After writing my article about Male Privilege in Jiu Jitsu and my article about Advantages Women have in Jiu Jitsu, I wanted to share my own training conditions, based on what I wrote in those articles.
I do think there are a few important things to note:
First is that more than 90% of my training has been in Korea amongst primarily Koreans, and I don’t speak much Korean. This is important, because as science shows, when you have a number of variables, it is hard to narrow down which is causing the reaction. So I think that sexism is easier to overtly identify when you speak the primary language and look similar to those around you. If someone doesn’t want to be my partner, for example – is it because I’m a woman? Because I don’t speak Korean? Because I’m white? I truly don’t know, so I don’t guess.
Second is that I never expected ANY of this to be easy. I expected it to be hard and that I would always be worst, so I haven’t gone through a lot of the negative self-doubt that I’m sure others have gone through – because I was fully prepped for it. I started BJJ at 5’4″ and 205 lbs. Oh yeah – someone didn’t want to roll with me? Maybe it was because I was a new white belt and outweighed them by 50 lbs!
Third is that most of these are not complaints. Number 3 sucked, and 8-11 are DEFINITELY complaints, as are gi companies who do not release physical measurements for their gis and instead have only their handy height/weight chart. Other that that, they’re simply things I accept about my training situation.
Without further ado, my training conditions in which my gender has played a significant role, for better or for worse:
- As a nerdy, fat gal, I was trained to mistrust athletic men, as they were often the ones who mocked me. In jiu jitsu I had to roll with people I was trained by my social group to mistrust. (note: I learned to trust them!)
- I am frequently the only woman in the classes I attend, so I rarely train with other women.
- I felt sexually harassed by one teammate one time, and it was extremely uncomfortable.
- Men’s gis are impossible to decipher based on their height/weight chart. When I bought a gi off a chart, I discovered that 190 lb men are FREAKING HUGE.
- All instructors in Seoul are male (it’s possible that the one female brown belt teaches some classes, but she’s not a head instructor).
- There are times I know I was chosen to drill with the other woman simply because I am female. I outweighed her by more than 50 lbs and there were other men more suitable for her size. Similarly, if a woman is new I will expect to be paired with her in order to make her feel more comfortable.
- When I’ve talked about gender issues in jiu jitsu online I’ve been told to STFU, I’ve seen women silenced with horribly homophobic and sexist language for stating an opinion I shared, I’ve been told I perpetuate female stereotypes, and I’ve seen too many opinions dismissed because we were women.
- I avoid certain jiu jitsu forums because they feel very anti-woman to me, and I have some anxiety about posting to them.
- I am annoyed as shit as to how many companies and male grapplers online more often refer to female grapplers’ bodies or hotness rather than their skills or what they are doing for the jiu jitsu community.
- I’m also annoyed at the dissemination of photos of two women rolling around in bikinis with the tag “jiu jitsu” but is essentially soft-core porn style shots designed to titillate. Especially when people add objectifying comments.
- My last gym did have the Kyra Gracie in the sports bra posters hung up.
- I’ve had plenty of Korean women express shock about me doing jiu jitsu.
- The one tournament I entered – there were only 3 total women who had entered, and I outweighed them by more than 70 lbs.
- Most often I am paired to drill with one of the highest ranked members in my gym.
- I am rarely paired (even now) with new, big white belt guys.
- I rarely go unnoticed by my instructor or teammates.
- My old location had cheaper prices for women.
- I’ve participated in some womens only classes.
- When I’ve had the chance to meet other women in jiu jitsu there is often a very immediate and strong bond that I have rarely experienced elsewhere.
- I’ve had upper belt women go out of their way for me to show me things because they were also excited to support other women in this sport.
- I’ve had people start reading my blog simply because I was a female BJJ blogger, and I often get promoted in threads about “blogs by bjj women.”
- I have been given opportunities to write for other blogs because I’m a female bjj blogger.
- I have had two men tell me they wouldn’t roll with me because I was a woman.
- I’ve only met one woman in Korea who was an upper belt. I believe now I’m in the pool of some of the highest ranked women in Korea, including being the highest ranked woman at my gym – a little bit of a scary thought, to be honest!
- I always wear a rash guard because I was hyper aware of my cleavage the one or two times I tried to roll in only a sports bra or athletic top.
- Although my male counterparts frequently strip down to just underwear, the few times I have taken off my rash guard and been in a sports bra caused the men around me to react very uncomfortably.
- When I first started training I was hyper critical of the other gals at my gym because I thought they reflected poorly on ME (since, you know, all women are essentially the same /s), but thankfully it did not take long for me to realize that no, what *I* do reflects on me, not what anyone else does. Whew!
If you are a woman, what conditions do you train in where gender has played a difference? Please keep it to gendered issues – for example, I almost put that I am challenged even by white belts, but realized that’s more of a me-thing than a gender-thing. Yes, I recognize there is overlap between the other two articles and this one, but let’s put it all together here and instead of talking about generalities, tell about YOUR specific training environment. And please be specific!
I think I get underestimated a lot because I am female. while it can sometimes frustrate me, it also got me my first tap of a blue. lol
I do hate when guys won’t do things that involve pushing on my chest. I understand it’s due to their own personal discomfort which I respect; however, it does keep me from getting experiencing/learning certain moves/defenses. I’ve found this to usually be the older guys.
I LOATH when a particular black belt makes his rare appearance and automatically pairs me with women. Always.
I do have to say that, for the most part, gender just isn’t that elephant sitting on the mat in the corner at my gym. I’m thankful for that. I cringe at some of the things I read about on the net. The owners of my gym actually run a pretty tight ship and BS is generally not tolerated. Hell would freeze over before a “sexy” BJJ were ever posted. Further, I know that if anything out of line where to happen (ie sexual harassment etc), the perps butt would be out on the street asap and that I would be able to say something without getting the looks/cold shoulders etc.
Yeah – we do the armbar drill where the person pushes up in the middle of the chest and and the top person pushes down and collects the arms before going into an armbar and I can usually see the somewhat uncomfortable face my teammates get. But to be fair, we did a move where you were in closed guard and you popped up a knee and forced it through and I was completely cringing feeling like it was this Extreme Ballsquishing Move.
I am so thankful for coaches like yours! Congrats on finding your gym!
I too am extremely lucky to train at a gym and under a Professor who does his very best to treat everyone the same. The differentiator at our school is not gender, but work ethic – meaning it’s not about men / women, but about those who work hard and those who do not.
However, of course, I have encountered some instances in BJJ training where I’ve felt gender was made an issue.
I agree with Kim in that I feel that I’m often underestimated. This is worsened by my size, I’m only about 5’1″ / 115 lbs as I compete at light feather weight. However, I tend to take it as a challenge when I feel that someone’s underestimated me and typically enjoy rubbing my actual skills in their face (figuratively of course… ).
The only other instance I can think of is whenever we do team training (i.e.. all the affiliations come and train together), there are usually kids / teenaged boys there. For some reason, the women are always the ones who get paired to train with them. I don’t take any offense to this as I suppose we are reasonably the same size sometimes; however, I do find myself being annoyed by it as I’m at training to get better too and something about rolling with an overzealous 13 year old white belt doesn’t make me feel like I’m progressing.
Besides these two things, I would say I feel my gym is super fair when it comes to gender equality. I would even venture to say woman have it better at my gym as we do have 2 women’s only classes a week where we benefit from a small class size and more mat space. I love my gym and the men and women I train with – nothing but respect is tolerated at Team Roberto Traven BJJ.
(Deleted your other comment as I saw you came and signed in using your blog name)
Yeah – I don’t care who you are, when you are ONLY drilling with a tiny pool of people it’s annoying. I am guessing that the super big/super tall guys feel the same way as well. :/
I’m so happy you found a gym that works for you and treats women well! Feel free to hype the awesomeness of your gym – it’s definitely not spam, it’s good word of mouth.
Thanks for sharing your Bjj situation! Here’s some if my own 🙂 I’m (blue-lightweight) one of two (purple featherweight) woman who train consistently at my gym.
1. New gym, with a men’s/woman’s change room. The men took over both. Only recently did my coach enforce that one was for woman (this took a year). I’m sure the gym next to ours complained about me using their changeroom/showers for free.
2. There was an immediate positive change in the way the guys treated me when they found out I was dating one of the guys at the gym (why is this?) Mostly on an acceptance level. However I consistently hear sexual jokes about me and my Bjj guy.
3. Guys say horrible things like ‘I was tired and thought rolling with you was going to be an easy break’. Perhaps this is suppose to be a compliment.
4. I have definitely used the female card in my favour to get some extra private teaching time with my instructor, to redo brackets in local tournaments (so that I wasn’t fighting my one teammate and to round-robin us so we get more fights).
5. When traveling in London UK I was bullied to my breaking point at a well known gym. Told that ‘I can’t tap to a body triangle’ while a stranger squeezed so hard i thpught my rib may crack and they were lying back with his hands behind head laughing. No one said anything. Also at this gym I asked if there was ever woman on the mats and they told me ‘if there was I’d be fighting her while they (guys there) all watched. The owner of this gym wasn’t present this day btw.
I’m sure there’s more. But in the end I love jiu jitsu. And I will wipe away the tears of frustration, clean my gi and be there for the next class or fight. And I promise to all my fellow Bjj ladies that I will represent woman in this sport the best I can 🙂
Your comment left me shaking in anger.
First, I’m REALLY glad you’re okay. Really. Guys have tapped to body triangles in MMA events. You absolutely can suffer real damage from someone squeezing your ribs too tightly.
Second, I encourage everyone who hasn’t done so to read my post about tapping The Safeword is Tap.
Third, everyone has a right to decide their own limits, including when to stop. Beyond that it becomes assault as opposed to a mutually agreed upon situation. It’s important that people are able to trust training partners.
[honey badger mode ON]
1. Sexual harassment is NOT OKAY. Teammates making sexual comments need to be stopped IMMEDIATELY. If not for you, for future people in your club – men OR women. I would talk to my coach and tell them I was being sexually harassed. THAT PISSES ME OFF!. (ps that’s not me telling you what you need to do, but rather me making a blanket statement in general. I don’t know anything other than what you’ve just told me, but it’s my general policy)
[Extreme pottymouth mode ON]
2. WHAT THE EVERLIVING FUCK! You can tap to WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT. It’s YOUR goddamn body and if you say STOP then anything else is ASSAULT! If that happened to me I would go into full on freak out/honey badger mode.
* Screaming VERY loudly and high pitched
* Screaming STOP ASSAULTING ME!
* Screaming TAP MEANS STOP YOU MOTHER FUCKING PIECE OF WOMAN BATTERING SHIT.
* Screaming for other people around me to HELP ME! I’M BEING ASSAULTED!!!
* I may very well start punching them because at this point they have demonstrated they cannot be reasoned with and they will not respect when I have said no.
(ps. no victim blaming toward you from me – I also COMPLETELY understand that fear is a big factor here and that in that situation I may react decidedly different to how I think I would)
After he stopped, I would call over his instructor or the person running the class and I would go into Angry Teacher mode and would SCREAM at the Fight Club guy about why his behavior was NOT okay, why it was assault, why he was a Very Bad Person and that *I* get to choose what happens to my body, NOT him.
Then I would tear into his instructor, in front of the student. I would what kind of Fight Club bullshit club he’s running where students believe this kind of behavior is not only tolerated but permitted. Why was this instructor teaching people to assault others? If the instructor was not there I would have them call him up and demand either that he get his ass to the gym right then OR I would deliver this message over the phone.
Ultimately I would DEFINITELY be trying to humiliate both the student AND the instructor so that this shit NEVER happened again. THAT MAKES ME SO FUCKING PISSED. FUCK THAT GUY.
[/honeybadger mode] [/extreme potty mouth mode]
I’m really really really glad you’re okay, and I’m very angry that happened. I sincerely hope that you warn other women about this club so that they don’t visit there. (But will COMPLETELY understand if you feel uncomfortable doing so).
If you’d feel okay about it, I would very much like to get that club’s information so that if for any reason I see a woman posting about thinking of joining that gym that I can give her all the information. You can message me privately and I will be happy to respect what your boundaries are (like not publishing their name if you so wish).
Thank you thank you thank you for leaving this message, and I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’m really glad you stuck with our sport.
My experiences with the first two women I trained with (not including girls who showed up for a free week and decided not to continue) were intensely negative. So much so, that when the third woman showed up, I refused to roll with her, and an older gentlemen and brown belt had to talk me into good manners. She of course, thought I was incredibly rude. She and I are close friends now, but my overall experience with women on the mat is still only about 50% positive, if that, and my heart doesn’t exactly flutter with joy when I see an unknown woman walk into the bjj school. I hate to confirm the notion that what we do reflects on other women, but what we do reflects on other women.
I should correct something I wrote. These were not the first women I trained with. There were several women at a previous place I trained that was large enough that I didn’t train with them all the time. My training and interactions with these women were positive, though nothing special. The negative experiences I had when I changed schools blotted these from my memory, and I had forgotten that women can be good training partners when my now friend walked in the door.
MC – are you a guy or a gal? I sincerely thought you said you were a man, and I still think so, but then you wrote “What WE do reflects on other women.” So I feel confused about that. Clarify please?
(I recognize that you may have a negative reaction to what I’m about to say. What you wrote brought up a frustrated internal response to me and I’m definitely NOT in attack mode, so please don’t take it as such).
I’m glad you’re aware of what you’re doing, but I certainly hope you can change your mind. I’m curious – have you had bad male training partners? Two? More than two? It seriously sucks that you decided two women represented All The Wimmins and treated Third Woman as such.
No one deserves the burden of shouldering all the responsibility for being The Representation of All Women in Jiu Jitsu, (or All Gays, or All Transpeople, or All [insert minority here]) and sincerely, it sucks that you put it on those women. Yes, it sucks that they were sucky training partners, but in my brain it’s more sucky that you ended up having a very sexist reaction to them by deciding that they represent All The Wimmins. I’m really glad that brown belt talked to you, and I’m glad that you are changing your mind.
Imagine if you represented All The Mensfolk every day you were on the mat? Have a bad day and whoops – I’m a Bad Example. Have a bad roll and whoops – All Men Can’t Roll. Go a little to strongly and whoops – All Men Muscle People When They Roll. That would totally suck.
No one should represent their entire gender/group/minority, and no, what two women did do NOT reflect on all women, nor do they reflect on ME, regardless of how deep in your heart of heart that you believe that to be true. Because that truly is a sexist belief. We are people, teammates, and as people we are allowed to only represent ourselves.
Oh, hey. I’m a woman. Being a tomboy for many years hasn’t made me sprout male parts, thankfully.
I have had bad male training partners. They are not particularly memorable. I’ve been straining to recall them while I edit this and finally thought of a few. My experience is the outcome of a small sample size. Of the men I’ve trained with, those who weren’t good partners were easy to avoid (or avoided me) and easy to forget. You’ve pointed out that women in bjj are more memorable. I’ve trained with maybe ~16 to 20 women over the years. It’s hard to recall the exact number.since I’ve only trained with a few consistently for any length of time. About half were good or great training partners, but three were very memorable as absolutely crappy training partners I never want to see ever again. The rest fall in between either “solid, keep up the good work,” or “you’re cool, but I’d rather roll with more competitive people.”
As for representing groups larger than ourselves, I believe you are mistaking the world as it is for the World As It Ought To Be. It’s not fair. But it’s true. We represent groups we belong to. I think that’s must be a way the human brain evolved to classify potential threats and friends, and that viewing strangers as individuals requires fighting this instinct. I was stationed in Japan when an American sailor beat a local woman to death for no apparent reason. You bet your ass that individual reflected badly on the rest of us. He represented America badly. It does totally suck to be identified in the same group as a deranged murderer. It did, in fact, affect my day to day life.
Bahahaha you TOTALLY fooled me into thinking you were a dude! I SERIOUSLY am going to go back and reread your earlier comments with this new knowledge.
And [insert feigned shock] how dare you question My Ideal World? ^_^ You’re right – the world is not as it should be, but I think that we can go about changing it one person at a time. It’s not fair, but it also doesn’t make it less sexist or racist to create situations in which 2 or 3 people form your opinions about the rest of the women (or [insert race here]) in that group.
I also have fallen prey to sexist behavior, and it was eye opening to me. I seriously sometimes have to remind myself – this woman does NOT represent all women.
I’m lucky as my school has a small pool of women. I can think of around 5 I train with regularly and another 4 I run into sometimes.
1. had one guy annoyed he had to partner with me. Said, women shouldn’t do jitz and it’s not fair to him to drill with me as he can’t go as hard as he wants. I showed him.
Worst – 2. I’ve been forced to pair with other women, Dragged across the room by my instructor 10 mins into class only because there’s always some woman (always late to class) that were not allowed to roll with men as per their husband or boyfriends. By pairing so much with other women, guys start to think I’m like that too. I’ve had to sit out sparring due to no partner and some guys would ask first “Are you okay to roll with men?”
Does your club have a “no one sits out twice due to no partners” rule? If not, talk to your instructor about it? Or say “DUDES, I JUST SAT OUT LAST TIME – IT’S SOMEONE ELSE’S TURN!” Maybe??
In any case, it sucks.
No rule like that at my place. I figure half of the classes I go to per week, I sit out one spar for no partner – more common that it should be, as male friends there only sit out due to injury/tired than lack of partner. I’ve had a few times early on where I’d be sitting out 2 or 3 times in a row, but that hasn’t happened for a few months. I’d get up, look for a partner, ask people, and they’d already arranged all their sparring partners for the day.
Though, I find at my school spar class has very little instructor attention. They are busy sparring themselves. A few times they’ve complained at everyone to stop going with the same people over and over before sparring session at least.
Jiu Jiu, these gender discussions are really interesting and (for the most part*) I’m really enjoying following them. I’d say there’s a great sociology thesis to be done on this topic yet.
*Kay: how DARE someone not let go when you tap!!! I’ve only been in BJJ for a few months, so I’m still getting over the shock of rolling. I’m still getting used to the realisation of just how small and weak I really am, and just how quickly and easily someone else can overpower me if they take a notion to. It is SCARY to be on my back and to realise that I can’t get up until someone else lets me. It is scary to let people I barely know into my personal space and trust them to do submissions without doing damage. Perhaps I’m the only one who’s had adrenaline suddenly start shrieking at me to bite and kick and scratch to get the person off me (I didn’t do it, but it was an effort!). It’s only after a few months that I’m starting to settle down enough look for opportunities to work techniques. The reason I was able to override the panic instinct (and not bite the unfortunate sparring partner) was because I knew I was absolutely safe, that whoever was rolling with me was just helping me learn and that they would stop the INSTANT I tapped, for any reason. You are so brave for staying in BJJ after that experience.
I know! I realize there’s a giant can of worms under the surface, and people DEFINITELY can feel very uncomfortable about it, but I really love hearing other women’s stories. I feel like it’s facilitating discussion amongst women who train all around the world.
In any case, I’m really glad that you’re both enjoying them AND participating in them!
[…] comment I’ve been mulling over is one that MC left in my post “Conditions in Which I […]
This is coming kind of late. I don’t get on the computer much anymore. My training experience, has honestly been phenomenal. I train with Robson Moura at RMNU in Tampa, and I could not ask for a better group of guys. There is one other woman who trains there, but not consistently. I am the only consistent female, but I’m mostly just one of the boys. There’s honestly not anything I can point out where they treat me differently because of my gender. I met my boyfriend on the mat, and there hasn’t been any issues, we train together, drill together. We don’t get treated differently since we started dating. So far, I’ve had the privilege of training with brown belt, Kristina Barlaan and black belt, Thaysa Kamji. Both are excellent training partners and have had great advice for a newbie female like myself (I’m a green belt, which to me is a fancy white). The other (very few) females who have come into the gym have been fun, some better than others, but, anyone coming in to train with us, is there to train with Robson, so it brings in some pretty awesome competitors (male and female) and those who are serious about BJJ.
The more I read your blog, the more I realize how unique and awesome my experience has been. It also opens my eyes to the struggles of other women, who are not as comfortable with guys as I am, or who are mistreated. I’ve always been one of the boys, and not afraid of anyone. I will definitely continue to make an effort to approach new and visiting females, and make them feel welcome. I do avoid contact online with forums and such, because of the crappy attitudes towards females, which I know, often translate to problems for female trainees in the gym. The gender issues are just not something I get first hand, and I tend to forget about, because I don’t train anywhere else.
That’s really cool, Michelle! I really love hearing when women have an awesome time training. My personal feeling (not rooted in fact) is that it’s likely the majority experience, which I hope is true. We have a woman I train with who has been going for the past 4 months, and she’s really consistent. We also have a 12 year old girl who has trained for the past 2-3 years. Other than that. I’m the most consistent woman.
[…] absolutely do exist. Women sometimes benefit from those issues and they sometimes don’t, and everything in between. But I bring it up to say that it’s possible that your teammates are totally unaware of […]
[…] comment I’ve been mulling over is one that MC left in my post “Conditions in Which I […]
[…] absolutely do exist. Women sometimes benefit from those issues and they sometimes don’t, and everything in between. But I bring it up to say that it’s possible that your teammates are totally unaware of […]
I live in a huge condo, and we have our own dojo here, so it´s where I train. The dojo it quite hot during the summer, and cold during the winter… we train at 7:00 PM every tuesdays and thursdays. Pior to our class there´s a kid´s class that have more little girls than little guys actually, but in the adult´s class I´m the only girl. I´m an experienced muay thai athlete but i´m a white belt in BJJ. The experience from MT is valid I have lot´s of stamina in my second BJJ class I did two 30 minutes round with my teacher (it was raining a lot and everyone skipped class). I think I´m very lucky because every guy is great, they try to be gentle with me but still firm. Thanks god there has never been any harasment verbal or physic, sometimes I get injured but it´s normal. The teacher avoid trainings between two while belts because they usually get hurt ( I have experienced this myself, one guy almost broke my leg accidentally). They compliment me when I do a good move, and also because I wash my gi every week lol ( I don´t know why guys think that the filthyer their GI gets the most masculine and viril they will be…). I always wear a hash guard because I get GI burn very easily. I bought a few from nike and they are the best I have ever tryed. I wear shock doctor´s compression short (for boys) under my pants (I think they are the best). I have a friend that is a purple (almost brown) belt and she is very respected between guys… although she was injured a few times because they were mad that she made them tap. I think I´m quite lucky because most of the guys on my team are purple or brown belts and I learn a lot trainning with them…
Yeah, that’s really cool. I always get nervous sparring with a new dude. Never sure how he’s going to react – I think that’s totally normal, though.
Out of curiosity, what level is your teacher?
Well I do have 2 teachers, the “official” that is a black belt with 2 grades (I´m sorry I don´t know the name of that small white bars in the belt in english), and a good friend of mine that is my partner in muay thai that is a brown belt that is the one who teached me the first lessons (and made me love BJJ). Once something funny happened.Twice a month we do train some mma movents for warm up… (with GI on) and once the move was to avoid a punch. My partner, a blue belt kept telling me to punch harder… I told him I´m an experienced muay thai fighter, I can hurt you… he laughed, and I told him, ok, next time I will punch you hard… then I did, then he was knocked down… everyone laughed at him and the teacher told him… “never underestimate the strenth of trained fighter… technique is beyond gender”. I guess after that I got everyone´s respect.
The “grades” are called stripes – I’m a 4-stripe blue belt. With black belts they’re usually called “Degrees.” Your coach is a 2nd degree black belt.
What a funny story! Thank you for sharing it! ^_^
Thanks for teaching me 🙂 yesterday I got my first white belt stripe! Yesterday my coach told me that he is in BJJ for 18 years now, and it took 12 years for him to get the black belt.
We have nice female GI´S here… I think atama´s are the best, but we do have a brand named shiroy that is great also…
Shiroy? Link?
http://shiroi.com.br/produto/Kimono-Kimono-Trancadinho-Branco-e-Rosa-For-Ladies/1877/287/082/010 it´s in portuguese, but if you need any help you can count on me!
Interesting! I don’t think I’ve seen gis sold like that before – with the top and bottom two different colors.
I personally like Shiroi, it´s a good brand for nice price, these cost 150,00 usd aproximately, there are cheaper gi´s but they´re not so durable.