Recently I was accused of being sexist and against female
black belts, or females in karate in general. I find this accusation laughable
but thought I would pen my thoughts on the matter just because.
First let me say this I have seen some really bad female
martial artists, but then again I have seen some really great ones, for that
matter the same can be said for men. I have seen some great male martial artists,
and I have seen some really bad ones.
Back when I ran the Marion Komakai dojo for my father, I had
a female student named Tracy that hit hard. She would get out there and kumite
with anyone and gave 100%. Training and teaching at the Komakai Honbu there
were several females that made it to black belt, some really good and some not
as good, but they all gave 100%. Mr. Eddie Bathea had a female black belt, that
used to train with me all the time in the 90s, Ms. Dunn, she was excellent. I have been out to teach seminars at my good
friend Rudy Crosswell Hanshi dojo, he has a female black belt that has
exceptional form and technique.
To date in my dojo, I have only had maybe a dozen females
join, out of that I have had one make it to 5th kyu and one to 1st
dan, the rest quit because of their own reasons, but what I guess is because I hold
everyone to a standard in the dojo. I
have a high standard that I expect out of everyone that joins the dojo, which
is that regardless of how good you are, or think you are, that you always give
100%, that you keep going no matter what.
I have been training 35 years now, last year I went to train
with an Okinawan Sensei and he watched my kata and said good, good. I asked him
if there was anything I could do to make it better, so he pointed out a couple
of things, I asked him sensei, if I had mistakes, why did you tell me it was
good? He replied with oh you have good kata, nice kata, but always room for improvement.
When I teach at my dojo, I will watch and make corrections,
to everyone. Even my best students will tell you that they get corrected all of
the time. When I am a guest instructor, I do the same thing, if I am asked to
watch or correct a kata, I do that. If I give a correction and make you do it
100 times, it isn’t because I am being mean to you, it is because you still
need the practice, you must do hundreds, thousands of repetitions before you
build muscle memory.
The way I see it, I have two jobs as a Karate/Kobudo
Instructor, 1. Too preserve the teachings of the old traditions, pass it on to
the next generation, and instill good moral attributes and 2. Too teach you a
skill that will allow you to at the very least too stay alive if you ever need it
(hopefully prevail) and to train you in such a way that you do not fool yourself
into believing you can survive a conflict, if in reality you cannot fight your
way out a a wet paper sack.
I do not care how many trophies that you win,
how many titles you have or how great you think you are in your own mind. What I
care about is that you show up at the dojo, that you give me your best effort
while you are there and that when push comes to shove and you are in the battle
that you fight it with everything you have. In short, holding that trophy up to a mugger
and stating your credentials is not gonna keep you from getting killed. There
is no whining or crying, there is no quitting. What I expect is that you pull
your big girl panties up and get down to business. I do not care if you are a
man, woman, child, white, black, red, yellow or whatever. What I care about is
that you come to train, that you give your best, and you act like a proper
person your sex or race makes no difference at all to me.
