(no subject)

[ricevermicelli]

Sitting in the blue room, listening to Indigo Girls... I used this stuff as driving music when I was an egg (when I wasn't using Meatloaf or Queen - Indigo Girls is the only driving music from my teens that I still listen to, that doesn't have overwhelming emotional subtext by now, which is interesting trivia, if you like your trivia that way).

I'm thinking about karate. I didn't make it to the dojo at all this week - snow storms and dates intervened, and this week, class and probably more snow and more interviews are going to intervene. I still look like a total phenom at this dojo because my memory of the kata are just complete enough and because (sad to say) some of their senior students suck. I cannot for the life of me understand why someone who looks like she'd break her arm if she ever landed a punch has a brown belt. The women between green and brown belt have an uncommon number of bad stances as well - they don't look comfortable in front stance, and their more advanced stances are not better. I haven't noticed men throwing obviously wretched techniques or falling over sideways, just women. I have noticed it in all the women between green and brown belt level. One of the visiting sensei at the last batch of rank tests even commented that the women, specifically, need to bring more realism to their training. Who's rubbing this stuff into the boys and not dealing with female students the same way? On the one hand, the sensei has been appropriately hard on me, but on the other, a problem does not get this kind of pervasive without the sensei contributing to it in one way or another.

My last dojo had some problems with sexism.

I worry that this dojo has more subtle problems with the same stuff.

Comments

[asciikitty.livejournal.com]

our old dojo- bleh. one reason I left E's classes because I was tired of being treated like I couldn't possibly do passable stuff, 'cause I don't have a penis, so I'd get rank anyway. (while alternately being treated like gold, but the dojo had some problems with... inapropriate sensei-student relationships too, which is about ninty percent of th reason I left)

are there any female balck belts? what does their stuff look like?

rah. good luck to you.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

The bright light in this is that there *are* female black belts, some of whom look pretty damn respectable. I haven't yet seen anyone who makes my jaw drop, but the sensei's wife teaches, and I haven't yet seen her work out. For some reason, every dojo I've set foot in with a married sensei, the sensei's wife has kicked ass. (Query: why have I never set foot in a female-run dojo?)

The teacher-student relationships over there weren't just inappropriate on the comparative rank level. When every male person in a dojo expects to eventually date pretty much every female person who walks through the door, it's a problem. Sooner or later, the psychodrama is going to get out of control.

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

. (Query: why have I never set foot in a female-run dojo?)

Because nobody has yet thought they would survive. Dojos are an extremely close margin business. Generally, you have to support a person/family on the income you generate, there is a maximum number of students you can take that is relatively small compared to a gym, and yet you can't charge more than an expensive gym would. The fear is that a female-run dojo wouldn't attract enough guys.

Whether the fear is well founded, I know not. It sort of depends on whether the extra women you might get from having a female-run dojo would offset the guys you lost by doing so. Possibility #2 is that the advantages of a female run dojo were large enough for some people you could charge more, but that's a pretty tricky line to tow.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

I'm paying my max amount for dojo at the moment. I would pay the same for a good female-run dojo. I wouldn't pay more. The plan for this month is to go to intermediate classes and see if any patterns emerge. If I'm dissatisfied with those, I'll find somewhere else to go.

[danceboy.livejournal.com]

Query: why have I never set foot in a female-run dojo?
I believe that E-beth is teaching the MIT Aikido club just now... But even there, she's teaching in an established, university club (that is open to non MIT people FWIW). She may be the person in charge, but she's not worrying about rent and payments and stuff.

FWIW, I just looked at a teacher directory of Massachusetts for Uechi-Ryu (maintained by someone fairly high up in the food chain, who lives in Boston). Of 46, 38 have male names, 4 have female names, 2 are ambiguous ("Toni" & "Brooks" (well, "Windsong" is also ambiguous, but I happen to know he's male)), one couple, and one PO box.

But to actually make a guess at answering your question: men tend to be more willing to say "Yeah, I'm good enough (at both the MA, and running a business) to teach a MA for a living." They are thus wrong more often than women in this particular regard...

Apropos of almost nothing...

[whobunkyboo.livejournal.com]

I love the indigo girls: they carry enormous emotional subtext for me, but mostly positive.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Meatloaf... driving music... overwhelming emotional subtext...

I was once driving while listening to Bat Out of Hell, and literally had to pull over for a while 'cause I was crying too much to drive safely.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

His second album is even (for lack of a better word) more. "Objects in the Rearview Mirror" absolutely kills me.

[deadwinter.livejournal.com]

"Life is a lemon and I want my money back" rules.

And thanks for your take on martial arts. While usually awash in testosterone myself, if I have to listen to one more fucking Neanderthal relate his stories of how he learned to kick ass through martial arts I'm going to puke.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Well, that particular experience had a lot to do with where I was in my life at the time. I didn't actually encounter the second album until I was happily married :-)

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

You know what killed me about Meatloaf? The day I realized that "Two out of Three Ain't Bad" is a sequel of sorts to the Elvis song. That's when I realized Meatloaf was being much cleverer than I was giving him credit for.

I also enjoy playing those songs back to back on jukeboxes and seeing if anyone notices.