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I had to deal with it first when my then-16-or17yob started in Karate. He had to spar some girls, wrestle, the whole nine. He and I both had qualms about it -- more from the perspective of the "beating up on a girl" deal. Now that I too have started karate, I've had to deal with the same issue PLUS that of "beating up on kids," since the closest to my height sometimes are 12, 15 years old. (Although in all truthfulness, at this point in my development, I'm far more often the beat-ee and the beat-er!)

The way we've both made peace with it is this: one purpose of the class is to teach these girls, these kids, to defend themselves. If all they spar is girls, or guys who hold back, they will in NO way be prepared for a real-life experience. Girls and kids aren't attacked by nice men who give them a pass.

So I'd be lying to you if I said I take any satisfaction in jabbing a girl, or seeing a kid backing away from me with an alarmed look on his face. But before God, if I learn one day that ONE girl/kid was able to hold his/her own with some miserable adult attacker in some degree because I'd given him/her an opportunity, in a safe and controlled environment, to face his/her fears and learn to defend himself/herself -- I'll be a very happy man.

Dan

So I'd be lying to you if I said I take any satisfaction in jabbing a girl, or seeing a kid backing away from me with an alarmed look on his face. But before God, if I learn one day that ONE girl/kid was able to hold his/her own with some miserable adult attacker in some degree because I'd given him/her an opportunity, in a safe and controlled environment, to face his/her fears and learn to defend himself/herself -- I'll be a very happy man.

I think if my teacher would have put it that way, I might have been able to spar with the girls...

Mark

I'll admit up front--I know very little about wrestling and even less about martial arts. All I really know about martial arts is that they are primarily defensive and Kurosawa was a damn fine director. I think girls--women, for that matter--are much better off learning martial arts from men for precisely the reason you cite: If their goal is self-defense, they have to be able to defend themselves against their most likely opponent/attacker--a man.

Wrestling is different, though. The goal of wrestling is to pin your opponent, which I suppose is kind of self defense in a way, but there is just something...wrong about girls wrestling boys. The only time I ever see wrestling is during the Olympics, and I always think the same thing: soft-core homoerotocism. Opposite-sex high schoolers wrestling each other would, in all likelihood, remind me of that awful Meatloaf song. You know the one. Take away the mat, add a dashboard.

No way I'd let my boys wrestle girls.