The pros and cons of being a female in martial arts

I’ve seen some negative posts recently about women in martial arts that may scare the few that would be interested in taking up a martial art away. There are few enough females that decide to take up a martial art as it is, so I’ve decided to dedicate this blog post to show the pros and cons of being a female in martial arts so you can decide for yourself. Having trained in both striking and grappling martial arts (mainly grappling), as well as being a martial arts instructor myself, I have had my fair share of experience at different dojos!

1) Sometimes you will be the only female on the mat, and this is a big issue for a lot of women. However, the guys don’t bite! They are all there for the same reason as you are, to train and have fun! If you go to a dojo that treats women any differently, it’s not a place you should be training anyway. A good instructor treats everyone on the mat as an equal as soon as they walk through the dojo door, and you’ll often find that like attracts like, and the views of an instructor are often shared by the students.

2) As a female, you are more than likely to be one of, it not the smallest person on the mats. When it comes to the grappling martial arts especially, people worry that they will be ‘too small’, or that they’ll ‘get squished’. I won’t lie, at times you will definitely feel crushed, but that’s no different to the times you will have to tap from an arm bar or a choke. You will have to work harder on certain aspects of your game like your escapes, but you also need to remember the advantages you have when you are smaller…the main one being speed!

3) This point is a continuation of point 2…being smaller also means yes you can’t just use strength like some of the guys can, but it means your techniques will be a lot better for it and you’ll soon be beasting the bigger people into the mats!

4) You will sweat a lot and your hair will be an absolute state by the end of class, but you would look the same after any high activity sports class. It’s not a fashion show or a bar, people aren’t bothered by the way you look…they will be more impressed by that perfect throw/submission/punch that you just caught them with!

5) You will have ups and downs with your training, and more so than the males in the dojo due to those lovely things we call hormones…but the highs definitively outweigh the lows and you have to try your best to focus on them. That gold medal represents every ounce of sweat that went into defending that arm bar you were constantly having done on you in class, or it shows the effort put in to perfecting that choke or throw.  Getting that next belt gives you a sense of pride and achievement that you would rarely get elsewhere.

6) The age-old problem of  ‘I don’t want to get too muscular and look like a man’. You won’t! It is biologically impossible without the enhancement of steroids to naturally do so. Men have a lot more testosterone than women, so you won’t end up looking like Arnie, more like Jessica Ennis (if you train reeeeally hard!).

Now for the list of only pros:

7) The group of friends you gain will become like an extended family to you.

8) There is no better way to forget about a bad day than to get on the mat and train. You’ll soon have other things to think about when you have a fist flying towards you, or someone is trying to throw you head first into the mats!

9) You will get to meet and train with people you wouldn’t normally get the chance to, and vastly broaden your social circle…ranging from your friendly local plumber, to a high-flying lawyer.

10) You will feel healthy, fit and strong!

 

Hope you’ve enjoyed my first proper blog post…there will be more to come soon 🙂