard was "SHE's a GIRL!!!!" That boy ended coming back and from that day on, he doesn't put up much of a fight anymore when they roll. Its like she broke his spirit or something... What I learn is that, its not much of the kid's ego, its the parent's. Kids always want to impress their parents, even when its not good for them to do so.

[scottross]

I think that due to gender stereotypes it is not unusual, unfortunately, for new guys to feel uncomfortable rolling with women. If a guy confides that they have a problem rolling with women, ask why and deal with it based on their response.

If the objection is based on the idea that men aren't supposed to fight with women, that's a benign sort of bigotry that can easily be addressed. Personally, I have a sister who has a heavy right hook so I have never been bothered about it. Also, Felicia Oh kicked my ass when I was a white belt - not that I needed the reinforcement. Still, some of that attitude about women being the weaker sex might carry over. In that case, tell the guy that the class is a team and we all make each other better by working with each other from time to time - and that includes the women in the class.

If a guy said that rolling with women would not help him, um, you could still take the approach above. You might mention that under his logic, there's no reason for a blue belt to roll with him. You could also point out that since he's so big and strong, rolling with women presents a good opportunity for him to stress technique while rolling. Or if you have a girl or woman of Cora's caliber, have him roll with her and tell your ringer to apply pain as needed.

I think pulling back your strength when rolling with women is really only appropriate when you have a significant size advantage. I don't pull back because of the gender, I pull back because of size.

[Kurzy]

I don't see it as a binign sort of bigotry at all. If anything I think it is a natural tendancy towards chivalry.
I think it is ingrained in men that they should protect women, and rolling with them goes against our natural tendency to protect them from that sort of thing.
It's just a matter of coming to grips with (A) the fact that you are only practicing a martial art and (B) you might get submitted so let your ego be ready for that.

We have one actively attending woman at our club, she is a beginner, and I have rolled with her. She is catching on to Jiu Jitsu and if she keeps it up she will be great at it some day. I don't steam roll her at all, but that is not my style because I don't steam roll anyone ever. But I will roll her anytime she wants.
We both learn from it somehow.

[Rachael Kaulig]

You guys realize this is not a one way street, right? Do you think my ideal partner is a brand new, 130-lb dude? Nope. I am 5’ 9 ½”, 150#, and pretty strong “for a girl”. I train 4 days a week. There are many factors, and many reasons we do and do not want to train with certain people. I think it’s understandable we all want to be challenged in all our rolls, but it’s a total dickhead move to totally shun certain people. The bottom line is to be good partners and good teammates. I rolled with a thirteen year old, 103# girl last night… I just worked a specific tech that I want ace. It was win-win for both of us.

But I do have a story:
A few months ago a guy who had jits experience rolled into our gym. I didn’t/don’t know anything about him other than he was bigger, stronger, and he knew what he was doing. After tech we did round robin rolling (3-minutes rounds, non-stop but a new partner each round). He got paired with me first and actually visibly rolled his eyes at me when he was told he was my partner. (yep, that actually happened). It was game on from that point. We stayed pretty toe-to-toe but I had a good sweep and a couple sub attempts. The match ended in a draw. After class he came up to me and thanked me for the great roll. I hope he always remembers not to stereo type or underestimate.

[Nat Cummings]

wow... In my opinion they should leave martial arts behind right now. They need to check their ego at the door and realize that it isn't all about what "they" are getting out of it. What they are saying is the equivalent to eddie or marcelo refusing to roll with them because it would not benefit them as high level black belts.

this

[stevenbalmer]

The club I train at (Judo, no official jj around here) is almost half girls so everyone's pretty de sensitized to the issue the OP is having, but one thing your partners might not be realizing is how beneficial it can be for a girl to go against a guy who's significantly bigger than her. We have a green belt girl around 120lbs, and she's used to going against guys who are much taller and heavier than her (170lbs up thru 240). Last tournament only like 5 girls total showed up, and she got paired against a 208lb brown belt. I'm guessing the bigger girl thought it was gonna be an easy match, but our girl played competitively and was actually the more active combatant, eventually the bigger girl got visibly frustrated with our girl and got called for an illegal move and was disqualified from the match. Who knows what would have happened if our girl had only trained with girls her size, but I'm guessing she felt more comfortable going against this beast after having trained almost exclusively with larger guys.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCOHj9t-viE

[Isaac Atley]

I think that due to gender stereotypes it is not unusual, unfortunately, for new guys to feel uncomfortable rolling with women. If a guy confides that they have a problem rolling with women, ask why and deal with it based on their response.

If the objection is based on the idea that men aren't supposed to fight with women, that's a benign sort of bigotry that can easily be addressed. Personally, I have a sister who has a heavy right hook so I have never been bothered about it. Also, Felicia Oh kicked my ass when I was a white belt - not that I needed the reinforcement. Still, some of that attitude about women being the weaker sex might carry over. In that case, tell the guy that the class is a team and we all make each other better by working with each other from time to time - and that includes the women in the class.

If a guy said that rolling with women would not help him, um, you could still take the approach above. You might mention that under his logic, there's no reason for a blue belt to roll with him. You could also point out that since he's so big and strong, rolling with women presents a good opportunity for him to stress technique while rolling. Or if you have a girl or woman of Cora's caliber, have him roll with her and tell your ringer to apply pain as needed.

I think pulling back your strength when rolling with women is really only appropriate when you have a significant size advantage. I don't pull back because of the gender, I pull back because of size.

great points. ive always thought that people that arnt as good as you should be when you use perfect technique, they give you a chance to do everything a blackbelt should do etc. or to try out those new techniques that you cant catch anyone else in. people at the same level as you should be where you get the best rolls, a perfect mix of defending and attacking and as long as you have some experience then movement aswell. people better than you are the ones you learn from and probly learn to defend against. it doesnt bother me at all if the person is a chick or a dude. my trainer in hamburg was a girl and she could kill almsot everyone there. she was almsot scary >(in a good way)

I don't see it as a binign sort of bigotry at all. If anything I think it is a natural tendancy towards chivalry.
I think it is ingrained in men that they should protect women, and rolling with them goes against our natural tendency to protect them from that sort of thing.
It's just a matter of coming to grips with (A) the fact that you are only practicing a martial art and (B) you might get submitted so let your ego be ready for that.

We have one actively attending woman at our club, she is a beginner, and I have rolled with her. She is catching on to Jiu Jitsu and if she keeps it up she will be great at it some day. I don't steam roll her at all, but that is not my style because I don't steam roll anyone ever. But I will roll her anytime she wants.
We both learn from it somehow.

i think it would be as you said and being chivalry etc if we had any intention of hurting someone, i dunn about other people but if youre going in there to smash and hurt your training partners then i cant see you having any after a short time. to look at it another way if we teach them how to defend themselves properly is that not giving them a better chance of survival in the long run instead of expecting them to always have a man around to protect them?

You guys realize this is not a one way street, right? Do you think my ideal partner is a brand new, 130-lb dude? Nope. I am 5’ 9 ½”, 150#, and pretty strong “for a girl”. I train 4 days a week. There are many factors, and many reasons we do and do not want to train with certain people. I think it’s understandable we all want to be challenged in all our rolls, but it’s a total dickhead move to totally shun certain people. The bottom line is to be good partners and good teammates. I rolled with a thirteen year old, 103# girl last night… I just worked a specific tech that I want ace. It was win-win for both of us.

But I do have a story:
A few months ago a guy who had jits experience rolled into our gym. I didn’t/don’t know anything about him other than he was bigger, stronger, and he knew what he was doing. After tech we did round robin rolling (3-minutes rounds, non-stop but a new partner each round). He got paired with me first and actually visibly rolled his eyes at me when he was told he was my partner. (yep, that actually happened). It was game on from that point. We stayed pretty toe-to-toe but I had a good sweep and a couple sub attempts. The match ended in a draw. After class he came up to me and thanked me for the great roll. I hope he always remembers not to stereo type or underestimate.

cool story and fair point about the one way street.

[Tom Carbone]

At first, I said that i was really concerned about hurting some of the smaller females in class. During the first drill, where I had to put my hands on the ribs and posture up from guard, my partner grabbed her side and yelled out in pain. I thought I broke her ribs and I freaked out! She started laughing and said "if you're done being scared, could we start the drill?"

[DavidBaut]

You guys have been really helpful,I've talked to the guys about their, (what I call their discrimination) and put some of your insights into great use. Some have come around but others I think it's gonna take some time.