“Yamee!” Sensei leaped in between the protagonists.
The two young fit guys had been hammering seven buckets out of each other - it started as normal “Dojo sparring” and gradually got heavier. One caught the other a bit hard in the ribs and then they both seemed to get progressively more excited as the fight went on. Sensei seemed to find it quite amusing….
“You remind me of two Stags butting horns” he chuckled. The two guys were taking some time to calm down.
“I think it’s important to make it realistic” one of them said.
Sensei’s mouth had stopped laughing but his eyes hadn’t. “This sort of sparring bears no relation to real fighting - and owes more to sport and modern Japanese University life” he said.
“I don’t understand….” said one of the protagonists.
Real fighting should be only one or two techniques and depends more on the pre-fight strategy and cunning of the fighter – the idea of taking up a guard and fighting to rules would be ridiculous! This kind of sparring was developed in the schools and universities of Japan - they have their place in the modern Dojo but can certainly not be classed as “realistic”!
“The reason that I said that you look like two Stags butting horns is that men fight mainly for sexual preening…. Most males of the species tend to want to look good and gravitate towards “sparring” and inevitably get excited when left to their own devices. It’s a natural result of wanting to look good for the females, so that they want to mate with the male that will give them the strongest children with the best chance of survival.”
The two protagonists reddened when the girls in the club giggled.
“When you look at it, traditionally, Martial Arts are feminine by nature.”
“How do you make that out then Sensei? Surely all the great Martial Artists are male…”
“In the celluloid world and in patriarchal societies, the most well known are male - and even the female Martial Artists in the Television and Film world are the male idea of what they would want them to be…
However, when you look at Martial Arts, they are feminine in nature. They are nurturing and caring, self defence is a last resort and utilises strategy and skill in technique as opposed to bluster, aggression and physical strength. You need a low centre of gravity, and a relaxed, loose upper body, which women have naturally. 95% of Martial Arts is feminine and 5% masculine.”
“Oh yeah…So how come they’re not usually so good at it then? Why are most Black Belts men?”
“Because we and the Japanese still have a patriarchal society and Karate came to the UK from the Japanese University culture, prompted by the media, it has been obsessed with the sporting aspects, machismo anger and revenge traits that suit them.
If a woman shows internal power she is immediately labelled as aggressive and masculine and so the 5% masculinity that is necessary for Martial Arts training is not a trait generally encouraged in a female in the home and workplace.
Luckily it is changing - and that is largely due to the children’s educational programme, teaching respect, good manners and etiquette, coupled with anti bullying and stranger danger training, we have returned to many of the old values and encouraged far more female practitioners. As you can see, even in our own club, there are now far more females training and they are swelling the Dan grade ranks quite quickly…..”
“So you don’t rate Dojo sparring very highly then?”
“Not for self defence I don’t. It’s fine for Sport Karate as that’s what it emulates. It’s good to remember that you will only react in the way that you’ve trained. For self defence it’s necessary to train in pre fight and fight strategy, giving nothing away until you incapacitate the opponent. And that should be done as quickly and effectively as possible, sporting techniques are not particularly good for that.”
“So you don’t rate Sport Karate?”
“I admire Sport Karate and think that it’s an excellent method for young people to “test” themselves in a structured and reasonably safe environment. But again I’d stress that you only get good at what you train for. If you want self defence it’s best to role play, work out your best strategies and train them in a focussed and realistic environment. It’s highly challenging for a Sensei to be able to do this safely and effectively.”
“So basically you want males to become more feminine… and females to become more masculine?”
“There ya go….. perfect harmony! Generally that could be quite accurate, but of course there are always exceptions..”
“And train properly for the results that you want… sport if you want to compete and role playing, strategy and realistic techniques for self defence..”
“That’s correct! Maybe butting horns has improved your brain power…….”