gender advantages

[seijuro_hiko]

Im not very experioenced with kendo as people may have guessed fom my other posts.. I was just wondering if anyone had noticed any specific gender advantages and disadvantages i should look out for when sparring? ie: iof i know that it hurts alot to hit a girl somewhere i will try to avoid it. But all the same if i know that girls are slowed, at say, swings but faster with footwork i will avoid trying to dodge more often when sparring with them.
:cyclops:

[ghostdancer]

beat advice is to ignore the "gender difference "
cos against a experienced female kendoka you will get your arse handed to you on a plate if you give them an inch
also treating a female kendoka in a differant manner because of their gender could be seen as disrespectful
one of my instructors is female, she barely comes up to my chin and i out weigh her by probably 30 kilos i only tried to get "physical" once bad mistake. real bad mistake got a bit of a slap and no mistake
just treat them how you want to be treated and all will be fine

[Kitsune]

I agree with that, in kendo and other martial arts better ognore gender difference.

[mingshi]

We are still waiting for a lady who claims to self-taught or learn from Grandmaster Hattori.

Bet the girls are better at their disguise technique in ninjitsu.

[tango]

beat advice is to ignore the "gender difference "
cos against a experienced female kendoka you will get your arse handed to you on a plate if you give them an inch

WITNESS!!!!!!!

[Kenzan]

From my meager experience, we have several females in our Dojo that not only have the ability to dominate matches with men, but do it well in competition.
If anything, perhaps lesser degrees of rage inducing and therefore focus reducing testosterone levels may be an advantage for female Kendoka.
Regardless, they are indeed a force to be reckoned with.

[tango]

Im not very experioenced with kendo as people may have guessed fom my other posts.. I was just wondering if anyone had noticed any specific gender advantages and disadvantages i should look out for when sparring?

In my experience, there is no real advantage or disadvantage, except...

ie: iof i know that it hurts alot to hit a girl somewhere i will try to avoid it.

THAT is a girl's advantage and a guy's disadvantage.... when guys try to avoid this or that in keiko with a girl because they think "I'll hurt the girl"...

I had my ass handed to me by a girl at my first 3.dan testing.
I've only faced one girl in competition (SEUSKF Arai-sensei's daughter several years ago)... and the match lasted a lot longer than I wanted it to because I was holding back, basically for the same reason that you mention (don't hurt the girl). Wasted a lot of energy because of that in the first match of the round-robin. Not good.

I think you fight girls a certian way, depending on what level you (and she) are... 1.dan and under level .. ehh... just be clean with technique and don't bully them around with major taiatari, etc.
2.dan... ehhhh.... can get a little more physical. Have to be cautious with 2.dan girls...
3.dan+ --- all bets off. Kill them. Quickly. Because they WILL kick your ass and not think twice about it. They will debana kote and nuki dou while you're still thinking, "Hey, I got paired with a ..." ***THWACK!!**** "...chick!"

[Paikea]

WITNESS!!!!!!!Seconded...

[Neil Gendzwill]

Im not very experioenced with kendo as people may have guessed fom my other posts.. I was just wondering if anyone had noticed any specific gender advantages and disadvantages i should look out for when sparring? ie: iof i know that it hurts alot to hit a girl somewhere i will try to avoid it. But all the same if i know that girls are slowed, at say, swings but faster with footwork i will avoid trying to dodge more often when sparring with them.
:cyclops:I suggest you stop thinking about how you're going to spar and concentrate on a) getting your ass into a dojo and b) learning basics. You're unlikely to face this problem for 6 months or more, as that's how long it takes before you typically start wearing armour.

[Obukan_dude]

Seconded...
I'll be the third witness...

[cesarekim]

SNIP 2.dan... ehhhh.... can get a little more physical. Have to be cautious with 2.dan girls...
3.dan+ --- all bets off. Kill them. Quickly. Because they WILL kick your ass and not think twice about it. They will debana kote and nuki dou while you're still thinking, "Hey, I got paired with a ..." ***THWACK!!**** "...chick!"

Right before my 3dan shinsa, I decided to warm up with some jigeiko. While I was waiting for my dojo-mate, a short girl who practices in Florence asked me to do some geiko to warm up. I of course said yes. There I stood at my towering 5'6" over this girl who is about 5' and 90 lbs. We squared off, looked at each other for about 10 seconds as we were in shinsa mode. I started to do seme and she WACKED me across the head... She proceeded to warm her shinai up very nicely on my kote and men for 30 seconds as I stood there like an ass looking confused.

Forget about gender differences. Square off and try to get the first point. After that, you can worry about whether she is a girl or not....

BTW, she passed and so did I.

[seijuro_hiko]

thanks guys. I just like to know as much as i can before i go doing ahything stupid. i never underestimate girls because i have had my as handed to me on one occasion by them.. but that wasnt with a sword. I just didnt know if i had an etiquette to follow or something. Atleast now i know not to treat them lightly and to go all out in sparring no matter who it is lol. Why is it always the short ones that kick but?!

[Masahiro]

to put ur query to an end for once and for all Seijuro, what's the difference in advantage between boys and girls in kendo?

we have one more "stick" than they do, but we are not allowed to use that "stick" on the court, so... where does that get us? no where. hahahahhaha.

if they are really pretty girls, you risk the chances of just staring at their pretty face under the men. (even if they are screaming at you) all you will be thinking is.. "awww. kawaii... " and then *BAM* ... men uchi. hahahahaha.

[Alison2805]

thanks guys. I just like to know as much as i can before i go doing ahything stupid. i never underestimate girls because i have had my as handed to me on one occasion by them.. but that wasnt with a sword. I just didnt know if i had an etiquette to follow or something. Atleast now i know not to treat them lightly and to go all out in sparring no matter who it is lol. Why is it always the short ones that kick but?!

Get your butt into one of the Perth dojos. It will be a while before you are good enough to "spar", but us girls will be waiting :silly:

[kartoffelngeist]

I suggest you stop thinking about how you're going to spar and concentrate on a) getting your ass into a dojo and b) learning basics. You're unlikely to face this problem for 6 months or more, as that's how long it takes before you typically start wearing armour.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Neil Gendzwill again.

[seijuro_hiko]

what do you mean kartoffelngeist?

[kartoffelngeist]

I was expressing my agreement with what Neil said and the way he said it.

[tango]

I really hesitate to resurrect this thread from 3 days ago, but I want to share my experience from this past weekend and maybe it will make some folks think about this issue.

During team competition at the SEUSKF tourney, I was fighting as Fukusho.
I faced a woman I didn't recognize and had no idea of her rank. Anyway, it was our third match at that point and I was pretty stiff (... had been all day, for that matter, and my kendo was really uncharcteristically sloppy (IMO)).
I scored debana kote right off the bat.
After that, everything really went downhill.
I tried to follow up immediately with a men and at taiatari, the woman went down. Honestly, I was not trying to barrel over her, but regardless, she went down. After knocking her down, I felt that I had to be very careful not to do it again..
I will offer no excuses for not being able just to try and score cleanly and move on.. (excuses just don't matter at this point).. but I just couldn't manage it.

anyway, I didn't want her to fall down again, but at the same time, I didn't want to start changing my kendo either because I felt I would make a real mistake and permit her to capitalize on that. I didn't want to attack and then stop moving just to prevent taiatari.

She wound up going down 4 times before time expired. I don't know if that may have affected the judges (all of whom I respect greatly -- Ryoko Barr, Phoang Hoang, and Yutsuki Hoang), but I can certainly understand it if it did.
I don't much care for kendo brutes. I don't consider myself a brute, but I realize that I really looked like one on Saturday..

I apologized to the woman after the match and she seemed ok with it.
I'm also very glad that she also scored a clean point against me, so the match wound up a tie. I really didn't want to lose the match, but, after she fell 2 times, 3 times, 4 times, I'm not so sure I wanted to win it either.

I must say that I really didn't like the whole experience.

[lucy]

I'm sorry, I'm really not qualified to say anything valuable, but the way you told the story and everything I think you did just fine.

You didn't push her down on purpose, you apologized afterwards, so I think it should be okay. Nevertheless, I can understand that it wasn't a nice experience.

Maybe she also had a "sloppy" day, just like you.

[Solinde]

It's all part of the game, isn't it? If you're not prepared to be knocked over, then don't enter shiai. Since she did, she probably was prepared to knock over. Maybe not four times, but she got an apology. Not much to talk about, I'd say.

I, being 162 cm, would love to be able to do brutish kendo. :silly:

[Neil Gendzwill]

She wound up going down 4 times before time expired. I don't know if that may have affected the judges (all of whom I respect greatly -- Ryoko Barr, Phoang Hoang, and Yutsuki Hoang), but I can certainly understand it if it did.Why don't you ask Barr-sensei if she felt you were being overly rough, or if there was a way you could have played it better? She would certainly bring a good perspective to it, having judged the match and all.

[tango]

Neil
-- good point, I didn't think to ask about it after the match, but I probably would not have done so even if I had thought about it because we were in a situation where we'd finish a match and then have to shimpan the subsequent match... and the Hoangs and Barr-sensei were all on teams that were still in competition at that point.. so I wouldn't have wanted to distract them at all.
(On top of that, our team still advanced, so, I don't think it would have been that great of an issue worth pursuing)..

But still, you bring up a good point. I may try to write all three of them for some input after the fact and see what they say.

Thanks for commenting..

[runsyi]

I really hesitate to resurrect this thread from 3 days ago, but I want to share my experience from this past weekend and maybe it will make some folks think about this issue.

During team competition at the SEUSKF tourney, I was fighting as Fukusho.
I faced a woman I didn't recognize and had no idea of her rank. Anyway, it was our third match at that point and I was pretty stiff (... had been all day, for that matter, and my kendo was really uncharcteristically sloppy (IMO)).
I scored debana kote right off the bat.
After that, everything really went downhill.
I tried to follow up immediately with a men and at taiatari, the woman went down. Honestly, I was not trying to barrel over her, but regardless, she went down. After knocking her down, I felt that I had to be very careful not to do it again..
I will offer no excuses for not being able just to try and score cleanly and move on.. (excuses just don't matter at this point).. but I just couldn't manage it.

anyway, I didn't want her to fall down again, but at the same time, I didn't want to start changing my kendo either because I felt I would make a real mistake and permit her to capitalize on that. I didn't want to attack and then stop moving just to prevent taiatari.

She wound up going down 4 times before time expired. I don't know if that may have affected the judges (all of whom I respect greatly -- Ryoko Barr, Phoang Hoang, and Yutsuki Hoang), but I can certainly understand it if it did.
I don't much care for kendo brutes. I don't consider myself a brute, but I realize that I really looked like one on Saturday..

I apologized to the woman after the match and she seemed ok with it.
I'm also very glad that she also scored a clean point against me, so the match wound up a tie. I really didn't want to lose the match, but, after she fell 2 times, 3 times, 4 times, I'm not so sure I wanted to win it either.

I must say that I really didn't like the whole experience.

I had something like this happen to me during my ikkyu shinsa. I was paired with two guys for my jitsugi and got knocked flat on my ass. But I didn't think it was because he did "brutish kendo." Rather it was because I made a rather slow and big men cut and he was able to get under and push up, and because my footwork was sloppy. He felt really bad and apologized to me twice though.

I think the difference between kendo brutes and guys who are having an off day is discernable.

[Inner_Silence]

its really strange... fore some reason i always have to take good care when practice-fight with girls...
for instance, im kind of kyu captain, generally when someone is distracted in class i dont have much trouble, just have to say something or just touch a shoulder of the guy/girl that is distracted to get them to play attention of the sempai... but sometimes (really rare cases) ppl just don get it, so if is a guy you just have to say "hey!! play attention" a little strong (not shout) and problem solved, but it kind of happened that doing the same to some girls tend to hurt feelings, and of course is not the intention.
i remember once, practicing in another kendo group, but i know all of them from like about a couple of years coz i used to train with them, so we where all friends. it happened that day their sempai couldnt go and he left me the program of the class and got me in charge that day, and everything went nice, in fact i allways try to be as polite as i can, but after class, girls said that i was too strict (becouse i was always sayng to do it fast, futarikumi fast, keep them concentrated on class and not ouside... etc), in the other hand, the guys liked that class. it was very weird. coz that time i was kind of less than half strict of what my sempais are with me...

y asked one of my sempai about this (i got 3 sempai, one is in japan right now, the other one is my "boss sempai instructor", and the another one is kind of my tecnical director and trainer haha) and i asked the last one coz he was in japan and he learned kendo in the hard way, (its funny coz he is younger than me) and he told me that i was strict coz i use to train in a strict way especially with him. and ppl arent used to it...

anyway
i found strange that what some guy could find something as a simply all of attention, after that same thing a girl take it as an offense.
im not sayng that this happens always.. im sayng what happened that day...

[ReKru]

I will offer no excuses for not being able just to try and score cleanly and move on.. (excuses just don't matter at this point).. but I just couldn't manage it.

...

She wound up going down 4 times before time expired. I don't know if that may have affected the judges (all of whom I respect greatly -- Ryoko Barr, Phoang Hoang, and Yutsuki Hoang), but I can certainly understand it if it did.


I've seen the same happen on our regional women's championship 3 weeks ago. One girl went down 4-5 times during a match fighting another girl of pretty much her size/weight.
You can barely say she was overwhelmed/bullied by her opponent in this case, she just had no stability and center at all.

I've also seen a 'brute' land flat on his face during the nationals last weekend, because he was trying to push his smaller opponent out of the court, the smaller guy turned a bit to the side and the pusher made a nice 'thud' sound when hitting the floor.

There's always 2 people in a shiai.

[mingshi]

I've seen the same happen on our regional women's championship 3 weeks ago. One girl went down 4-5 times during a match fighting another girl of pretty much her size/weight.
You can barely say she was overwhelmed/bullied by her opponent in this case, she just had no stability and center at all.
Heard that this fall-down scene happens a lot at kids/ JHS/ HS competitions in Japan - not just a small girl vs big guys problem. Competitiors with a slimmer/ smaller built seems to be more concern with speed and flexibility rather than stability.

*generalized random thought

[seijuro_hiko]

I would personally say that you are all chivalrous gentlemen and not brutish kendo practitioners. The fact that you bothered to apologise after that proves that you have more morals than those who bully with physical strength in any form of competition.
Dont feel bad for knocking the poor woman over too. if she seemed ok with it she probably was. I think it may have even given her an experience to train herself from and improve by. Theres a quote from a hollywood film, the last samurai (no groans please), that i agree with.. "Too much mind.." Simply meaning you are spendiong too much time worrying and thinking to accomplish what you are supposed to. Dont worry so much, as long as you know you arent a brute and dont act like a brute then noone else will think you are. Asking your sensei is a good idea to do though too as i would agree with neil on that aspect.

[Kitsune]

i found strange that what some guy could find something as a simply all of attention, after that same thing a girl take it as an offense.
im not sayng that this happens always.. im sayng what happened that day...


Well, somtimes that happens cos girls are not use to do any kind of martial discipline at least here in Chile, so when someone treats them like a soldier they think they're hated to the gutts. That's it.

[Inner_Silence]

Well, somtimes that happens cos girls are not use to do any kind of martial discipline at least here in Chile, so when someone treats them like a soldier they think they're hated to the gutts. That's it.


this is one of the MANY things that pelao tought me and i really agree:

kendo hurts, if people dont like it that way... well, the door is really big.

besides, i really believe that you are learning kendo while it hurts, but it means that it hurt physically and/or in the heart. and we grow up when in despite of that we go on and enjoy the learning.

[bobdonny]

kendo should not hurt.....

The only time kendo should hurt is when you push yourself, pain should not be inflicted by another.

[cesarekim]

kendo should not hurt.....

The only time kendo should hurt is when you push yourself, pain should not be inflicted by another.
AMEN to that!

[Kitsune]

this is one of the MANY things that pelao tought me and i really agree:

kendo hurts, if people dont like it that way... well, the door is really big.

besides, i really believe that you are learning kendo while it hurts, but it means that it hurt physically and/or in the heart. and we grow up when in despite of that we go on and enjoy the learning.

Pelao Also told me a couple of things or two and one of them was you have to push yourself but not that kendo hurts.

kendo should not hurt.....

The only time kendo should hurt is when you push yourself, pain should not be inflicted by another.


I agree with that AMEN!!!

[bobdonny]

well well, very religious here ;)

[bullet08]

kendo should not hurt.....

The only time kendo should hurt is when you push yourself, pain should not be inflicted by another.

well.. that all depends.. last friday's practice, we were doing shiai geiko. one of the new folks decided that he wanted to try out new waza.. doh. soon after the hajime, he swung one at me when there was no opening. did it hurt? pain is very subjective.

pete

[samurai80]

I was at the match. Her name is Satomi, she is with the Charlotte dojo like myself. I thought you were trying the bully approach at first, but the sincere apology at the end was enough to convince me that this was not a case of bullying.

[samurai80]

A good match by the way.

[Halcyon]

kendo should not hurt.....

The only time kendo should hurt is when you push yourself, pain should not be inflicted by another.
Well, not always. Yes, you should try to avoid inflicting pain due to bad technique, but let's face it, pain (both from pushing oneself and from physical contact) is an integral part of kendo.

[redbutterfly]

HAHAHA i couldnt help laughing at some of your posts, not that i am mocking you. i just find them funny

anyway i myself am a girl, and dont show any partiality or favors jsut cause your opponent is a girl cause then you'll be complaining about it.

just dont go easy. be yourself, and dont worry about your opponent. they'd be very poor kendokas if they couldnt take in the injury, ne?
btw where do you think it would hurt girls?
for me it's jsut the chest area. very annoying when someone tries to hit the waist but hits at the chest instead.

[KATSUJIN]

i wonder if this is a good thread for me to post this in...

I posted this in the groundrules thread by mistake, so I will ask here...

I noticed tat ladies seem to be better at executing nuki do ( excluding top level kendoka males of course).. atleast this is my observation.. My question is.. how are the ladies able to do it so fluidly and with such an accurate understanding of the timing ?

This question might seem silly.. but hey.. I just wanna understand.. :-)

[tango]

I really don't know for sure, so take my opinion as just that -- an opinion...

I suspect that many of them practice nuki dou a lot because for shorter people -- and most of the women kendoka I've seen are shorter than a lot of the men -- nuki dou can be an effective waza for them. Anybody who practices specific waza all the time is probably going to be pretty good at it.

Yes, I have also noticed that a lot of women seem good at nuki-dou.
I also have noticed that a lot of women seem good at debana-kote.

...Then again, I've seen some women nail a taller opponent's men with speed and grace, too.