Lions, Tiger and Women in BJJ?…Oh My!!
It was recently overheard by a female BJJ fighter after screaming when her leg was broken in class, “that’s why women shouldn’t be in this sport” Not sure if it was a guy or girl that said it and if it was the crying or awkward falling of the injured girl that encouraged the person to make the statement but….
My father taught me to never hit a female, however, my mom taught me to never allow a woman to hit me (unless she’s wearing a sexy latex outfit and boots, but that another blog) or I can reclassify her as an equal opponent and return the same intensity of punishment/pain I am given.
Fortunately, I was also taught how NOT to irritate a woman to the point of her wanting to hit me. Im not saying I haven’t had a few women that have wanted to knock me the hell out but none of them have taken a swing to date so I never had to physically fight a woman.
Many years ago when I practiced Tae Kwon Do, there were awesome women fighters in my classes but during sparring they were always paired with another female or a male that had a similar height and/or weight. I respected the females as fighters but never being paired to fight one left me believing there must be a difference because we aren’t allowed to fight one another. However, when I started BJJ, there were women present in class and they were actually sparring with guys twice as big as them. Then the day came that I was paired with a woman to do some take-down sparring. I decided to “take it easy” on her 5’3″ 125lbs frame …that is until I saw my feet getting closer to the ceiling lights, then felt the thud of my 200lb body hitting the mat and the sudden impact of her total body weight focused precisely through her knee that was pressing down on my chest. I was shocked that this had happened to me by a woman and quickly readjusted my opinion of “going easy” on women. I didn’t have the opportunity to spar with another woman until a few months later. During that sparring session I experienced 10 minutes of feeling like the toy of a super-hyper cat and endured a real life ass whipping which helped to grow and mature my respect for women by 10 fold.
Should women be in BJJ? ….HELL YEAH. I’ve competed in sports with and against women and as the father of 3 daughters (& 1 son) and dating of a female (former) collegiate athlete, I’ve learned to respect and make room for women that want and can perform in the same arena as a man. BJJ is a sport that allows for all body types, ages and strength levels to participate against one another and on the same level of playing field.
It’s a shame some of us are still in the dark ages of understanding the equality of the physical abilities of both men and women in sports. I grew up hearing “you run/throw/catch like a girl” and it was a major insult until the day a date took me outside to play catch and she almost broke my hand throwing the ball and could catch every horrible toss I chucked at her. I kept waiting for my daughters to turn into girls but they didn’t, instead they’ve simply grown up to be good humans. Female in gender but just human in ability. Yeah, women deserve to be in BJJ and if for no other reason than to help us guys realize they’re just as capable as men. And if they aren’t allowed to practice with us then we just are forcing them into decades old positions of assumed weakness.
So to the person that thought women shouldn’t fight I ask, if a lioness doesn’t have a mane and a penis, does it make her any less ferocious?
