The main response/criticism seems to be "some women are uncomfortable around men, and need a women's class to get them comfortable enough with martial arts to try a co-ed class." Would it ALSO be legitimate to have a men's only class for the men that are uncomfortable around women? If your answer is "yes," then we probably just have a value disagreement. If your answer is "no," then I question whether you're using consistent logic.
Your point is good if men and women were equally victims of violence. When a woman is uncomfortable with a man, it’s because of safety, when a man is uncomfortable, it’s because of social awkwardness.
@@michaelujkim It's a structured business with a dozen witnesses at all times and likely even security cameras. Anyone that's too afraid to interact with men in that kind of professional environment has deep psychological issues that need to be addressed with a trained professional LONG before they are ready to step foot in a martial arts gym. I've worked with a woman that would have literal panic attacks during training, because of past trauma. She could work with men. I've worked with women that have been attacked and raped. They could work with men. Why? Because a martial arts gym is basically the LAST place they're likely to be attacked. Also, the reasons men want to avoid women in martial arts (which I've heard too many of) ALSO relate to safety. They refuse to roll with women because "one word from her and you spend years in prison." And I would tell them the same thing I would tell women that are afraid of "safety issues": Your concerns are not statistically justifiable, this is a ridiculous context in which to be concerned about them, and irrational fear towards an entire demographic is often just a thin veneer disguising deep-rooted bigotry.
As a man, i'm on the "yes" side of the argument. I really don't feel comfortable, in equal value, because a) I'm not used to touching women outside family, without a sexual/flirting scenario. b) I don't like lowering my power that much, and having to actually mitigate my size and weight. I'm there to engage only tougher opponents, and would be willing to pay extra for that. Aside from moral and social values, if there is something wrong with my mindset, I'd appreciate your feedback. I also don't mind discussing the social/moral stance, I'm from eastern europe btw.
I'm a very small man and I can tell every woman out there that the first time you get hit hard by someone who is 20 kg heavier than you it is very rough. Don't let the first time you get hit like a truck be in a scary place by someone who doesn't care about you surrounded by strangers. Go to a mixed class and if you have a halfway decent gym everyone will be nice to you until you can take it just like anyone else. Build a community spar with all body types and eventually jump in a shark tank and do back to back exhausting hard rounds. I recently had my first muay thai fight and I've shark tanked so so many times and its tiring but I guarantee you 2 minutes of real fighting is somehow more tiring after 2 years of training with a metric buttload of sparring and conditioning I physically could not suck in enough air after round 1
Here's the thing, before my BJJ gym started women's only classes, I was the ONLY woman actively training at that gym, but NOW, every single woman who signed up for the women's only class also takes the co-ed class. It just gives women an entry point they're more comfortable with and gets women trying jiu jitsu that wouldn't have tested it out otherwise. Also worth noting: All the dudes at my gym have always been super welcoming and great training partners, they're just dudes and women who don't know them yet would get intimidated by the idea of training with them
It's well argued but this would be my criticism as well. I don't think its uncommon or unreasonable for a woman to be intimidated by a bunch of men who fight a lot, e.g. what about women who have suffered violence from men previously (of course the reality is that most of the time the fear is misplaced and most gyms are full of good guys). Purely as an entrypoint I can see it working well and could get women hooked and eventually going to all the mixed classes. I would agree though that just training 100% women classes for an extended period is a bit of a shame for all involved.
@@ArmchairViolence I literally couldn't care less of there was a men's only class once a week just like the women's class is. I don't want to train with people against their will.
I practice bjj and go to a historically women’s college, and there are noticeable differences between the classes I attend back home and the club there. I’m pretty muscular, but because the co-ed classes I go to are mostly male, I can’t rely on my physical strength nearly as much. Rolling with larger opponents forces me to focus on my technical skills, and I’m a better grappler because of it. Going to all-women’s club was super eye-opening. Granted, the majority of people there were beginners. But, it was so much more difficult for me to improve, because I suddenly felt like I wasn’t being challenged. The club culture was also way different; after we drilled a move only a quarter of the class would actually WANT to roll. I feel like no one there is actually passionate about the sport, and they’re just there to learn “self-defense skills” without actually putting in any of the time or effort that it takes to develop them. Then again, this is just my personal experience, and I’ve been doing martial arts for longer than I can remember, so maybe I’m just not seeing something that beginners are.
No, Ma'am. You hit the nail on the Head. It's true of Sports, Fighting, School, and more of many Females not desiring to go above and beyond. It's actually sad today. I always praise, appreciate, applaud, and Respect Women like yourself who are about development and improvement. 👊👊
Many pounds ago, I joined a shaolin kempo dojo to learn kickboxing. As it turned out, I was the only guy in the class. After the girls were reassured that I can see next to nothing without my glasses on, I was welcomed in- except for drills, sparring, and technique practice. After one round of punches into the pads, the teacher's assisant wasn't willing to hold the targets up for me. (Granted, she was holding them against twenty other girls during drills.) Without a sparring partner, I couldn't train muscle memory, and often got put by myself while the others learned. After I reached my weight loss goals, I left the class.
A lot of women wouldn't feel comfortable joining a gym if they were going to be joining a class that is most likely 90% + male. However if there is a woman only class they are far more likely to join. Suboptimal training is still much better than no training. Also if they join for a woman's class there is a decent chance they will get comfortable enough to join the mixed classes.
@@bduck-r3cImo "false" confidence is good. Most people aren't naturally aggressive enough or bluff enough. Thinking you're tougher than you are is an advantage.
@@MrCmon113 Except when reality comes crashing down upon being struck and you realize you’re up shit creek without a paddle. Thats how folks get killed. Overconfidence is slow and insidious.
@@bduck-r3chave you ever seen that video of a chihuahua chasing off a bear? False confidence against a would be attacker is better than no confidence because if you act as though you are not someone who should be considered as a victim you’re less likely to become one. And if someone tries to make you one anyways the result is the same in both situations. But as a lot of people (mainly women) have pointed out a lot of women start training coed after starting in women’s only classes. It’s a lot safer and more comfortable for them to join a women’s only class to see what the vibe is like and see if this is a place they feel safe or if this is a boys club where they’re going to get harassed. Despite what the reality may be. Men who train combat sports don’t have the best reputation for acting reasonably and respectfully
Omg, this is the first time I've seen a nice argument from RUclips where both sides provided good points. I think "false confidence" can be situationally helpful or harmful, depending on who they encounter.
doesn't matter what you do in life jsut always ask yourslefe why you are doing it , what is the goal , for fun fine , to be come a better fighter or to stay in shape also fine , just don't do it just because .
Our (Mixed) Taekwondo club is lead by a female instructor, and we have a lot of female members that come to our club rather than a one closer to them because they believe any issues they have are more likely to be taken seriously by the lead instructor. (A culture or knowledge issue with other gyms that needs to improve) Our lead instructor is in full agreement that all training should be mixed genders and weights to learn how to deal with people of all sizes and types. (I am a middle/heavy male and train with, giant guys and younger sub 5 ft women and feel it would be disrespectful not to take either arrangement seriously) The only Female only element we have is that now and again she will host a 1 or 2 lesson long women's only first introductory class to help those who may be overly nervous and maybe have had some bad experiences in the past. This is just to help ease their concerns in an environment where they may feel safer raising any perceived issues in conversation before integrating right after. She also did this as a one on one class with a trans women who was not sure if she would be welcome. They then joined the main class later that week and are now a valued member of our club. This is the only way I have seen the separation being useful, but only because it is extremely temporary. EDIT NOTE: A lot of comments that have said similar things ask if this would work for nervous men too and I don't see why it wouldn't. (It has just never come up) I assume most worries would be around how certain corners of the internet told them that they are going to get sent to jail if they are in any way physical with a female partner. (They need to get over this or they would not be welcome) If some guy was truly nervous about joining a mixed class I or another male Instructor (As this sort of person may not want to initially discuss their worry with the lead instructor) would happily run a similar thing with them to let them try out and air their concerns where they feel safe before integrating. but they would have to integrate immediately after this. (If you did it once or twice for them that would only be 2-4h of potentially thousands of hours of total mixed training)
This is so interesting to me. I happen to be a part of one of the most competitive and successful college women’s wrestling club teams in the country. (We are only a club because our college won’t make us varsity yet as women’s wrestling is an emerging sport) We have girls going to the Olympics right now! And one of the main things we credit with our success is that we have at least two practices a week integrated with our college’s D1 men’s team!! I think that having some practices for just our team makes a lot of sense as it helps us build up a cohesive team and individual identity, but for sure mixing genders can be very beneficial for the actual wrestling when used well!!
@@kikiatmosudirdjo5453 Having practices that build team cohesion make sense mainly because you are all quite elite, and your team DOES have the resources needed to get better. Having an internationally competitive women's program with multiple world class practitioners is an accomplishment that VERY few combat sport clubs, classes, or gyms can claim. Also, where do you train?? Because that team sounds awesome. Elite women's wrestling programs are like unicorns!
aslong as the men are respectfull it's oke but i do understand that some women don't like men so i getbwhy they want only female spaces , even men complainn about those instagram jokers in the gym acusing men etc and ruining the gym but i just stay away from stuff that anoys me , far away .
Women's freestyle wrestling and women's judo will eventually produce the next female grapplers in catch as catch can, Jujitsu, and MMA. In 10 or so years there's gonna be a Kayla Harrison-esque Olympic gold medalist who goes into BJJ, catch and/or MMA who can dominate.
I thought Broly looked sick when he ate a kamehameha like it was nothing and then grabbed Goku’s face and threw him through multiple buildings. I made the decision that I was going to do that irl.
My only experience with women in combat sports is being put up against an aspiring olympic boxer and getting the whooping that made my nose crooked. A woman can't hit you hard enough to KO you with power but the liver, chin and other KO buttons still work. It essentially turned into me turtling up and trying to punish her every time she stopped being defensively responsible. I was in high school back then and the sheer difference in hand speed and footwork allowing her to effortlessly tap me over and over again is what got me to really lock it in during shadowboxing and technique training.
Some of the Hardest Hitting I've experienced was from a shorter heavier Woman who I believe was a Pro Boxer training for a Fight. As a larger opponent, I was selected to spar with her. She had that "Iron" Mike Tyson, Pitbull type of pressure and was like a coiled spring ready to explode. I had to take her seriously. My Trainer and the other Coaches had to tell me to dial it back, which I usually do, but I would have had to seriously fight her in my inexperienced state @ 23. They eventually told her to take it down a notch too. She was awesome to be around as well. 👌👌
That part about womens martial arts tactics being totally different is sooooo true. My gf has tree trunk legs and it makes a huge difference in her strinking and grappling. Its what motivated me to focus on my legs more!
I mostly agree, though women's classes are 90% a marketing gimmick to get more women in the normal classes and less of a real strategy for anything other than maybe 1x/week sort of vibes. One thing also I'll mention is that certain training partners are better for training than others, if you're a 26 year old 5'8 155 pound male at 13% body fat you're probably not going to get much out of training with the 55 year old man. yeah you'll get some but training with people of similar size and age ranges is generally slightly preffered to training with bigger/smaller/older opponents. I've noticed this with my 30 year old 150 pound body trying to beat 200+pound big guy's, I can do it but I'm mostly scrambling like mad and moving around faster than they can see. When I roll with other people my size I'm going to be a lot less mobility oriented and focus more on control and I can do things like do a turkish getup to get them off of me. (at small weight classes the Strength/weight ratio is so comically large that you can flip each other over so easily, when you can leg extend 1.5 times your body weight you can almost flip a guy over with 1 butterlfy hook. In spite of this my favorite training partner is a small girl who is as I like to describe "a nuclear missle" she generates so much force with so little mass, and moves at the speed of a crazy person.
@@ussgordoncaptain Things like this depend a lot on your capability set and what you're working on. I'm about 170lbs, but I often like working with guys over 200lbs, because I can practice pressuring and driving forward in ways that would injure other people. And training with smaller people lets me practice high-risk lifts and takedowns that would injure ME if I messed them up on bigger people. Two of my best training partners are: a 40+ purple belt that uses as little energy as possible, and a 320 white belt that is STUNNINGLY athletic. They both help me work on specific skills. If I only trained with one of them, I would have gaping holes in my game.
My bjj gym has a woman's class 1 day a week. Some of the women were upsold to normal class after they get comfortable with bjj. I think it provide a non-intimidating starting point like when you start learning to swim in the kiddie pool before moving to olympic deep pool or the ocean.
I always look forward to your insights and your uploads! Actually, following some earlier videos of yours - particularly your analysis of the Gracie self defense subsystem - I already added "don't go to women's-only self defense classes" to my General Guidelines for Picking a Self Defense Spot. This significantly expands on the rationale. I also, tearfully, hung up my karambit.
This was a pretty good video but I still think that a major problem with women's self defense or martial arts school is that so many of them seem gimmicky obsessed with marketing and many of them don't even seem to genuinely care about doing or figuring out what's effective in a self defense scenario or a ring but I think that this is a point that the very mcdojo and gimmicky nature of many womens self defense or martial arts school is something that many people have already spent plenty of time touching upon.
Wants to talk about a controversial topic of women's gyms, "I know what will make this better, lets add race relations" :) On a serious note I like the video was a new perspective on some of these ideas. One thing I will say is I can see the value of a women's only class as a gateway to mixed classes. Essentially bumping the comfort/challenge ratio in favour of comfort to get people in the door and enjoying training before you ramp it up, kinda like what a beginners class is ment to do. However most women's only classes I see give no incentive to moved to mixed which is a problem.
@@ArmchairViolence A genius play, distract from the gender relations with the racial relations. This leaves only the sane people talking about the actual topic of the video.
I think its important for gyms to start slow and be beginner friendly. The one I go to (MMA) have a couple women that train, compete and win more than almost all men there, and they happly train with everyone. But at the beggining is super hard for everyone, a d twice as much for women, that have no one of their streght/sex that can guide them and end up leaving, ensuring the next one is in the same position. I think the best thing for women is to train with men and women, but its paramount to start slow and in a very controlled environment.
There’s a book called “David and Goliath” by Malcolm Gladwell in which he describes how people who might appear to be underdogs sometimes have hidden advantages precisely because of their underdog status. One example he gives is the popular political issue of wanting to reduce class sizes - people often assume smaller classes are better because it means individual students get more attention from the teacher, but in classes where kids get less attention, they learn (by necessity) to work things out for themselves and to work with other people, which serves them well later in life. I think it’s the same with martial arts - training with a wide variety of people (including different sexes) is good for your development. E.g. I’m fairly tall, so in sparring I usually rely on my reach. However, I sometimes spar people who are taller than me, in which case I try to be more aggressive and work the inside more.
In my self defence class when we get new people in (men or women), we set them up with the "right" sparring partners during their first month. By "right", I mean partners that have full control of their power and will never hurt the new person. And usually when the new person is a woman, we set them up with other women we have. That is usually enough for them to feel confortable.
My old gym had an extra women's only class in addition to the normal classes, and it seemed to work out fine. Most of them also trained with the normal mixed gender classes.
I don’t think it’s the case anymore, but apparently there was once a time when judo guys dominated grappling tournaments simply because the talent pool was so huge, even though it was poorly suited to it compared to bjj.
Bjj “grappling rules” favoring bjj players! Who would’ve thought! Let’s see Bjj guys in wrestling rules..or judo rules. The peak BJJ guys lose potentially regional level competitions for most other grappling arts.
yes, his titles are incredibly inflammatory but i enjoy hearing what mr armchair has to say regardless and almost every video i end up 70 to 100% in agreement eg. i particularly like the one about Judo
As a black man, I personally self segregate myself and I dont care who gets offended. To me there's only two types of people, those who fully understand the hype of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and everyone else
32:50 My gym is a fight gym taught by a former Glory world champion. I am a middle aged hobbyist. The beginner class is full of 20 year old hot heads and middle aged women. The middle aged men get chewed up and spit out by the younger dudes but they go easy on or avoid the middle aged women so they proliferate and prosper.
I agree... the open, welcoming spaces is the way to go. Different people, different sizes and skills is what make the puzzle more interesting. It helps not only with the fighting, but with way other social and personal skills that are developed in groups with care and goodwill in mind. The killer mentality is absurd and a waste of time. We are there to learn, not to survive a guy with lack of self control. If you can do it soft, you can do it right.
My man always stay spitting facts thought I will say a few trial classes to get comfortable wouldn’t hurt. The real issue is guys who go hogwild and I should know I was one of them as I spent 4 years wrestling so I always approached rolls like I did wrestling with too much intensity regardless of who I’m going against especially because I’m 230lbs. I got lectured a few times when I roll with older, smaller, and female people the same as I would a heavyweight my size. I was young then but I’ve learned now
Hello Mr Violence. Great to see you again. You have some skill - you kept me fully engaged for 37 minutes on a topic I care nothing about. The only thing I have to say is I have seen too many fit but untrained men destroy female black belts and mma fighters. Usually they put up with the flailing, get tired of it, land one good body blow and the woman is down. So what does that mean for female martial art practitioners? I dunno.
@@kaoskronostyche9939 It means that men have a lot of physical advantages over the average woman. Women can still become great martial artists and still lose to men, for the same reason that I could currently beat up Chuck Norris: I have physical advantages, even if he's way more skilled than me.
@@ArmchairViolence Thank you for the reply. As usual your reasoning is impeccable and your conclusions are correct. I appreciate the additional context. I really enjoy your work. Always insightful. Cheers!
i used to do wrestling, im also a comp winning strongwoman i weigh about 90kgs. Ive beaten plenty of men in my wrestling classes, part of the reason why i quit is because of the culture and how men get very upset when a woman beats him.
The way the school I attend runs is there is a directed class, and after the class, there is an optional free sparring time. The directed class has about a 3/2 male / female ratio but most if not all the women leave before or sit out the sparring session. How would you address this?
TL;DR: Protected training spaces for underrepresented demographics are good because they expose people who might not otherwise be interested to combat sports, and some percentage of those extra people will continue to go on and train in "regular" classes, even if that number is small. Also, it can be easier to make friends, and making friends motivates people to stick to training a difficult and sometimes physically painful skill to reach those long-term rewards. I don't think it's "good" to exclusively train with people from your own demographic, but only because the way you get better is training with anyone, from any background, as often as you can! Obviously, restricting your own training opportunities makes it harder to maximize growth and improvement as an individual practitioner. However, I think it's important to consider that demographically restricted training spaces can make the difference between someone getting their foot in the door and someone never picking up training AT ALL. Sure, some folks might not move out of that protected training space, but is that so bad if they are having fun and enjoying it for other reasons than maximizing improvement? If it gets them out of the door to train at all, they are certainly better off than if they had never started. Plus, making it accessible and exposing it to more people means that some percentage of people who may only have been interested in cardio kickboxing or a social hangout space in a protected setting suddenly find out that fighting is super fun and stick with it, who would otherwise have never considered themselves a fighter. Obviously that percentage may be small, but that's true of any skill or field. It doesn't need to be a high conversion percentage to funnel more people into it - "it's just a numbers game" after all! If implemented successfully, these types of things can create a pipeline to bring more interest and awareness of combat sports and martial arts more generally. In a more sporting context rather than a self-defense context, most competitions are (for better or for worse, although that's a whole other question) gender segregated. In that context, it makes a TON of sense to train primarily against the types of competitors you would face (same gender and weight division). Obviously not denying the value of training against people bigger/smaller or different gender, and there is a ton to learn from all training partners, but I can understand someone focusing on training with the type of people they would actually be competing against. Tons of people are into sport/competition BJJ who have minimal or zero interest "practical" self-defense or application, and I don't think that's any less valid of a way of engaging with combat sports and martial arts. Are there are lot of instructors exploiting the interest in women's martial arts/self-defense to make money teaching shoddy classes? Absolutely. But if they are hampering the development of those students, or students are not encouraged to explore integrated classes at the same gym or elsewhere, I think that's more an issue of the specific gym/instructor/class than the concept of women's classes in and of itself. I think lots of men who claim they are EXCLUSIVELY interested in self-improvement and skill acquisition underestimate the importance of the gym community and training buddies in getting themselves to class. Human beings have so much neurological programing to be socially motivated! You don't have to be best friends with the people you train with, but I have also made lots of close friendships in my training journey and I'd be a liar if I said it didn't keep me going through those tough training days where I wanted to give up or not go to class or spend my time doing literally anything other than getting ragdolled around on the mat or leg kicked for hours (lol). Obviously, women and men can (and should) be friends with each other! But it can definitely be an initial barrier, especially in a brand-new gym where you don't know anyone, learning a brand-new skill, participating in a very physically vulnerable activity together. I had a sort of "opposite" gender experience going to yoga classes that were majority women and feeling VERY out of place, and it was super hard for me to overcome that and make friends with people and it could easily have made me quit. Anecdotally, I feel like I benefited a lot from finding queer focused martial arts training spaces to practice in. Having more in common socially made training more fun, and because it was fun I trained more and improved. There were a lot of beginners, but there was also a TON of killers in open mat, so there was a wide range of skill levels to train with (not unlike any other good gym/training space!). I think it would be hard to go from beginner to high level practitioner training EXCLUSIVELY in these types of spaces (for the simple reason that to really improve you just need to maximize hours and training reps, and at the moment there aren't enough of those types of protected training spaces that are accessible on a regular basis to constitute your entire training "diet" out of). But as a supplement to "regular" training, and to find other practitioners to hang out with outside of class and geek out together about fighting? Awesome, and I think there should be more of them!
I never really thought about the (whatever)-only courses being a comfortable starting point, and then being able to move to co-ed or general practices if/when people want to. As long as coaches address the shortfalls of the restricted course with the students and encourage them to at least try the more general ones, I think these spaces are a net positive. Thanks for your perspective!
To his point around 33:30 ... I've been the sole white guy at two gyms - one hispanic and the other black dominated. They would use some slurs and and make references to me being white. However, it was clearly always made in jest or good natured so it never really bothered me. I consider it an interesting and novel experience.
I’m getting sincerely annoyed with how little traction your videos get. I’ve been sharing with all of my friends (even though none of us are in martial arts or combat sports, or even anything athletic) because the information you provide consistently makes rational sense and can be utilized in far more than just marrial arts. Understanding how to create specific cultures capable of overcoming specific resistances or other cultures can be implemented in a commune, in any business, in a community of any kind, and is socially applicable regardless of context. Comprehending violence (necessary or not) can assist anyone in at least understanding the rationale and exactly how to pick it apart if ever necessary. It also displays forms of problem solving beyond just barbarically mauling people
I always very much admire your logical approach. Here as well, except I can’t quite include lessons/intensive 1:1 training with a teacher or high level student. Those are incredibly productive but the group could not be smaller. Or would you consider them „diverse“ due to their range of skills?
Private lessons are productive because you're focusing entirely on your own training instead of letting your partner work or catering to the lowest common denominator in a class. However, what you learn from that private lesson still has to be practiced on a wider range of people to actually get good at it. Someone who ONLY goes to private lessons (with the 1 instructor) will likely have a skill ceiling that they wouldn't have in larger classes.
Hey! As you were talking about the self-segregation I was thinking about the Racial Dot Map and how it depicts the stark contrast where you can even find the street that divides where people choose to live. And especially in Detroit. Then, lo and behold, you SHOWED the Racial Dot Map...FROM DETROIT! Nice to see someone else who knows that map exists! (Or existed. I think they took it down now. Or at least I can't find the original link to the data.)
I feel that men's and women's only spaces have value, but not in an institutionalized setting. If you're the type of person who needs to hang with the guys or go out with the girls, you can and should create that gender-exclusive social experience for yourself. But combat gyms are not primarily a social club, and the people are going there to improve themselves as well as see their friends.
Hey Jake! Good content as always. I Just watched your videos about karambit and knife fighting, and i really think tou should give "limb disabling" a deeper analysis, because a big thrust or even cut in the inicial part of inner forearm would cut the tendons that attach the hand/fingers to the forearm muscles, disabling the hand, and despite a disabled hand not ending the fight, It gives you a HUGE disadvantage. Imagine Strike or grapple without one or both grips? And also the chance of them dropping the knife? I think the main strategy for knife fighting would be fighting for destroying the opponents forearm tendons in a fencing stance, and then end the fight using that folsom prison style. Love your channel
I think the fact that you have to fully sever specific tendons on the inside of the most nimble part of the human body and NOT have actually won the fight yet tells you that there are probably better strategies. Show me a video of someone winning by starting with a limb disable, and I'll show you 100 where someone wins by not targeting the limbs at all. Is it impossible to disable a limb? No. But it IS the knife fighting strategy that is LEAST likely to work, and has the LOWEST return on investment.
@@ArmchairViolence To add to Jakes point, perhaps these techniques could serve a useful purpose in specific scenarios by specific people, but the level of skill, familiarity and experience necessary to truly integrate them into a wider skill set - and to successfully pull them off reliably and accurately (in life-or-death self-defense scenarios where missing your skill check could very well result in literal permadeath irl) - is a prerequisite that few people in the world will ever even be able to fulfill; for a niche skill that even fewer are likely to gamble their proverbial gonads on to spend years developing mastery over. And even if they could do that, I suppose a bigger question to ask first is, would they even _choose_ to do so? Over methods that might more efficiently accomplish the same outcome, with potentially much less risk, and are probably easier to learn and integrate? I'm not trying to be a total debbie-downer or argumentative, nor am I just jaded/cynical to more "niche" forms of self-defense. I am not trying to simply dismiss outright all forms of knife-based self-defense or things like that, and at the end of the day I'm no expert on anything anyways. I just think that when we're considering the prioritization of skill-sets from the standpoint of teaching them to as many people as possible to advocate for and practice their own self-defense - simplicity is king. The simpler something is, the easier it is to teach, the easier it is for more people to pick up and try to develop towards mastery, and the more accessible it is to a broader category of people.
@@ArmchairViolence sometimes i think some strategies arent used Just because nobody thinks of it. For an example, semiautomatic firearms exist since 1830s, but they were fully spread Just 120 years later. And also the oblique kick, one of the most devasting weapons and distance managers a striker can use, just began being used after Jon Jones, and today Just a few ufc fighters use it, so thats what i think, i find the Idea logical and a test for It would be good.
@@korpzmarcelfranca6825 Technological innovations, like machine guns, need technological maturity. And man-portable semi-automatic firearms weren't sufficiently mature for quite a while. Even something as popular and innovative as the M-1 Garand lacked a removable magazine. A feature that is viewed as almost essential today. For techniques, there has to be a capability gap that they are able to adequately fill. Oblique kicks weren't popular before Jon Jones, but they still represent a niche tool that only makes up a TINY minority of kicks. They weren't popular before because we needed people to fully explore the niche areas where oblique kicks could possibly be useful. And that didn't happen until the sport of MMA was very well explored, and all of the more vital capabilities were taken care of. If humanity develops advanced and functional curriculums and strategies for knife fighting (the stuff that currently exists is either REALLY dumb or extremely basic), then I could totally see limb targeting becoming an accepted move. But only as a potential answer to a very niche problem. A problem that we haven't even encountered yet, because we don't know enough about knife fighting. I could see it existing as a niche tool for highly unusual and specific problems. But, as a general strategy, all evidence points towards it being a bad plan.
@@ArmchairViolence I would contend (weakly) that there's an argument to be had for targetting limbs being the nearest target that you can engage from the safest distance and so having validity there. This argument breaks down if they charge you down because moving backwards is always slower than moving forward.
This was good stuff. Personally only went as deep as, "who do you want to defend against", and ,"what is your reason for wanting to do martial arts"? I've categorized the desire to do martial arts into 3 big categories: Self defense Fitness Something to do If I'm understanding your perspective, you are focused on item 1. If so, i completely agree with...well, all of the points you made. However, it's the other two categories I mentioned that I think partially gave rise to women's only classes. If I'm looking for a place to keep up my fitness, I don't need co-ed if the instructor is knowledgable. Basically, as you alluded to already, the class needs to fit the audience. If i was training to survive in the wilderness, it would be stupid of me to know how to combat everything but bears. All in all, good video, and interesting conmections to segregation.
I'm taking a summer course and one class talked about women athletes. While I didn't arrive to the same answer as you did, I did believe in that results would be better if they were allowed on the same playing fields, or the sport would develop more because of it
Love your videos; I always walk away with new ideas about how I want to train, and the culture I want to grow around me. I wonder if you've read The Armored Rose by Tobi Beck. It got handed to me a decade ago and, though I never finished it, I did find it densely-packed with insight about fighting men as a woman that I wouldn't have found otherwise. I can't examine it critically because I no longer have it in my hands and it's still less than my highest class of priorities. But I would be really curious on your thoughts about it. You and Beck seem to keep taking on the converging topics from different angles.
Something I have been thinking a lot about lately is the analogy of a pool (and this is before you mentioned your dry land analogy). Some kids do great being thrown into the deep end. At first they mostly just tread water and stay afloat, but they eventually gain the skill to really swim with the ability to preserve their life if need be. Other kids not so much. They need to get accustomed to the pool. They need the shallow end. That isn't to say that they don't need to eventually go to the deep end to really gain proficiency at swimming, just that there is nothing wrong with them starting where they are more comfortable, and easing into things. Otherwise, it may be too overwhelming or discouraging for them to continue. I think this is what it is like for women's only classes. Having to go into a male dominated space, or even just grapple with men, can feel like the deep end, and there isn't something wrong with starting in the shallow end. Yes of course women should eventually join the co-ed classes, but you need to let them learn and get comfortable at their own pace if you want more women involved. Acknowledge the value of training wheels, shallow ends, etc. for some people. That may in look like slower progress, but it's not any slower than someone that never starts in the first place or leaves early on. I also feel like you're not factoring the neuroscience around in the ease in which we learn while comfortable verses the difficulty of learning in fight/flight (freeze, fawn) response. How comfortable a woman (or anyone really) feels in any situation, affects their ability to learn. Of course you're right, this is hard with martial arts, but it feels like you assume that the values of comfort and learning are at odds more than they actually are. Yeah, comfort can't be the only goal, but it is a major component of good learning. Ultimately the balance of comfort and discomfort is not something you can know or decide for an individual, people experience these things differently, and they are the final judges of how well they are learning in a certain environment. To decide for them, rather than just merely bring their attention to this difficult balance, is to be paternalistic and dare I say patronizing. ________________ Also, I think it's totally acceptable and even reasonable for men and women to occasionally just want single-gendered spaces not as the only option, but as an available option. Big emphasis, on the words, "option" and "want," and correct me if am wrong, but those things weren't really a part of Jim Crow. Things should be done with people, not to people, and deciding that women only classes are a bad idea, even when women are telling you otherwise (as I've observed in the comments), is a fancy way of talking over them. If it works for some women, it works for some women... You can acknowledge the ways in which some women can be systematically forced into women only spaces while still respecting that some women do really want those spaces. To do otherwise, again, comes off as patronizing. You pay a lot of lip service to caring about women's value to a male dominated space, but that also means their own perspectives on how they would like to learn. Their own self advocacy and personal goals are a part of that valuably diversity, and I don't believe the "shallow end entrance" undermines this as long as the culture encourages that eventual integration but also respect for people's own speed at which they grow. Threating to ban them, isn't it... Of course if the male only spaces start to become a toxic environment with lots of sexism, shut that **** down. Though, it could also be a great way to reach young men who have some distorted ideas about women or rolling with women. You're never going to reach the red pill, manosphere, MGTOW, guys if they don't feel comfortable starting in the co-ed classes. _____ random side note: You mention men and women having the same reasons, but the reasons listed are rather vague. To assume two vague descriptors are the same thing, seems like an oversimplification and a lack of further investigation and details. There is complexity there that's being overlooked. I'm not even necessarily saying men's reasons aren't valid, just that these vague notions of discomfort or what have you, might be very different under the surface of those very bland terms. Those particulars are probably worth understanding to create the ideal gym environment. That all being said, I do respect the thought you put into this, I'm frustrated with where I disagree with you, but I appreciate your desire to try and make martial arts a better place for women.
Literally my first thought when I clicked on this video was “why would you train to defend yourself from women?” I have only ever encountered one instructor that outright banned women from class, and he was an Aikido guy my friend trained under. If anyone is supposed to benefit from the “redirect power gentle technique” system, wouldn’t it be women?
Realistically, I'd want to defend myself against some drunk dude while I'm drunk myself. But I don't think training drunk all the time is necessary to get there.
@@MrCmon113 Strawman, not the same thing. Training for sex-specific disadvantages and training to fight while intoxicated are very different. They both involve disadvantages, but they aren't the same disadvantages. There's also the fact that "Women Only" classes and "Women's Self-Defense" classes are not the same thing. It's easy to conflate the two because as mentioned in the video a lot of people get into martial arts for self-defense reasons but "Women Only" classes are normal martial arts classes where the only people participating are women. Whereas "Women's Self-Defense" classes address or most of the time give the illusion of addressing sex-specific disadvantages. If you're a woman whether you train to compete or train for self-defense, ultimately, you're going to have to train with men for the best possible results.
Actually, I could see the point of it. I once utilized an Aikido Technique on a Drunk Guy to safely and without hurting him remove him from being a danger to others. I physically don't have to utilize the Techniques on Women. Aikido could help Ladies, but depending upon their sizes it wouldn't help too much.
@@MrCmon113 The one time I actually utilized an Aikido Technique was against a drunk Guy. I removed him from being a danger to others while calming down a situation by safely and not harming him.
I do Muay Thai and am a 38 year old 100 kg male heavyweight. Our gym has more women than average, and I personally prefer sparring and drilling with female partners, and least like it with men under like 25 to 28 years of age. They haven't grown out of trying to prove how tough, cool or competent they are, and generally carry the most anger of any group I regularly interact with in training. Every. Single. Woman. I sparred or drilled with so far sees it the same way I do - we're partners, not opponents, learning together.
I've taught women's self defense courses to lots who would never join a gym full of scary guys in their prime that they are afraid might hurt them. By that introduction to martial arts, some developed confidence to move forward and actually basics to fight off druggies or stand against date rape. The ladies, young, old and in-between should get the Combat Advantage over the bad guys.. With your philosophy, you limit your classes to only those young gals who start as children or have a bold personality that has no guy hang-ups or fears. Guess who needs it most? Those who have been assaulted and really need help.
His point, if I may, is that the end result in terms of skills learnt from a women only class is lower than a mixed class. Thus, a woman training to fight off druggies and rapists will not be as successful in a women's only class. However I agree with you that a women's only class is a good entry point. I think there should be a realistic limit of progression offered in the women's only classes, such as up to the first 3 belts for example. If you want to progress further than you need to step into the mixed.
@@nathanielfarrugia Yes I agree. There are some women, special needs as well as children who need there own class up to a point and others who should continue with grown men eventually. My students goals may have been different than my goals or his goals. As a teacher, I want to tap into the students motivation, encourage, teach to the potential and see small consistent improvements.
It's amazing how childlike and neurotic women are that they think they are in constant danger of being fucking date raped. They are afraid they might hurt them because they are infantile and neurotic and lack the ability to understand that a martial arts class is literally one of the safest places on earth.
And none of those girls ever used them for any of what you mentioned, because rape is super rare. Also, they wouldn't be able to use them anyway, because an average man could still rape them if he wanted too with their woman only skills.
9:56 well you just demonstrated you know more about then you let on. If you're honestly critical about it, you could discuss it if you want to, I'm all ears. Maybe make a separate channel so you can finally discuss philosophy, politics, and Batman.
The one complaint I've heard from women in martial arts is guys not taking them seriously while drilling/sparring. Women want to feel powerful too, but when guys act like they are made of glass they feel insulted. You should have a culture of technical but light sparring. If you can't take it easy on someone much smaller and weaker than you then you might be really really bad at fighting.
When I first started I went hard on everyone whether I needed to or not. The way I saw it at the time was that I was showing respect to their hard work in training by giving them my all. Needless to say it was not a popular approach.
The first part of your comment doesn't fit with the second. Imo it's better to "not take someone seriously" and go super light. Then they can still ask you to go harder.
From the pure martial arts effectiveness standpoint, I agree with every point. But from an economics of a gym perspective, I can see why gym owners open the women only classes. It's less profitable in the long term for the reasons you outlined but in the shorter term, it provides more revenue.
Meanwhile, in the real world, where real people live, dedicated women’s classes help increase female enrollment and get women who would otherwise not attend to have some combat training instead of none. Also, many women who enter through women’s classes often end up attending general classes as well. Finally, of course men should be allowed to have men’s only spaces and clubs and women should be able to have the same. Should a new father’s group be forced to invite women, and a new mother’s group be forced to invite men? No. Should the Girl Scouts be allowed to invite only girls, and should the Boy Scouts have remained a boys group? Yes. Should Co Ed options also be available? Obviously. Should they be the only option? No.
I think there´s a difference between Men/Women only CLASSES, and Men/Women only GYMS. I see no problem in segregating some classes, since there´s also benefit in, for example, having a class just for complete beginners, and a class for advanced people. Or, a class that mostly focused on Tournaments and sparring, while other classes focus on body conditioning or other areas.
Haven’t watched the whole vid. But I already really appreciate the breadth you’ve gone into with discussing Jim Crow and how oppression and segregation can and still impacts a communities and individuals learning.
I feel that some of the arguments were a bit of a straw man fallacy. The presentation of the facts seems to basically say that women only classes count as a form of segregation, yet in reality, women only classes are often done to boost inclusivity. It’s usually the first step for many schools in changing their culture to be more inclusive. I agree that women only classes can be of lower quality, but this is non unique. Classes for children, the disabled, and the elderly tend to be of lower quality as well. Yet these classes, much like women only classes, are usually done to include people who would have never trained otherwise. Ideally, mixed classes would be the goal for most people since a variety of good training partners is a great benefit to anyone’s martial arts journey. Yet special classes can be a great way to start. This isn’t a black or white matter. Mixed classes can exist alongside women only classes because everyone’s martial arts journey is going to vary. On another note, this just seems like the martial arts version of a man not happy with why a woman would choose a bear in the woods.
I can agree with some of what you've said. However, while it is there to promote inclusivity it also has the potential of falling into the self-segregation trap where women get comfortable with their women only classes and don't actually branch out into mixed classes unless pushed to do so, which not all gyms would do, individual goals and beliefs also highly impact whether or not they will do so. Aside from self-segregation it is indeed a form of segregation while it has the intention of promoting inclusivity in martial arts it does so through separation and as a result has the possibility of falling into the traps that systemic separation can present. That's probably the biggest problem with segregation with intent of promoting integration, ensuring that well-intended separation doesn't inadvertently reinforce segregation which is what I think his main point is. On your side note, a woman choosing a bear over a man is absolutely a stupid thing to do. That would be like me not trusting all women because some women cheat, lie and manipulate, obviously they exist but it isn't representative of the whole or even the majority. It also isn't really like the bear thing because Jake's presenting an argument for why he thinks women's only classes are a bad idea (societal) whereas men are just flabbergasted by the stupidity of choosing a random bear over a random man at a random period of time (self-preservation, decision-making and biases). They've got some similarities but not enough to conflate the two. On my side note: Holy moly human society is pretty complex. Aside from a sociological side there's also a business, psychological aspect and probably a few more that all come together. Decision-making on a large-scale sounds like effort. Edit: I think the biggest problem with his argument is conflating "Women's Self-Defense" to "Women Only classes" which while similar are not the same. One's purpose is to "provide women with the skills to defend themselves from a man" whereas the other is simply a martial arts class exclusive to women the art isn't exclusive to them, but the class is.
Yeah, but women's only gyms are a good way for women to be comfortable with someone being physically close to them. In a non intimate way with another woman. After they get used to that rolling with a man might not be as big of a deal. It's a good starting point. For having people physically touch you ,
But what about the host of homophobic men that might feel more “comfortable” being physically touched, in a non-intimate way by women before letting another dude roll around on top of them?
I agree with a lot of the arguments, if we assume the goal/motivation of training is to effectively learn to fight either for self-defense or in competition. However, there are other motivations for training. In my experience, women more often then men give reasons such as improving mental and/or physical health and having fun as motivation to train. Women's only classes can definitely help achieve those goals. I agree these goals are also possible in co-ed training. Men aren't the problem, some men's and groups of men's behavior is. But we're so far from a perfect world in which gyms with positive, inclusive cultures are easy to find. So in the big picture and the long run, I agree. But for the time being I will continue to teach women-only and queer-only classes as well as co-ed classes. Because so often I see people finding so much joy practicing martial arts that had their reasons for needing a exclusive class as an entry point (systemic discrimination is real). I also strongly disagree with the statement "if you only train with women you can't fight". As a female pro fighter I honestly find this insulting. I have always trained in co-ed spaces and see so many benefits. And I agree, most women-only classes are not geared towards fighters at all. But if you train smart and hard with a variety of highly skilled training partners including folks larger than you and they all happen to be women, of course you'd be prepared to fight (regardless of your gender)! Since I'm a small person, for some (definitely not all) training purposes, I find women-only advanced classes or sparring sessions beneficial, because I find more partners my size. I've also been to exclusive "small fighter sparring sessions" and prefer those and also find those important for smaller men. I hate how other sports are segregated. Training martial arts, I can just be an athlete among athletes respecting each other and my gender doesn't matter as much, which on an individual level feels so freeing and is line with the direction I wish for society.
I think a women's only introductory class has some merit; getting them used to some of the fundamentals and the basic practice of sparring before going into the mixed class, the additional familiarity with the martial arts class environment might alleviate some of the intimidation from the mixed class as well. Men don't necessarily need this because it's quite common that they are already familiar with the idea of sparring and wrestling with each other, but having segregated introductory class (like 3 sessions or something) for both sexes would be fine as well (and profitable)
While it is necessary to work through discomfort in order to learn, certain base level of comfort is necessary in order to facilitate learning. Due to systemic discrimination, socialization that leads to greater insecurities regarding one's own body, and possible micro-aggressions in the gym, a women may experience a higher level of discomfort than a man in the same training environment, that might hinder progress in the early stages of learning.
Maybe for intoductory classes, for women who maybe are still a little afraid of getting injured by sparing with men? Idk, I'm not into matrial arts. Great video
I really enjoyed your video, and largely agree with you. I do disagree on a few small points though. For one, you said that martial arts learning is not a direct knowledge transfer from instructor to student. But for beginners that’s exactly what it is. It’s not about learning moves, it’s about learning how to move. Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals of how to move (basic footwork, how to throw a punch, how to turn your hip over in a kick, framing, shrimping, etc) then it becomes experience based learning like you were talking about, but still mixed with direct knowledge transfer from instructor to student. Once you have reached the black belt level in most traditional martial arts/blue belt level in BJJ it becomes almost purely experience based learning like you were talking about. So I don’t totally disagree with you on that, I just think it’s a little more complex than you make it out to be. As far as your example with the gym, women’s only spaces are necessary. Some women, no matter how pleasant the gym culture is, will never be comfortable in that setting around men, and if they’re not comfortable they won’t go. Kind of like the saying the best carry gun for you is the best one you’ll actually carry. I also believe there should be a separate class for women for the same reason. No matter how good the martial arts class is and how positive the culture, they simply won’t be comfortable training with men. While you did address this, I still believe they have the right to learn to defend themselves even if it does handicap their training, that’s their choice. For that very reason I rarely ask to roll with female partners without having first gotten to know them for a bit. I never deny a woman a roll, but I don’t ask them to roll until I feel like they’re comfortable with me. I don’t know if that’s a problem with me or with society, or if that’s the way it should be. Sparring on the other hand I feel much freer to ask a female training partner to work with me as there is less close physical contact. That being said I really liked your input and really enjoyed your video, and agreed with most of what you said.
Still I think that not be able to overcome certain degree of discomfort (i say discomfort not disrespect) then you will not be able to succeed in a real combat. Only creates a false sense of security. To really develop your skill you need a lot more than learning the moves, without drilling and sparring, there is not real transfer. To be able to adquire a new technique, you have to learn to use it with some degree of resistance, or you will not integrate it. And as he said, if you aren't confortable interacting with the other half of the population, the problem is in you. And you need therapy, not a dojo.
I don't agree with your point on beginners, an ecological dynamics framework can suggest that a better way to improved as a beginner is by reducing variability by constraints. They should train like more advance martial artists, but with less variability
I feel like this is a really good argument for coed classes with possible warnings for segregating classes based on sex, but there are a few points that I wonder about. At least personally, getting into combats sports wasn't about being able to fight. I just think the sport is fun (did bit of jits and boxing). Like I love to climb, but I'm never going to (or have any desire to attempt to) free solo El Cap. I'm a gym climber. If you're right about people's primary intention being able to fight, then this point is moot and I'm weird. Secondly, I understand your rebuttal against the institutional power thing, but it seems like you are maybe making perfect the enemy of progress. I agree some things that look like progress might actually be stopgaps that perpetuate the existing problems and I'm open to that idea. But spaces explicitly open to minority groups exist because whether we want to admit it or not, members of minority communities have experiences that have taught them (in part through threats to their safety) that other non-named spaces are in fact for the majority group. We might want to say that the co-ed really is co-ed, but it's hard to trust that and it's damn hard to ask people who have good reason not to trust to just trust me bro. I think like women's only classes/times can be helpful to get more people interested in the hobby and as they do, if they really want to improve, I would assume they would then be more likely to dip their toes in the coed times. There could be a crowding out effect, but I'm sure that's not 100% and there are probably factors that influence the outcome to go one way or the other. Finally, I think the point about the problem being the gym culture not integration I agree with. But you can address the larger gym culture while there is a female only class. It's not one or the other. And as the larger gym's culture becomes more healthy and egalitarian, my guess would be that there would be more integration. Yes, people tend to segregate. It feels safer. But the boundaries that we draw are made up by us. It's not always going to be based on sex or race or whatever. Enforcing integration top-down isn't the only strategy that we can employ. We can also present people with experiences where they start to expand the definition of their ingroup (which tends to happen with forced integration as well--minus when things really hit the fan).
Hmm. I have mixed feelings about this one. In coed classes I frequently notice instructors treating men more attentively/seriously. As a woman, you often need to "prove" that you are serious about a sport before getting the same amount of attention male students automatically get. At the same time, women's only class doesn't necessarily fix the problem, because I've also been to women's only class where the male instructor talks down to us like we are babies😂
Women should never be deludedto believe they can defend themselves against certain moves to protect themselves it's dangerous women should defend themselves with weapons shouting and lethal force that's facts there are no martial arts that will work more than 2% of the time
In my experience as a guy, you also need to prove yourself the same as a women does. It is just usually more visible when the only girl in class is not taken seriously. For example, the instructors in my kickboxing class (which was coed) only took the top 5 guys and one girl seriously since they were competitors. The rest of the people who come to class needed to prove themselves (by coming to all the classes training hard etc.). Once you were in, you were given more time by the instructors. I know that is not really fair since we all pay the same for the classes, but my point is that is not a gendered issue (in my opinion). It is more pronounced with girls i have to admit. It might be because all the instructors were male and from a time when there werent that many girls in kickboxing. Also i am 100% sure that your experience is valid too since some man really do not take women in martial arts seriously, and that sucks...
@@djimrleI second this. I've been on several teams where the coaches were focused on their champions, male or female. Even under female coaches. If you were untrained, or even second string, you were on your own.
@@djimrle Totally agree that men and women will often get ignored. Especially in competition focused gyms, because the instructor only pays attention to the people that have the 'x-factor.' This is one of those situations where we'd have to read minds to make a ruling. It's POSSIBLE that the coach discarded her because she was a woman. But it's also possible that the coach discarded her because she didn't meet some unspoken standard. And only the coach knows which it is.
The problem is, if you as a woman come into a class as a beginner, where only guys who are much stronger than you are train. I tried getting into HEMA longsword fighting as a woman in my late 30ies and stopped because the sparring was just giving me no opportunity to learn. All the potential opponents were much stronger, fitter and faster than me (they seemed to cope better with the protective equipment) so trying a technique on them never really got me a success. So after a while I quit. I would have needed sparring partners at my strength level to help me over the beginner stage. Plus, some of the older teenager students there visibly didn't even want to spar with an "older woman", which made me feel rather awkward.
I don't give a single ounce of shit about "inclusion" which is something I could be criticized for in its own right. But I think "women only" self-defense/martial arts classes are stupid because if you're trying to teach women how to defend themselves they need to train WITH MEN. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to train women to fight only women. Self-Defense is not sex specific thing and if training with the men in the gym will make you a better fighter anyway that's what you should prioritize, being better at self-defense or being better at fighting. I guess somebody could claim that its very frustrating to spar people who are naturally bigger and stronger (not always, there are some absolutely killer ladies that would murder me in a fight before I could think to do anything about it), but that's what makes you better over time and fighting is frustrating by nature.
I find your arguments soild under the assumption that the goal of all martial artists is to get as good as possible. That is not the case though. A huge portion of my motivation to do bjj (as a 35 years old dad) is to have fun with friends fighting hard. Sure I try to get better - I even occasionally compete - but fun, friends and even longevity are bigger factors. The same could be said about some women. Maybe they don't wanna push the boundaries of rolling with men, and let's for a second pretend they choose the women's class knowing full well that their progress is somewhat halted - isn't that fine? I mean - you need an honest instructor, willing to tell them what the do - and do not learn. But we always need that instructor. All that being said. I prefer mix classes. I have just as much fun fighting 'technically' with a women as I do expending all my strength fighting the gym bulks. And as a prim. School teacher I can only encourage the monkey see monkey do - effect of adults insisting to work with all people - it is one of the easiest ways to teach the new generation. Walk the talk. Anyways - great video. Thank you for forcing me/us to think. Cheera
The best argument For having a women’s only class in BJJ for beginners I heard from a women BJJ practitioner/trainer. Roughly: Grappling introduces physical intimacy and moves that are unfamiliar to many. Having a women’s only class primarily for beginners, helps them to learn what are normal/acceptable physical interactions in grappling. So the class is for the beginners but trusted advanced practitioners (maybe only women) are encouraged to attend to help this leaning processes. Once the beginners are familiar with normal the physicality for BJJ, then that’s the main purpose achieved. They can then be more confident as they engage with other classes, to distinguish grappling from groping or other inappropriate physical contact. Thus helping women be confident in trusting their instincts if/when they encounter Inappropriate contact when rolling.
I just realized that means even tho I'm only youtube certified I'm still a valid martial artist 😅 and before you go insulting or taking out your anger 1.i hope your day gets better 2.i don't have any local training gyms
I agree. The most practical training I got from both karate and judo was real experience of sparring with men. What a fucking reality check. (47 year old 5'2" woman) and very useful also, knowing what I can actually pull off against a man, as opposed to viral ideas. Also it helped the men learn how much power is safe for a woman. At least one man later said that he'd have broken his girlfriend when she came at him if not for the sparring experience. Easier to learn with a trained partner than hit an untrained woman and find out the hard way.
I've read a few of the "womens only can work well as an entry point for co ed". So how'd this idea pan out: what if a gym has 3 different classes. One mal only, one female only and one co ed. Make it so any person can only attend the gender specific classes only for a certain period of time. After which they'd be kicked out and either find a different gym or join the co ed group. And then make the co ed group only accessable if you've either had previous experience somewhere else or done at least a certain amount of time in the gender specific class. This would not only make good entry to the sport in general, but also put the trainees in a space full of people of a roughly similar skill and experience level. It'd not only give them (false) confidence to motivate them, but also shatter it in a timely manner with a good reality check.
i get what you mean but at the same time i know many women who feel physically scared of men and would never put themselves in a perceived vulnerable position like sparring with men. i think women's self defence classes can be a great entry point for them to build more confidence and get over their fears to eventually participate in open classes the type of traumatised/scared women who would be too scared to join a class with men would also be the people who imo could benefit most from learning to fight. i think women's only classes have real value there i'm not advocating for gender segregation, just an option for women's, ideally a beginner course which i think would be very valuable. worst case scenario they don't join the mixed classes and don't develop as fighters, but they still gain a decent understanding of violence and are disillusioned from dangerous fads often peddled as women's self defence. best case scenario is a large demographic of women wanting to learn to fight to defend themselves from men but too scared to "jump in the deep end" get an introduction so they feel less helpless and vulnerable when they eventually join mixed classes
Young children are afraid of water and yet they can't learn how to swim without going in it. That's the same here. If they're afraid of men daily, what do they expect will happen if one tries to attack them after they've only ever gone to women only martial arts gym? If they get to mixed martial arts gym, them they get the chance to confront that fear in a completely safe environment which prepares them for real life.
Good video. Appreciated the tangential trains of thought. Personally, and from a BJJ POV, I think that Women's-only classes are a waste of an open mat or normal class. Train against what you will be using the sport/martial art on.
One little point that I wanna add to this otherwise great video: I see a point in men- and women only gyms when we consider the hypercompetitive scene. If I wanna win a tournament against other men, the hour I could train with a woman is simply better invested in sparring a man equal to my strength and size. Same goes for women: If you wanna learn to fight a similar weight and size woman, fighting a big and tall man is not worthwile. So while I would agree that in a casual or semi-serious situation mixed training is great, for ultracompetitiveness I would always seek out partners more equal to me in strength and size.
Have you heard of Tritac Martial Arts ? If so could you please do a video on that I saw you're Keysi video from 2 years ago and I know it pretty late but figure it doesn't hurt ask. Would like to know what you think of it since it implements Keysi with other styles.
I'll give you a short answer because he's probably not gonna do a video on another style. Do they do well in mma or are they too busy repeating that thier system "works" to bother competing? A lot of "self defence" styles don't work in reality because they never compete.
Probably, it mostly has boxing jiu-jitsu and other styles like mma but they do the framing like keysi but they implement other styles where it atleast looks a lot more effective then Keysi by itself.
@@101289teutonicguy Yeah, that's a good litmus test. To be fair, Tritac does have mainly MMA stuff. Which is good. But it also uses unproven stuff like Keysi and Kali. Which is less good. The "street self-defense" arts typically suck, and the combat sports are typically good. Tritac is somewhere in-between.
I run a gym and struggle to maintain women in my gym. I don’t think I have a toxic gym culture. I would love a video looking at how to help women stay in the class.
@@christophervelez1561 I don't think there is a clear answer to this. Most women don't stick with martial arts. But most men don't stick with martial arts either. And they often have the same reasons for doing so. Men tend to dominate nearly every martial arts program in the world, because they are just slightly more motivated to learn fighting. And, when your gym only includes a tiny fraction of the population, that slight difference in motivation makes a really big difference. Personally, I think it's less important to have a gym culture that attracts women, and more important to have a gym culture that attracts the kind of student you can be proud of. Chasing after a particular demographic can often have really weird and negative affects on your gym culture. Honestly, I don't know anyone that's figured out how to retain women super-duper well. The best gender ration I've ever seen was at my college MMA club, where we had just over 50% women. But that's only because our college was 65% women, so men were actually still overrepresented lol
@@ArmchairViolence thanks for the advice man! I love your content and engagement! I’m always hyped when I get the notification of a new Armchair Violence video!
Have you asked the women about their experiences? Either the ones who leave, or the ones who stay, or both? That's probably your best bet for figuring it out.
@@LindsayHancock definitely. I ask both those who stay and go and the ones that stay like the intensity of class, the instruction and safe environment. But the ones that leave just say, “it’s not for me” “I’m not improving” but as some left my remaining women seem to also be dropping off because every roll is with a guy. I’d be ok if they joined another school and continued training. My full time job is being active duty Air Force so my bjj academy is small but these ladies drop off and seem to quit all together. It is a small sample group just 6 women total that have trained at my school in the 10 months it’s been open but I can’t help but think that my retention rate of women in that time span being 2 of the 6 as a problem. I try to not take it personally but I figure that there is something that I can do to improve the situation. What are your reasons for sticking around training?
Maybe try offering a 2 for 1 deal for new students? That way, women (and men too) can bring a friend to the first few classes so they have someone they know to roll with until they get used to it.
in theory I agree with your reasoning, in practice most men don't care about the gym having an only female class (maybe my gym dont have that many wierdos) and those classes have been good to attract new women to the gym that eventually go to regular classes as well
The main response/criticism seems to be "some women are uncomfortable around men, and need a women's class to get them comfortable enough with martial arts to try a co-ed class."
Would it ALSO be legitimate to have a men's only class for the men that are uncomfortable around women?
If your answer is "yes," then we probably just have a value disagreement.
If your answer is "no," then I question whether you're using consistent logic.
Your point is good if men and women were equally victims of violence. When a woman is uncomfortable with a man, it’s because of safety, when a man is uncomfortable, it’s because of social awkwardness.
@@michaelujkim I can't help but notice that you made a lot of assumptions without providing any evidence
@@michaelujkim It's a structured business with a dozen witnesses at all times and likely even security cameras. Anyone that's too afraid to interact with men in that kind of professional environment has deep psychological issues that need to be addressed with a trained professional LONG before they are ready to step foot in a martial arts gym.
I've worked with a woman that would have literal panic attacks during training, because of past trauma. She could work with men. I've worked with women that have been attacked and raped. They could work with men. Why? Because a martial arts gym is basically the LAST place they're likely to be attacked.
Also, the reasons men want to avoid women in martial arts (which I've heard too many of) ALSO relate to safety. They refuse to roll with women because "one word from her and you spend years in prison."
And I would tell them the same thing I would tell women that are afraid of "safety issues": Your concerns are not statistically justifiable, this is a ridiculous context in which to be concerned about them, and irrational fear towards an entire demographic is often just a thin veneer disguising deep-rooted bigotry.
As a man, i'm on the "yes" side of the argument. I really don't feel comfortable, in equal value, because a) I'm not used to touching women outside family, without a sexual/flirting scenario. b) I don't like lowering my power that much, and having to actually mitigate my size and weight. I'm there to engage only tougher opponents, and would be willing to pay extra for that.
Aside from moral and social values, if there is something wrong with my mindset, I'd appreciate your feedback. I also don't mind discussing the social/moral stance, I'm from eastern europe btw.
In a very Muslim area, a men-only class might be reasonable, as Muslim men and women are unlikely to want to train with the other.
I'm a very small man and I can tell every woman out there that the first time you get hit hard by someone who is 20 kg heavier than you it is very rough. Don't let the first time you get hit like a truck be in a scary place by someone who doesn't care about you surrounded by strangers. Go to a mixed class and if you have a halfway decent gym everyone will be nice to you until you can take it just like anyone else. Build a community spar with all body types and eventually jump in a shark tank and do back to back exhausting hard rounds. I recently had my first muay thai fight and I've shark tanked so so many times and its tiring but I guarantee you 2 minutes of real fighting is somehow more tiring after 2 years of training with a metric buttload of sparring and conditioning I physically could not suck in enough air after round 1
Here's the thing, before my BJJ gym started women's only classes, I was the ONLY woman actively training at that gym, but NOW, every single woman who signed up for the women's only class also takes the co-ed class. It just gives women an entry point they're more comfortable with and gets women trying jiu jitsu that wouldn't have tested it out otherwise.
Also worth noting: All the dudes at my gym have always been super welcoming and great training partners, they're just dudes and women who don't know them yet would get intimidated by the idea of training with them
Yeah this video misses the point i think. Doesn't actually understand what's going on here.
It's well argued but this would be my criticism as well. I don't think its uncommon or unreasonable for a woman to be intimidated by a bunch of men who fight a lot, e.g. what about women who have suffered violence from men previously (of course the reality is that most of the time the fear is misplaced and most gyms are full of good guys). Purely as an entrypoint I can see it working well and could get women hooked and eventually going to all the mixed classes. I would agree though that just training 100% women classes for an extended period is a bit of a shame for all involved.
@@JudoP_slinging I don't think it's well argued, sadly.
Would it be legitimate to have men's only classes to pull in the men that are intimidated by/uncomfortable around women?
@@ArmchairViolence I literally couldn't care less of there was a men's only class once a week just like the women's class is. I don't want to train with people against their will.
I practice bjj and go to a historically women’s college, and there are noticeable differences between the classes I attend back home and the club there.
I’m pretty muscular, but because the co-ed classes I go to are mostly male, I can’t rely on my physical strength nearly as much. Rolling with larger opponents forces me to focus on my technical skills, and I’m a better grappler because of it.
Going to all-women’s club was super eye-opening. Granted, the majority of people there were beginners. But, it was so much more difficult for me to improve, because I suddenly felt like I wasn’t being challenged. The club culture was also way different; after we drilled a move only a quarter of the class would actually WANT to roll. I feel like no one there is actually passionate about the sport, and they’re just there to learn “self-defense skills” without actually putting in any of the time or effort that it takes to develop them.
Then again, this is just my personal experience, and I’ve been doing martial arts for longer than I can remember, so maybe I’m just not seeing something that beginners are.
No, Ma'am. You hit the nail on the Head. It's true of Sports, Fighting, School, and more of many Females not desiring to go above and beyond. It's actually sad today. I always praise, appreciate, applaud, and Respect Women like yourself who are about development and improvement. 👊👊
Many pounds ago, I joined a shaolin kempo dojo to learn kickboxing. As it turned out, I was the only guy in the class. After the girls were reassured that I can see next to nothing without my glasses on, I was welcomed in- except for drills, sparring, and technique practice. After one round of punches into the pads, the teacher's assisant wasn't willing to hold the targets up for me. (Granted, she was holding them against twenty other girls during drills.) Without a sparring partner, I couldn't train muscle memory, and often got put by myself while the others learned. After I reached my weight loss goals, I left the class.
You managed to stretch the sentence ‘you need more training partners who have a wider knowledge’ into 15 minutes
A lot of women wouldn't feel comfortable joining a gym if they were going to be joining a class that is most likely 90% + male. However if there is a woman only class they are far more likely to join. Suboptimal training is still much better than no training. Also if they join for a woman's class there is a decent chance they will get comfortable enough to join the mixed classes.
I’d posit that suboptimal self defense training can give people a false sense of confidence about their abilities which is arguably worse.
@@bduck-r3cImo "false" confidence is good. Most people aren't naturally aggressive enough or bluff enough. Thinking you're tougher than you are is an advantage.
@@MrCmon113 Except when reality comes crashing down upon being struck and you realize you’re up shit creek without a paddle.
Thats how folks get killed. Overconfidence is slow and insidious.
@@bduck-r3chave you ever seen that video of a chihuahua chasing off a bear? False confidence against a would be attacker is better than no confidence because if you act as though you are not someone who should be considered as a victim you’re less likely to become one. And if someone tries to make you one anyways the result is the same in both situations. But as a lot of people (mainly women) have pointed out a lot of women start training coed after starting in women’s only classes. It’s a lot safer and more comfortable for them to join a women’s only class to see what the vibe is like and see if this is a place they feel safe or if this is a boys club where they’re going to get harassed. Despite what the reality may be. Men who train combat sports don’t have the best reputation for acting reasonably and respectfully
Omg, this is the first time I've seen a nice argument from RUclips where both sides provided good points.
I think "false confidence" can be situationally helpful or harmful, depending on who they encounter.
Love this guy. I actually left the Gracie self defence cult after watching this guy.
Did you use to train at a gracie gym and left it?
Or just changed the approach to training?
doesn't matter what you do in life jsut always ask yourslefe why you are doing it , what is the goal , for fun fine , to be come a better fighter or to stay in shape also fine , just don't do it just because .
and ultimately what did you did? changed dojo? or left martial arts?
Our (Mixed) Taekwondo club is lead by a female instructor, and we have a lot of female members that come to our club rather than a one closer to them because they believe any issues they have are more likely to be taken seriously by the lead instructor. (A culture or knowledge issue with other gyms that needs to improve)
Our lead instructor is in full agreement that all training should be mixed genders and weights to learn how to deal with people of all sizes and types. (I am a middle/heavy male and train with, giant guys and younger sub 5 ft women and feel it would be disrespectful not to take either arrangement seriously)
The only Female only element we have is that now and again she will host a 1 or 2 lesson long women's only first introductory class to help those who may be overly nervous and maybe have had some bad experiences in the past. This is just to help ease their concerns in an environment where they may feel safer raising any perceived issues in conversation before integrating right after.
She also did this as a one on one class with a trans women who was not sure if she would be welcome. They then joined the main class later that week and are now a valued member of our club.
This is the only way I have seen the separation being useful, but only because it is extremely temporary.
EDIT NOTE: A lot of comments that have said similar things ask if this would work for nervous men too and I don't see why it wouldn't. (It has just never come up) I assume most worries would be around how certain corners of the internet told them that they are going to get sent to jail if they are in any way physical with a female partner. (They need to get over this or they would not be welcome)
If some guy was truly nervous about joining a mixed class I or another male Instructor (As this sort of person may not want to initially discuss their worry with the lead instructor) would happily run a similar thing with them to let them try out and air their concerns where they feel safe before integrating. but they would have to integrate immediately after this.
(If you did it once or twice for them that would only be 2-4h of potentially thousands of hours of total mixed training)
This is so interesting to me. I happen to be a part of one of the most competitive and successful college women’s wrestling club teams in the country. (We are only a club because our college won’t make us varsity yet as women’s wrestling is an emerging sport) We have girls going to the Olympics right now! And one of the main things we credit with our success is that we have at least two practices a week integrated with our college’s D1 men’s team!! I think that having some practices for just our team makes a lot of sense as it helps us build up a cohesive team and individual identity, but for sure mixing genders can be very beneficial for the actual wrestling when used well!!
@@kikiatmosudirdjo5453 Having practices that build team cohesion make sense mainly because you are all quite elite, and your team DOES have the resources needed to get better. Having an internationally competitive women's program with multiple world class practitioners is an accomplishment that VERY few combat sport clubs, classes, or gyms can claim.
Also, where do you train?? Because that team sounds awesome. Elite women's wrestling programs are like unicorns!
Good luck at the Olympics!
aslong as the men are respectfull it's oke but i do understand that some women don't like men so i getbwhy they want only female spaces , even men complainn about those instagram jokers in the gym acusing men etc and ruining the gym but i just stay away from stuff that anoys me , far away .
Women's freestyle wrestling and women's judo will eventually produce the next female grapplers in catch as catch can, Jujitsu, and MMA. In 10 or so years there's gonna be a Kayla Harrison-esque Olympic gold medalist who goes into BJJ, catch and/or MMA who can dominate.
Most people started Martial art for self defense,I started Martial art because I thought the Tekken characters were cool.
We are not the same
they are cool.
I thought Broly looked sick when he ate a kamehameha like it was nothing and then grabbed Goku’s face and threw him through multiple buildings. I made the decision that I was going to do that irl.
Same
I started because I was better than expected (I looked anorexic) and thus, got applauded and ADDICTED to applause
@@itzskye7074 That's only human
waited 2 months for him to spit facts again
Same
He was cooking here.
facts here? lol
@@thac0twenty377 Yes
My only experience with women in combat sports is being put up against an aspiring olympic boxer and getting the whooping that made my nose crooked.
A woman can't hit you hard enough to KO you with power but the liver, chin and other KO buttons still work.
It essentially turned into me turtling up and trying to punish her every time she stopped being defensively responsible. I was in high school back then and the sheer difference in hand speed and footwork allowing her to effortlessly tap me over and over again is what got me to really lock it in during shadowboxing and technique training.
Some of the Hardest Hitting I've experienced was from a shorter heavier Woman who I believe was a Pro Boxer training for a Fight. As a larger opponent, I was selected to spar with her. She had that "Iron" Mike Tyson, Pitbull type of pressure and was like a coiled spring ready to explode. I had to take her seriously. My Trainer and the other Coaches had to tell me to dial it back, which I usually do, but I would have had to seriously fight her in my inexperienced state @ 23. They eventually told her to take it down a notch too. She was awesome to be around as well. 👌👌
That part about womens martial arts tactics being totally different is sooooo true. My gf has tree trunk legs and it makes a huge difference in her strinking and grappling. Its what motivated me to focus on my legs more!
copy her hips. teaches you to sink your center of balance
I mostly agree, though women's classes are 90% a marketing gimmick to get more women in the normal classes and less of a real strategy for anything other than maybe 1x/week sort of vibes.
One thing also I'll mention is that certain training partners are better for training than others, if you're a 26 year old 5'8 155 pound male at 13% body fat you're probably not going to get much out of training with the 55 year old man. yeah you'll get some but training with people of similar size and age ranges is generally slightly preffered to training with bigger/smaller/older opponents. I've noticed this with my 30 year old 150 pound body trying to beat 200+pound big guy's, I can do it but I'm mostly scrambling like mad and moving around faster than they can see. When I roll with other people my size I'm going to be a lot less mobility oriented and focus more on control and I can do things like do a turkish getup to get them off of me. (at small weight classes the Strength/weight ratio is so comically large that you can flip each other over so easily, when you can leg extend 1.5 times your body weight you can almost flip a guy over with 1 butterlfy hook.
In spite of this my favorite training partner is a small girl who is as I like to describe "a nuclear missle" she generates so much force with so little mass, and moves at the speed of a crazy person.
@@ussgordoncaptain Things like this depend a lot on your capability set and what you're working on. I'm about 170lbs, but I often like working with guys over 200lbs, because I can practice pressuring and driving forward in ways that would injure other people. And training with smaller people lets me practice high-risk lifts and takedowns that would injure ME if I messed them up on bigger people.
Two of my best training partners are: a 40+ purple belt that uses as little energy as possible, and a 320 white belt that is STUNNINGLY athletic. They both help me work on specific skills. If I only trained with one of them, I would have gaping holes in my game.
My bjj gym has a woman's class 1 day a week. Some of the women were upsold to normal class after they get comfortable with bjj.
I think it provide a non-intimidating starting point like when you start learning to swim in the kiddie pool before moving to olympic deep pool or the ocean.
I always look forward to your insights and your uploads! Actually, following some earlier videos of yours - particularly your analysis of the Gracie self defense subsystem - I already added "don't go to women's-only self defense classes" to my General Guidelines for Picking a Self Defense Spot. This significantly expands on the rationale.
I also, tearfully, hung up my karambit.
This was a pretty good video but I still think that a major problem with women's self defense or martial arts school is that so many of them seem gimmicky obsessed with marketing and many of them don't even seem to genuinely care about doing or figuring out what's effective in a self defense scenario or a ring but I think that this is a point that the very mcdojo and gimmicky nature of many womens self defense or martial arts school is something that many people have already spent plenty of time touching upon.
Wants to talk about a controversial topic of women's gyms, "I know what will make this better, lets add race relations" :)
On a serious note I like the video was a new perspective on some of these ideas. One thing I will say is I can see the value of a women's only class as a gateway to mixed classes. Essentially bumping the comfort/challenge ratio in favour of comfort to get people in the door and enjoying training before you ramp it up, kinda like what a beginners class is ment to do. However most women's only classes I see give no incentive to moved to mixed which is a problem.
@@locky7443 Me: *Sees argument on gender dynamics* "Hmmm, not controversial enough. 🤔
@@ArmchairViolence A genius play, distract from the gender relations with the racial relations. This leaves only the sane people talking about the actual topic of the video.
I think its important for gyms to start slow and be beginner friendly. The one I go to (MMA) have a couple women that train, compete and win more than almost all men there, and they happly train with everyone. But at the beggining is super hard for everyone, a d twice as much for women, that have no one of their streght/sex that can guide them and end up leaving, ensuring the next one is in the same position.
I think the best thing for women is to train with men and women, but its paramount to start slow and in a very controlled environment.
There’s a book called “David and Goliath” by Malcolm Gladwell in which he describes how people who might appear to be underdogs sometimes have hidden advantages precisely because of their underdog status. One example he gives is the popular political issue of wanting to reduce class sizes - people often assume smaller classes are better because it means individual students get more attention from the teacher, but in classes where kids get less attention, they learn (by necessity) to work things out for themselves and to work with other people, which serves them well later in life.
I think it’s the same with martial arts - training with a wide variety of people (including different sexes) is good for your development. E.g. I’m fairly tall, so in sparring I usually rely on my reach. However, I sometimes spar people who are taller than me, in which case I try to be more aggressive and work the inside more.
In my self defence class when we get new people in (men or women), we set them up with the "right" sparring partners during their first month. By "right", I mean partners that have full control of their power and will never hurt the new person. And usually when the new person is a woman, we set them up with other women we have. That is usually enough for them to feel confortable.
My old gym had an extra women's only class in addition to the normal classes, and it seemed to work out fine. Most of them also trained with the normal mixed gender classes.
I don’t think it’s the case anymore, but apparently there was once a time when judo guys dominated grappling tournaments simply because the talent pool was so huge, even though it was poorly suited to it compared to bjj.
Bjj “grappling rules” favoring bjj players! Who would’ve thought! Let’s see Bjj guys in wrestling rules..or judo rules. The peak BJJ guys lose potentially regional level competitions for most other grappling arts.
Martial artist training full contact with scientific approach to data and research - you are a gem, my friend.
Do you use reddit?
@@trevorsamuel1114 No.
he is not scientific lol
This is one of the most thought provoking martial arts channels!
yes, his titles are incredibly inflammatory but i enjoy hearing what mr armchair has to say regardless and almost every video i end up 70 to 100% in agreement
eg. i particularly like the one about Judo
As a black man, I personally self segregate myself and I dont care who gets offended. To me there's only two types of people, those who fully understand the hype of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and everyone else
Based
Why segregate yourself, just train with anyone.
@@atrainbrady3208Would you want to train with someone who didn’t fully understand the hype of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie?
LOL!!! 😁😁😂😂🤣🤣 Bruh, that's a good one.
@@atrainbrady3208 Bro, you need to read both sentences... I know that's a lot, but you got this!
HE BROUGHT BACK THE OUTRO SONG!!!!!! You have made my day! 😂🎉
32:50 My gym is a fight gym taught by a former Glory world champion. I am a middle aged hobbyist. The beginner class is full of 20 year old hot heads and middle aged women. The middle aged men get chewed up and spit out by the younger dudes but they go easy on or avoid the middle aged women so they proliferate and prosper.
I'd really prefere training a "twinks only" class.
I dunno man... sean O'malley would woop my ass
Based and red pilled
submission via chicken chokw
Based
thigh highs and skirts are MANDATORY.
I agree... the open, welcoming spaces is the way to go. Different people, different sizes and skills is what make the puzzle more interesting. It helps not only with the fighting, but with way other social and personal skills that are developed in groups with care and goodwill in mind. The killer mentality is absurd and a waste of time. We are there to learn, not to survive a guy with lack of self control. If you can do it soft, you can do it right.
My man always stay spitting facts thought I will say a few trial classes to get comfortable wouldn’t hurt. The real issue is guys who go hogwild and I should know I was one of them as I spent 4 years wrestling so I always approached rolls like I did wrestling with too much intensity regardless of who I’m going against especially because I’m 230lbs.
I got lectured a few times when I roll with older, smaller, and female people the same as I would a heavyweight my size. I was young then but I’ve learned now
I know what you mean. I wrestled 5 years and that aggression switch clicks when you train lol
Hello Mr Violence. Great to see you again. You have some skill - you kept me fully engaged for 37 minutes on a topic I care nothing about. The only thing I have to say is I have seen too many fit but untrained men destroy female black belts and mma fighters. Usually they put up with the flailing, get tired of it, land one good body blow and the woman is down. So what does that mean for female martial art practitioners? I dunno.
@@kaoskronostyche9939 It means that men have a lot of physical advantages over the average woman. Women can still become great martial artists and still lose to men, for the same reason that I could currently beat up Chuck Norris: I have physical advantages, even if he's way more skilled than me.
@@ArmchairViolence Thank you for the reply. As usual your reasoning is impeccable and your conclusions are correct. I appreciate the additional context.
I really enjoy your work. Always insightful. Cheers!
@@ArmchairViolence Chuck Norris doesn't get beat up. He beats the world down.
i used to do wrestling, im also a comp winning strongwoman i weigh about 90kgs. Ive beaten plenty of men in my wrestling classes, part of the reason why i quit is because of the culture and how men get very upset when a woman beats him.
@@daroom9854 Very artful way of insulting men. Well done. I quit women twenty years ago ... because ....
Subbed! Ive been binging your videos for a few days now, you are so intelligent, and sensible and thoughtful, im so impressed
The way the school I attend runs is there is a directed class, and after the class, there is an optional free sparring time. The directed class has about a 3/2 male / female ratio but most if not all the women leave before or sit out the sparring session. How would you address this?
TL;DR: Protected training spaces for underrepresented demographics are good because they expose people who might not otherwise be interested to combat sports, and some percentage of those extra people will continue to go on and train in "regular" classes, even if that number is small. Also, it can be easier to make friends, and making friends motivates people to stick to training a difficult and sometimes physically painful skill to reach those long-term rewards.
I don't think it's "good" to exclusively train with people from your own demographic, but only because the way you get better is training with anyone, from any background, as often as you can! Obviously, restricting your own training opportunities makes it harder to maximize growth and improvement as an individual practitioner.
However, I think it's important to consider that demographically restricted training spaces can make the difference between someone getting their foot in the door and someone never picking up training AT ALL. Sure, some folks might not move out of that protected training space, but is that so bad if they are having fun and enjoying it for other reasons than maximizing improvement? If it gets them out of the door to train at all, they are certainly better off than if they had never started. Plus, making it accessible and exposing it to more people means that some percentage of people who may only have been interested in cardio kickboxing or a social hangout space in a protected setting suddenly find out that fighting is super fun and stick with it, who would otherwise have never considered themselves a fighter. Obviously that percentage may be small, but that's true of any skill or field.
It doesn't need to be a high conversion percentage to funnel more people into it - "it's just a numbers game" after all!
If implemented successfully, these types of things can create a pipeline to bring more interest and awareness of combat sports and martial arts more generally. In a more sporting context rather than a self-defense context, most competitions are (for better or for worse, although that's a whole other question) gender segregated. In that context, it makes a TON of sense to train primarily against the types of competitors you would face (same gender and weight division). Obviously not denying the value of training against people bigger/smaller or different gender, and there is a ton to learn from all training partners, but I can understand someone focusing on training with the type of people they would actually be competing against. Tons of people are into sport/competition BJJ who have minimal or zero interest "practical" self-defense or application, and I don't think that's any less valid of a way of engaging with combat sports and martial arts. Are there are lot of instructors exploiting the interest in women's martial arts/self-defense to make money teaching shoddy classes? Absolutely. But if they are hampering the development of those students, or students are not encouraged to explore integrated classes at the same gym or elsewhere, I think that's more an issue of the specific gym/instructor/class than the concept of women's classes in and of itself.
I think lots of men who claim they are EXCLUSIVELY interested in self-improvement and skill acquisition underestimate the importance of the gym community and training buddies in getting themselves to class. Human beings have so much neurological programing to be socially motivated! You don't have to be best friends with the people you train with, but I have also made lots of close friendships in my training journey and I'd be a liar if I said it didn't keep me going through those tough training days where I wanted to give up or not go to class or spend my time doing literally anything other than getting ragdolled around on the mat or leg kicked for hours (lol). Obviously, women and men can (and should) be friends with each other! But it can definitely be an initial barrier, especially in a brand-new gym where you don't know anyone, learning a brand-new skill, participating in a very physically vulnerable activity together. I had a sort of "opposite" gender experience going to yoga classes that were majority women and feeling VERY out of place, and it was super hard for me to overcome that and make friends with people and it could easily have made me quit.
Anecdotally, I feel like I benefited a lot from finding queer focused martial arts training spaces to practice in. Having more in common socially made training more fun, and because it was fun I trained more and improved. There were a lot of beginners, but there was also a TON of killers in open mat, so there was a wide range of skill levels to train with (not unlike any other good gym/training space!). I think it would be hard to go from beginner to high level practitioner training EXCLUSIVELY in these types of spaces (for the simple reason that to really improve you just need to maximize hours and training reps, and at the moment there aren't enough of those types of protected training spaces that are accessible on a regular basis to constitute your entire training "diet" out of). But as a supplement to "regular" training, and to find other practitioners to hang out with outside of class and geek out together about fighting? Awesome, and I think there should be more of them!
Nobody is reading that lol
@@jimpim6454 that’s okay. I enjoyed writing it and I forgive you.
@@jimpim6454I read it 😅
I never really thought about the (whatever)-only courses being a comfortable starting point, and then being able to move to co-ed or general practices if/when people want to. As long as coaches address the shortfalls of the restricted course with the students and encourage them to at least try the more general ones, I think these spaces are a net positive. Thanks for your perspective!
@@sivolock259I read it. Good take.
Is this a reupload? I remembered you discussing this in a previous video? Stilm will watch again, thanks for the video.
There's a video about firas not training with women.
Maybe you're thinking about that one.
Let’s hear more about these openings you didn’t know you had getting exploited
To his point around 33:30 ... I've been the sole white guy at two gyms - one hispanic and the other black dominated. They would use some slurs and and make references to me being white. However, it was clearly always made in jest or good natured so it never really bothered me. I consider it an interesting and novel experience.
That kind of stuff can really depend on how much goodwill you've built up with each other
I’m getting sincerely annoyed with how little traction your videos get. I’ve been sharing with all of my friends (even though none of us are in martial arts or combat sports, or even anything athletic) because the information you provide consistently makes rational sense and can be utilized in far more than just marrial arts. Understanding how to create specific cultures capable of overcoming specific resistances or other cultures can be implemented in a commune, in any business, in a community of any kind, and is socially applicable regardless of context. Comprehending violence (necessary or not) can assist anyone in at least understanding the rationale and exactly how to pick it apart if ever necessary. It also displays forms of problem solving beyond just barbarically mauling people
I always very much admire your logical approach. Here as well, except I can’t quite include lessons/intensive 1:1 training with a teacher or high level student. Those are incredibly productive but the group could not be smaller. Or would you consider them „diverse“ due to their range of skills?
Private lessons are productive because you're focusing entirely on your own training instead of letting your partner work or catering to the lowest common denominator in a class. However, what you learn from that private lesson still has to be practiced on a wider range of people to actually get good at it. Someone who ONLY goes to private lessons (with the 1 instructor) will likely have a skill ceiling that they wouldn't have in larger classes.
Hey! As you were talking about the self-segregation I was thinking about the Racial Dot Map and how it depicts the stark contrast where you can even find the street that divides where people choose to live. And especially in Detroit.
Then, lo and behold, you SHOWED the Racial Dot Map...FROM DETROIT!
Nice to see someone else who knows that map exists! (Or existed. I think they took it down now. Or at least I can't find the original link to the data.)
I feel that men's and women's only spaces have value, but not in an institutionalized setting. If you're the type of person who needs to hang with the guys or go out with the girls, you can and should create that gender-exclusive social experience for yourself. But combat gyms are not primarily a social club, and the people are going there to improve themselves as well as see their friends.
Hey Jake! Good content as always. I Just watched your videos about karambit and knife fighting, and i really think tou should give "limb disabling" a deeper analysis, because a big thrust or even cut in the inicial part of inner forearm would cut the tendons that attach the hand/fingers to the forearm muscles, disabling the hand, and despite a disabled hand not ending the fight, It gives you a HUGE disadvantage. Imagine Strike or grapple without one or both grips? And also the chance of them dropping the knife? I think the main strategy for knife fighting would be fighting for destroying the opponents forearm tendons in a fencing stance, and then end the fight using that folsom prison style. Love your channel
I think the fact that you have to fully sever specific tendons on the inside of the most nimble part of the human body and NOT have actually won the fight yet tells you that there are probably better strategies. Show me a video of someone winning by starting with a limb disable, and I'll show you 100 where someone wins by not targeting the limbs at all.
Is it impossible to disable a limb? No. But it IS the knife fighting strategy that is LEAST likely to work, and has the LOWEST return on investment.
@@ArmchairViolence To add to Jakes point, perhaps these techniques could serve a useful purpose in specific scenarios by specific people, but the level of skill, familiarity and experience necessary to truly integrate them into a wider skill set - and to successfully pull them off reliably and accurately (in life-or-death self-defense scenarios where missing your skill check could very well result in literal permadeath irl) - is a prerequisite that few people in the world will ever even be able to fulfill; for a niche skill that even fewer are likely to gamble their proverbial gonads on to spend years developing mastery over.
And even if they could do that, I suppose a bigger question to ask first is, would they even _choose_ to do so? Over methods that might more efficiently accomplish the same outcome, with potentially much less risk, and are probably easier to learn and integrate?
I'm not trying to be a total debbie-downer or argumentative, nor am I just jaded/cynical to more "niche" forms of self-defense.
I am not trying to simply dismiss outright all forms of knife-based self-defense or things like that, and at the end of the day I'm no expert on anything anyways. I just think that when we're considering the prioritization of skill-sets from the standpoint of teaching them to as many people as possible to advocate for and practice their own self-defense - simplicity is king.
The simpler something is, the easier it is to teach, the easier it is for more people to pick up and try to develop towards mastery, and the more accessible it is to a broader category of people.
@@ArmchairViolence sometimes i think some strategies arent used Just because nobody thinks of it. For an example, semiautomatic firearms exist since 1830s, but they were fully spread Just 120 years later. And also the oblique kick, one of the most devasting weapons and distance managers a striker can use, just began being used after Jon Jones, and today Just a few ufc fighters use it, so thats what i think, i find the Idea logical and a test for It would be good.
@@korpzmarcelfranca6825 Technological innovations, like machine guns, need technological maturity. And man-portable semi-automatic firearms weren't sufficiently mature for quite a while. Even something as popular and innovative as the M-1 Garand lacked a removable magazine. A feature that is viewed as almost essential today.
For techniques, there has to be a capability gap that they are able to adequately fill. Oblique kicks weren't popular before Jon Jones, but they still represent a niche tool that only makes up a TINY minority of kicks. They weren't popular before because we needed people to fully explore the niche areas where oblique kicks could possibly be useful. And that didn't happen until the sport of MMA was very well explored, and all of the more vital capabilities were taken care of.
If humanity develops advanced and functional curriculums and strategies for knife fighting (the stuff that currently exists is either REALLY dumb or extremely basic), then I could totally see limb targeting becoming an accepted move. But only as a potential answer to a very niche problem. A problem that we haven't even encountered yet, because we don't know enough about knife fighting. I could see it existing as a niche tool for highly unusual and specific problems. But, as a general strategy, all evidence points towards it being a bad plan.
@@ArmchairViolence I would contend (weakly) that there's an argument to be had for targetting limbs being the nearest target that you can engage from the safest distance and so having validity there.
This argument breaks down if they charge you down because moving backwards is always slower than moving forward.
This was good stuff. Personally only went as deep as, "who do you want to defend against", and ,"what is your reason for wanting to do martial arts"?
I've categorized the desire to do martial arts into 3 big categories:
Self defense
Fitness
Something to do
If I'm understanding your perspective, you are focused on item 1. If so, i completely agree with...well, all of the points you made.
However, it's the other two categories I mentioned that I think partially gave rise to women's only classes. If I'm looking for a place to keep up my fitness, I don't need co-ed if the instructor is knowledgable.
Basically, as you alluded to already, the class needs to fit the audience. If i was training to survive in the wilderness, it would be stupid of me to know how to combat everything but bears.
All in all, good video, and interesting conmections to segregation.
I'm taking a summer course and one class talked about women athletes. While I didn't arrive to the same answer as you did, I did believe in that results would be better if they were allowed on the same playing fields, or the sport would develop more because of it
Love your videos; I always walk away with new ideas about how I want to train, and the culture I want to grow around me.
I wonder if you've read The Armored Rose by Tobi Beck. It got handed to me a decade ago and, though I never finished it, I did find it densely-packed with insight about fighting men as a woman that I wouldn't have found otherwise.
I can't examine it critically because I no longer have it in my hands and it's still less than my highest class of priorities.
But I would be really curious on your thoughts about it. You and Beck seem to keep taking on the converging topics from different angles.
Something I have been thinking a lot about lately is the analogy of a pool (and this is before you mentioned your dry land analogy). Some kids do great being thrown into the deep end. At first they mostly just tread water and stay afloat, but they eventually gain the skill to really swim with the ability to preserve their life if need be. Other kids not so much. They need to get accustomed to the pool. They need the shallow end. That isn't to say that they don't need to eventually go to the deep end to really gain proficiency at swimming, just that there is nothing wrong with them starting where they are more comfortable, and easing into things. Otherwise, it may be too overwhelming or discouraging for them to continue.
I think this is what it is like for women's only classes. Having to go into a male dominated space, or even just grapple with men, can feel like the deep end, and there isn't something wrong with starting in the shallow end. Yes of course women should eventually join the co-ed classes, but you need to let them learn and get comfortable at their own pace if you want more women involved. Acknowledge the value of training wheels, shallow ends, etc. for some people. That may in look like slower progress, but it's not any slower than someone that never starts in the first place or leaves early on.
I also feel like you're not factoring the neuroscience around in the ease in which we learn while comfortable verses the difficulty of learning in fight/flight (freeze, fawn) response. How comfortable a woman (or anyone really) feels in any situation, affects their ability to learn. Of course you're right, this is hard with martial arts, but it feels like you assume that the values of comfort and learning are at odds more than they actually are. Yeah, comfort can't be the only goal, but it is a major component of good learning.
Ultimately the balance of comfort and discomfort is not something you can know or decide for an individual, people experience these things differently, and they are the final judges of how well they are learning in a certain environment. To decide for them, rather than just merely bring their attention to this difficult balance, is to be paternalistic and dare I say patronizing.
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Also, I think it's totally acceptable and even reasonable for men and women to occasionally just want single-gendered spaces not as the only option, but as an available option. Big emphasis, on the words, "option" and "want," and correct me if am wrong, but those things weren't really a part of Jim Crow. Things should be done with people, not to people, and deciding that women only classes are a bad idea, even when women are telling you otherwise (as I've observed in the comments), is a fancy way of talking over them. If it works for some women, it works for some women... You can acknowledge the ways in which some women can be systematically forced into women only spaces while still respecting that some women do really want those spaces. To do otherwise, again, comes off as patronizing. You pay a lot of lip service to caring about women's value to a male dominated space, but that also means their own perspectives on how they would like to learn. Their own self advocacy and personal goals are a part of that valuably diversity, and I don't believe the "shallow end entrance" undermines this as long as the culture encourages that eventual integration but also respect for people's own speed at which they grow. Threating to ban them, isn't it...
Of course if the male only spaces start to become a toxic environment with lots of sexism, shut that **** down. Though, it could also be a great way to reach young men who have some distorted ideas about women or rolling with women. You're never going to reach the red pill, manosphere, MGTOW, guys if they don't feel comfortable starting in the co-ed classes.
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random side note: You mention men and women having the same reasons, but the reasons listed are rather vague. To assume two vague descriptors are the same thing, seems like an oversimplification and a lack of further investigation and details. There is complexity there that's being overlooked. I'm not even necessarily saying men's reasons aren't valid, just that these vague notions of discomfort or what have you, might be very different under the surface of those very bland terms. Those particulars are probably worth understanding to create the ideal gym environment.
That all being said, I do respect the thought you put into this, I'm frustrated with where I disagree with you, but I appreciate your desire to try and make martial arts a better place for women.
Literally my first thought when I clicked on this video was “why would you train to defend yourself from women?” I have only ever encountered one instructor that outright banned women from class, and he was an Aikido guy my friend trained under. If anyone is supposed to benefit from the “redirect power gentle technique” system, wouldn’t it be women?
Realistically, I'd want to defend myself against some drunk dude while I'm drunk myself. But I don't think training drunk all the time is necessary to get there.
@@MrCmon113 Strawman, not the same thing. Training for sex-specific disadvantages and training to fight while intoxicated are very different. They both involve disadvantages, but they aren't the same disadvantages.
There's also the fact that "Women Only" classes and "Women's Self-Defense" classes are not the same thing. It's easy to conflate the two because as mentioned in the video a lot of people get into martial arts for self-defense reasons but "Women Only" classes are normal martial arts classes where the only people participating are women. Whereas "Women's Self-Defense" classes address or most of the time give the illusion of addressing sex-specific disadvantages.
If you're a woman whether you train to compete or train for self-defense, ultimately, you're going to have to train with men for the best possible results.
Actually, I could see the point of it. I once utilized an Aikido Technique on a Drunk Guy to safely and without hurting him remove him from being a danger to others. I physically don't have to utilize the Techniques on Women. Aikido could help Ladies, but depending upon their sizes it wouldn't help too much.
@@MrCmon113 The one time I actually utilized an Aikido Technique was against a drunk Guy. I removed him from being a danger to others while calming down a situation by safely and not harming him.
@@looFA_4 Exactly!!! 👊👊✊✊👏👏👌👌
20:12 this is the best metaphor for why equity strategies don’t work I’ve ever heard. Hats off man.
Yay I'm early on my favorite martial arts RUclipsr
I do Muay Thai and am a 38 year old 100 kg male heavyweight.
Our gym has more women than average, and I personally prefer sparring and drilling with female partners, and least like it with men under like 25 to 28 years of age.
They haven't grown out of trying to prove how tough, cool or competent they are, and generally carry the most anger of any group I regularly interact with in training.
Every. Single. Woman. I sparred or drilled with so far sees it the same way I do - we're partners, not opponents, learning together.
I've taught women's self defense courses to lots who would never join a gym full of scary guys in their prime that they are afraid might hurt them. By that introduction to martial arts, some developed confidence to move forward and actually basics to fight off druggies or stand against date rape. The ladies, young, old and in-between should get the Combat Advantage over the bad guys..
With your philosophy, you limit your classes to only those young gals who start as children or have a bold personality that has no guy hang-ups or fears. Guess who needs it most?
Those who have been assaulted and really need help.
His point, if I may, is that the end result in terms of skills learnt from a women only class is lower than a mixed class. Thus, a woman training to fight off druggies and rapists will not be as successful in a women's only class. However I agree with you that a women's only class is a good entry point. I think there should be a realistic limit of progression offered in the women's only classes, such as up to the first 3 belts for example. If you want to progress further than you need to step into the mixed.
@@nathanielfarrugia Yes I agree. There are some women, special needs as well as children who need there own class up to a point and others who should continue with grown men eventually. My students goals may have been different than my goals or his goals. As a teacher, I want to tap into the students motivation, encourage, teach to the potential and see small consistent improvements.
It's amazing how childlike and neurotic women are that they think they are in constant danger of being fucking date raped.
They are afraid they might hurt them because they are infantile and neurotic and lack the ability to understand that a martial arts class is literally one of the safest places on earth.
And none of those girls ever used them for any of what you mentioned, because rape is super rare.
Also, they wouldn't be able to use them anyway, because an average man could still rape them if he wanted too with their woman only skills.
The distinction between cooperative and competitive grounds is really important.
Still the most thoughtful and intelligent martial arts tuber.
Thanks for covering multiple topics I wanted to cover in a single documentary-length video, lol
9:56 well you just demonstrated you know more about then you let on. If you're honestly critical about it, you could discuss it if you want to, I'm all ears. Maybe make a separate channel so you can finally discuss philosophy, politics, and Batman.
The one complaint I've heard from women in martial arts is guys not taking them seriously while drilling/sparring. Women want to feel powerful too, but when guys act like they are made of glass they feel insulted. You should have a culture of technical but light sparring. If you can't take it easy on someone much smaller and weaker than you then you might be really really bad at fighting.
I mean you could just tell your sparring partner to go harder?
I feel like the opposite complaint is more common? That men actually roll too hard.
When I first started I went hard on everyone whether I needed to or not. The way I saw it at the time was that I was showing respect to their hard work in training by giving them my all. Needless to say it was not a popular approach.
@@institches2750 Sounds like a "depends on the gym" thing
The first part of your comment doesn't fit with the second.
Imo it's better to "not take someone seriously" and go super light. Then they can still ask you to go harder.
From the pure martial arts effectiveness standpoint, I agree with every point. But from an economics of a gym perspective, I can see why gym owners open the women only classes. It's less profitable in the long term for the reasons you outlined but in the shorter term, it provides more revenue.
Really appreciate this video!!
As always: Awesome! I love your videos sooo much.
Meanwhile, in the real world, where real people live, dedicated women’s classes help increase female enrollment and get women who would otherwise not attend to have some combat training instead of none.
Also, many women who enter through women’s classes often end up attending general classes as well.
Finally, of course men should be allowed to have men’s only spaces and clubs and women should be able to have the same.
Should a new father’s group be forced to invite women, and a new mother’s group be forced to invite men?
No.
Should the Girl Scouts be allowed to invite only girls, and should the Boy Scouts have remained a boys group?
Yes.
Should Co Ed options also be available? Obviously.
Should they be the only option?
No.
I think there´s a difference between Men/Women only CLASSES, and Men/Women only GYMS.
I see no problem in segregating some classes, since there´s also benefit in, for example, having a class just for complete beginners, and a class for advanced people. Or, a class that mostly focused on Tournaments and sparring, while other classes focus on body conditioning or other areas.
I think someone needs to read some Thomas Sowell books
Haven’t watched the whole vid. But I already really appreciate the breadth you’ve gone into with discussing Jim Crow and how oppression and segregation can and still impacts a communities and individuals learning.
Love the Lumpy Space Princess voice, that got me lol.
I feel that some of the arguments were a bit of a straw man fallacy. The presentation of the facts seems to basically say that women only classes count as a form of segregation, yet in reality, women only classes are often done to boost inclusivity. It’s usually the first step for many schools in changing their culture to be more inclusive. I agree that women only classes can be of lower quality, but this is non unique. Classes for children, the disabled, and the elderly tend to be of lower quality as well. Yet these classes, much like women only classes, are usually done to include people who would have never trained otherwise. Ideally, mixed classes would be the goal for most people since a variety of good training partners is a great benefit to anyone’s martial arts journey. Yet special classes can be a great way to start. This isn’t a black or white matter. Mixed classes can exist alongside women only classes because everyone’s martial arts journey is going to vary. On another note, this just seems like the martial arts version of a man not happy with why a woman would choose a bear in the woods.
Agreed but you could do without the last part.
Classes are already 100% inclusive. Women only classes are not at gyms that otherwise only have male only classes.
I can agree with some of what you've said. However, while it is there to promote inclusivity it also has the potential of falling into the self-segregation trap where women get comfortable with their women only classes and don't actually branch out into mixed classes unless pushed to do so, which not all gyms would do, individual goals and beliefs also highly impact whether or not they will do so. Aside from self-segregation it is indeed a form of segregation while it has the intention of promoting inclusivity in martial arts it does so through separation and as a result has the possibility of falling into the traps that systemic separation can present. That's probably the biggest problem with segregation with intent of promoting integration, ensuring that well-intended separation doesn't inadvertently reinforce segregation which is what I think his main point is.
On your side note, a woman choosing a bear over a man is absolutely a stupid thing to do. That would be like me not trusting all women because some women cheat, lie and manipulate, obviously they exist but it isn't representative of the whole or even the majority.
It also isn't really like the bear thing because Jake's presenting an argument for why he thinks women's only classes are a bad idea (societal) whereas men are just flabbergasted by the stupidity of choosing a random bear over a random man at a random period of time (self-preservation, decision-making and biases). They've got some similarities but not enough to conflate the two.
On my side note: Holy moly human society is pretty complex. Aside from a sociological side there's also a business, psychological aspect and probably a few more that all come together. Decision-making on a large-scale sounds like effort.
Edit: I think the biggest problem with his argument is conflating "Women's Self-Defense" to "Women Only classes" which while similar are not the same. One's purpose is to "provide women with the skills to defend themselves from a man" whereas the other is simply a martial arts class exclusive to women the art isn't exclusive to them, but the class is.
How tf did you come to that last part.... Dude was nuanced af
Was...was that sound of a million dreams? What have you done?!
I will show this video to people that say diversity is not a strength or is actually a bad thing.
Yeah, but women's only gyms are a good way for women to be comfortable with someone being physically close to them. In a non intimate way with another woman. After they get used to that rolling with a man might not be as big of a deal. It's a good starting point. For having people physically touch you ,
But what about the host of homophobic men that might feel more “comfortable” being physically touched, in a non-intimate way by women before letting another dude roll around on top of them?
"That's why ice cream exists!" is an argument I should use more often
Do you read any economics books and if so who are your favorite economists
I agree with a lot of the arguments, if we assume the goal/motivation of training is to effectively learn to fight either for self-defense or in competition. However, there are other motivations for training. In my experience, women more often then men give reasons such as improving mental and/or physical health and having fun as motivation to train. Women's only classes can definitely help achieve those goals. I agree these goals are also possible in co-ed training. Men aren't the problem, some men's and groups of men's behavior is. But we're so far from a perfect world in which gyms with positive, inclusive cultures are easy to find. So in the big picture and the long run, I agree. But for the time being I will continue to teach women-only and queer-only classes as well as co-ed classes. Because so often I see people finding so much joy practicing martial arts that had their reasons for needing a exclusive class as an entry point (systemic discrimination is real). I also strongly disagree with the statement "if you only train with women you can't fight". As a female pro fighter I honestly find this insulting. I have always trained in co-ed spaces and see so many benefits. And I agree, most women-only classes are not geared towards fighters at all. But if you train smart and hard with a variety of highly skilled training partners including folks larger than you and they all happen to be women, of course you'd be prepared to fight (regardless of your gender)! Since I'm a small person, for some (definitely not all) training purposes, I find women-only advanced classes or sparring sessions beneficial, because I find more partners my size. I've also been to exclusive "small fighter sparring sessions" and prefer those and also find those important for smaller men. I hate how other sports are segregated. Training martial arts, I can just be an athlete among athletes respecting each other and my gender doesn't matter as much, which on an individual level feels so freeing and is line with the direction I wish for society.
I think a women's only introductory class has some merit; getting them used to some of the fundamentals and the basic practice of sparring before going into the mixed class, the additional familiarity with the martial arts class environment might alleviate some of the intimidation from the mixed class as well. Men don't necessarily need this because it's quite common that they are already familiar with the idea of sparring and wrestling with each other, but having segregated introductory class (like 3 sessions or something) for both sexes would be fine as well (and profitable)
24:04 you owe me a couple bucks btw
While it is necessary to work through discomfort in order to learn, certain base level of comfort is necessary in order to facilitate learning. Due to systemic discrimination, socialization that leads to greater insecurities regarding one's own body, and possible micro-aggressions in the gym, a women may experience a higher level of discomfort than a man in the same training environment, that might hinder progress in the early stages of learning.
Maybe for intoductory classes, for women who maybe are still a little afraid of getting injured by sparing with men? Idk, I'm not into matrial arts. Great video
I really enjoyed your video, and largely agree with you. I do disagree on a few small points though. For one, you said that martial arts learning is not a direct knowledge transfer from instructor to student. But for beginners that’s exactly what it is. It’s not about learning moves, it’s about learning how to move. Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals of how to move (basic footwork, how to throw a punch, how to turn your hip over in a kick, framing, shrimping, etc) then it becomes experience based learning like you were talking about, but still mixed with direct knowledge transfer from instructor to student. Once you have reached the black belt level in most traditional martial arts/blue belt level in BJJ it becomes almost purely experience based learning like you were talking about. So I don’t totally disagree with you on that, I just think it’s a little more complex than you make it out to be. As far as your example with the gym, women’s only spaces are necessary. Some women, no matter how pleasant the gym culture is, will never be comfortable in that setting around men, and if they’re not comfortable they won’t go. Kind of like the saying the best carry gun for you is the best one you’ll actually carry. I also believe there should be a separate class for women for the same reason. No matter how good the martial arts class is and how positive the culture, they simply won’t be comfortable training with men. While you did address this, I still believe they have the right to learn to defend themselves even if it does handicap their training, that’s their choice. For that very reason I rarely ask to roll with female partners without having first gotten to know them for a bit. I never deny a woman a roll, but I don’t ask them to roll until I feel like they’re comfortable with me. I don’t know if that’s a problem with me or with society, or if that’s the way it should be. Sparring on the other hand I feel much freer to ask a female training partner to work with me as there is less close physical contact.
That being said I really liked your input and really enjoyed your video, and agreed with most of what you said.
Still I think that not be able to overcome certain degree of discomfort (i say discomfort not disrespect) then you will not be able to succeed in a real combat. Only creates a false sense of security.
To really develop your skill you need a lot more than learning the moves, without drilling and sparring, there is not real transfer. To be able to adquire a new technique, you have to learn to use it with some degree of resistance, or you will not integrate it.
And as he said, if you aren't confortable interacting with the other half of the population, the problem is in you. And you need therapy, not a dojo.
I don't agree with your point on beginners, an ecological dynamics framework can suggest that a better way to improved as a beginner is by reducing variability by constraints. They should train like more advance martial artists, but with less variability
I feel like this is a really good argument for coed classes with possible warnings for segregating classes based on sex, but there are a few points that I wonder about.
At least personally, getting into combats sports wasn't about being able to fight. I just think the sport is fun (did bit of jits and boxing). Like I love to climb, but I'm never going to (or have any desire to attempt to) free solo El Cap. I'm a gym climber. If you're right about people's primary intention being able to fight, then this point is moot and I'm weird.
Secondly, I understand your rebuttal against the institutional power thing, but it seems like you are maybe making perfect the enemy of progress. I agree some things that look like progress might actually be stopgaps that perpetuate the existing problems and I'm open to that idea. But spaces explicitly open to minority groups exist because whether we want to admit it or not, members of minority communities have experiences that have taught them (in part through threats to their safety) that other non-named spaces are in fact for the majority group. We might want to say that the co-ed really is co-ed, but it's hard to trust that and it's damn hard to ask people who have good reason not to trust to just trust me bro.
I think like women's only classes/times can be helpful to get more people interested in the hobby and as they do, if they really want to improve, I would assume they would then be more likely to dip their toes in the coed times. There could be a crowding out effect, but I'm sure that's not 100% and there are probably factors that influence the outcome to go one way or the other.
Finally, I think the point about the problem being the gym culture not integration I agree with. But you can address the larger gym culture while there is a female only class. It's not one or the other. And as the larger gym's culture becomes more healthy and egalitarian, my guess would be that there would be more integration.
Yes, people tend to segregate. It feels safer. But the boundaries that we draw are made up by us. It's not always going to be based on sex or race or whatever. Enforcing integration top-down isn't the only strategy that we can employ. We can also present people with experiences where they start to expand the definition of their ingroup (which tends to happen with forced integration as well--minus when things really hit the fan).
Hmm. I have mixed feelings about this one. In coed classes I frequently notice instructors treating men more attentively/seriously. As a woman, you often need to "prove" that you are serious about a sport before getting the same amount of attention male students automatically get. At the same time, women's only class doesn't necessarily fix the problem, because I've also been to women's only class where the male instructor talks down to us like we are babies😂
Women should never be deludedto believe they can defend themselves against certain moves to protect themselves it's dangerous women should defend themselves with weapons shouting and lethal force that's facts there are no martial arts that will work more than 2% of the time
This seems more like a gym culture problem and not inherent to coed classes ...
In my experience as a guy, you also need to prove yourself the same as a women does. It is just usually more visible when the only girl in class is not taken seriously. For example, the instructors in my kickboxing class (which was coed) only took the top 5 guys and one girl seriously since they were competitors. The rest of the people who come to class needed to prove themselves (by coming to all the classes training hard etc.). Once you were in, you were given more time by the instructors. I know that is not really fair since we all pay the same for the classes, but my point is that is not a gendered issue (in my opinion). It is more pronounced with girls i have to admit. It might be because all the instructors were male and from a time when there werent that many girls in kickboxing. Also i am 100% sure that your experience is valid too since some man really do not take women in martial arts seriously, and that sucks...
@@djimrleI second this. I've been on several teams where the coaches were focused on their champions, male or female. Even under female coaches. If you were untrained, or even second string, you were on your own.
@@djimrle Totally agree that men and women will often get ignored. Especially in competition focused gyms, because the instructor only pays attention to the people that have the 'x-factor.'
This is one of those situations where we'd have to read minds to make a ruling. It's POSSIBLE that the coach discarded her because she was a woman. But it's also possible that the coach discarded her because she didn't meet some unspoken standard. And only the coach knows which it is.
The problem is, if you as a woman come into a class as a beginner, where only guys who are much stronger than you are train. I tried getting into HEMA longsword fighting as a woman in my late 30ies and stopped because the sparring was just giving me no opportunity to learn. All the potential opponents were much stronger, fitter and faster than me (they seemed to cope better with the protective equipment) so trying a technique on them never really got me a success. So after a while I quit. I would have needed sparring partners at my strength level to help me over the beginner stage. Plus, some of the older teenager students there visibly didn't even want to spar with an "older woman", which made me feel rather awkward.
From one Carolina social scientist to another...well done.
1:08, bro, you just explained the school system. Which is known for how amazing its learning formula is for students.😌😌🤭
I don't give a single ounce of shit about "inclusion" which is something I could be criticized for in its own right. But I think "women only" self-defense/martial arts classes are stupid because if you're trying to teach women how to defend themselves they need to train WITH MEN. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to train women to fight only women. Self-Defense is not sex specific thing and if training with the men in the gym will make you a better fighter anyway that's what you should prioritize, being better at self-defense or being better at fighting. I guess somebody could claim that its very frustrating to spar people who are naturally bigger and stronger (not always, there are some absolutely killer ladies that would murder me in a fight before I could think to do anything about it), but that's what makes you better over time and fighting is frustrating by nature.
I find your arguments soild under the assumption that the goal of all martial artists is to get as good as possible. That is not the case though. A huge portion of my motivation to do bjj (as a 35 years old dad) is to have fun with friends fighting hard. Sure I try to get better - I even occasionally compete - but fun, friends and even longevity are bigger factors.
The same could be said about some women. Maybe they don't wanna push the boundaries of rolling with men, and let's for a second pretend they choose the women's class knowing full well that their progress is somewhat halted - isn't that fine? I mean - you need an honest instructor, willing to tell them what the do - and do not learn. But we always need that instructor.
All that being said. I prefer mix classes. I have just as much fun fighting 'technically' with a women as I do expending all my strength fighting the gym bulks. And as a prim. School teacher I can only encourage the monkey see monkey do - effect of adults insisting to work with all people - it is one of the easiest ways to teach the new generation. Walk the talk.
Anyways - great video. Thank you for forcing me/us to think. Cheera
The best argument For having a women’s only class in BJJ for beginners I heard from a women BJJ practitioner/trainer. Roughly:
Grappling introduces physical intimacy and moves that are unfamiliar to many. Having a women’s only class primarily for beginners, helps them to learn what are normal/acceptable physical interactions in grappling. So the class is for the beginners but trusted advanced practitioners (maybe only women) are encouraged to attend to help this leaning processes. Once the beginners are familiar with normal the physicality for BJJ, then that’s the main purpose achieved. They can then be more confident as they engage with other classes, to distinguish grappling from groping or other inappropriate physical contact. Thus helping women be confident in trusting their instincts if/when they encounter Inappropriate contact when rolling.
I think he's going on the generally speaking.
I just realized that means even tho I'm only youtube certified I'm still a valid martial artist 😅 and before you go insulting or taking out your anger 1.i hope your day gets better 2.i don't have any local training gyms
I agree. The most practical training I got from both karate and judo was real experience of sparring with men. What a fucking reality check. (47 year old 5'2" woman) and very useful also, knowing what I can actually pull off against a man, as opposed to viral ideas.
Also it helped the men learn how much power is safe for a woman. At least one man later said that he'd have broken his girlfriend when she came at him if not for the sparring experience. Easier to learn with a trained partner than hit an untrained woman and find out the hard way.
Generally I think its a good rule of thumb for most men not to hit untrained women, haha (unless they have a knife and want to stab you or something)
Very reasonable argument.
So real I love everything this man says
I've read a few of the "womens only can work well as an entry point for co ed".
So how'd this idea pan out: what if a gym has 3 different classes. One mal only, one female only and one co ed. Make it so any person can only attend the gender specific classes only for a certain period of time. After which they'd be kicked out and either find a different gym or join the co ed group. And then make the co ed group only accessable if you've either had previous experience somewhere else or done at least a certain amount of time in the gender specific class.
This would not only make good entry to the sport in general, but also put the trainees in a space full of people of a roughly similar skill and experience level. It'd not only give them (false) confidence to motivate them, but also shatter it in a timely manner with a good reality check.
What is the second best martial art for self defense?
i get what you mean but at the same time i know many women who feel physically scared of men and would never put themselves in a perceived vulnerable position like sparring with men. i think women's self defence classes can be a great entry point for them to build more confidence and get over their fears to eventually participate in open classes
the type of traumatised/scared women who would be too scared to join a class with men would also be the people who imo could benefit most from learning to fight. i think women's only classes have real value there
i'm not advocating for gender segregation, just an option for women's, ideally a beginner course which i think would be very valuable. worst case scenario they don't join the mixed classes and don't develop as fighters, but they still gain a decent understanding of violence and are disillusioned from dangerous fads often peddled as women's self defence. best case scenario is a large demographic of women wanting to learn to fight to defend themselves from men but too scared to "jump in the deep end" get an introduction so they feel less helpless and vulnerable when they eventually join mixed classes
This is a very good point -- you need to transition those with any kind of fears/traumas.
@@KN-op3etthanks man appreciate it. i think it's important to note because i personally know women in my life who have communicated this to me
@@AC57001 yeah 100% agree with you on this.
Young children are afraid of water and yet they can't learn how to swim without going in it. That's the same here.
If they're afraid of men daily, what do they expect will happen if one tries to attack them after they've only ever gone to women only martial arts gym?
If they get to mixed martial arts gym, them they get the chance to confront that fear in a completely safe environment which prepares them for real life.
Better learning how to use a weapon
Good video with a lot of good points discussed.
Good video. Appreciated the tangential trains of thought.
Personally, and from a BJJ POV, I think that Women's-only classes are a waste of an open mat or normal class.
Train against what you will be using the sport/martial art on.
One little point that I wanna add to this otherwise great video: I see a point in men- and women only gyms when we consider the hypercompetitive scene. If I wanna win a tournament against other men, the hour I could train with a woman is simply better invested in sparring a man equal to my strength and size. Same goes for women: If you wanna learn to fight a similar weight and size woman, fighting a big and tall man is not worthwile. So while I would agree that in a casual or semi-serious situation mixed training is great, for ultracompetitiveness I would always seek out partners more equal to me in strength and size.
Have you heard of Tritac Martial Arts ? If so could you please do a video on that I saw you're Keysi video from 2 years ago and I know it pretty late but figure it doesn't hurt ask. Would like to know what you think of it since it implements Keysi with other styles.
I'll give you a short answer because he's probably not gonna do a video on another style.
Do they do well in mma or are they too busy repeating that thier system "works" to bother competing?
A lot of "self defence" styles don't work in reality because they never compete.
Never heard of it and it's not in MMA therefore it's bs
@101289teutonicguy From what I remember, they did have a short video about doing different scenarios with framing.
Probably, it mostly has boxing jiu-jitsu and other styles like mma but they do the framing like keysi but they implement other styles where it atleast looks a lot more effective then Keysi by itself.
@@101289teutonicguy Yeah, that's a good litmus test.
To be fair, Tritac does have mainly MMA stuff. Which is good. But it also uses unproven stuff like Keysi and Kali. Which is less good.
The "street self-defense" arts typically suck, and the combat sports are typically good. Tritac is somewhere in-between.
It's like having "Southpaw Only" boxing classes.
I run a gym and struggle to maintain women in my gym. I don’t think I have a toxic gym culture. I would love a video looking at how to help women stay in the class.
@@christophervelez1561 I don't think there is a clear answer to this. Most women don't stick with martial arts. But most men don't stick with martial arts either. And they often have the same reasons for doing so. Men tend to dominate nearly every martial arts program in the world, because they are just slightly more motivated to learn fighting. And, when your gym only includes a tiny fraction of the population, that slight difference in motivation makes a really big difference.
Personally, I think it's less important to have a gym culture that attracts women, and more important to have a gym culture that attracts the kind of student you can be proud of. Chasing after a particular demographic can often have really weird and negative affects on your gym culture.
Honestly, I don't know anyone that's figured out how to retain women super-duper well. The best gender ration I've ever seen was at my college MMA club, where we had just over 50% women. But that's only because our college was 65% women, so men were actually still overrepresented lol
@@ArmchairViolence thanks for the advice man! I love your content and engagement! I’m always hyped when I get the notification of a new Armchair Violence video!
Have you asked the women about their experiences? Either the ones who leave, or the ones who stay, or both? That's probably your best bet for figuring it out.
@@LindsayHancock definitely. I ask both those who stay and go and the ones that stay like the intensity of class, the instruction and safe environment. But the ones that leave just say, “it’s not for me” “I’m not improving” but as some left my remaining women seem to also be dropping off because every roll is with a guy. I’d be ok if they joined another school and continued training. My full time job is being active duty Air Force so my bjj academy is small but these ladies drop off and seem to quit all together. It is a small sample group just 6 women total that have trained at my school in the 10 months it’s been open but I can’t help but think that my retention rate of women in that time span being 2 of the 6 as a problem. I try to not take it personally but I figure that there is something that I can do to improve the situation. What are your reasons for sticking around training?
Maybe try offering a 2 for 1 deal for new students? That way, women (and men too) can bring a friend to the first few classes so they have someone they know to roll with until they get used to it.
in theory I agree with your reasoning, in practice most men don't care about the gym having an only female class (maybe my gym dont have that many wierdos) and those classes have been good to attract new women to the gym that eventually go to regular classes as well