One of the Guys vs. The Girl

In a ramble inspired by Shark Girl's hilarious entry from a while back, as well as a ridiculous number of childish blog posts and forum threads either about how girls shouldn't grapple because it's "not natural" or about how it makes some guys so very uncomfortable to roll with females (ZOMG cooties!! Girl parts!! Wherever shall I put my hands??), I'd like to take a moment to address the matter of having two X chromosomes in a "guy's sport." I actually wrote most of this about 4 months after I started training and never published it, but with the influx of new female athletes at Ronin lately, I figure the subject has become quite relevant.

No, I've never been super feminine in the traditional sense...I'm definitely a tomboy. I like my sweatpants, t-shirts and beat-up sneakers. I loathe makeup and dresses and diamond earrings. I also refuse to tolerate brainless chicks who act totally incompetent, relying on men for everything like helpless ditzes who can't lift their own Prada bags. That said, I do absolutely love fluffy animals, bright colors and big strong boyfriends. I'm willing to jump guys twice my size if they're bothering a friend and can handle getting my ass kicked as a result, but I can also be fun and silly and totally adorable (really, I know it's hard to believe). So where does that leave me when it comes to something like grappling?

The fact is, wrestling is and always has been very much a boy's game. It's kind of the whole alpha male fight for dominance thing...a concept that doesn't seem to appeal to many ladies, comparatively - and I guess somewhat understandably. A lot of women are more claustrophobic, less aggressive, less prone to enjoying combat sports and just generally uncomfortable with the close contact thing, particularly when it comes to training with the opposite sex. I just wish I got paid every time a female friend said something along the lines of "You do WHAT with WHO? I could NEVER do that..."

But here I am, a rainbow-loving tomboy who's perfectly happy around groups of boys, training almost daily with a big gang of athletes, and from the beginning, one of my biggest questions was how do I want to be seen? No qualms about being in a male-dominated environment, or about being stuck between some dude's legs as he tries to choke me out. That wasn't even a remote concern. My one and only fear going into MMA was...what if I look stupid? Because let's face it, wrestling and decking people in the face isn't all that feminine, and sometimes enthusiasm can only take you so far when almost everyone you're training with outweighs you by 30 - 80 lbs (not to mention, their muscle-to-fat ratio is, in general, significantly higher than your own).

Looking back, I went into my first class a year and a half ago ago wanting to be thought of as anything but a girl. Just another one of the new guys, nothing to see here, move right along. I wore a pair of my brother's shorts (he's two years younger but almost 6'0 so you can imagine how those fit) and the biggest, rattiest t-shirt I could find (which, in hindsight, was not entirely ideal for grappling). For the second class, once I'd gotten a feel for the place, I felt a bit better about wearing a normal t-shirt...you know, one that was actually fitted for girls as opposed to overweight men. But I was still wary of giving off too much of a girly vibe because if I did, would people start thinking that that they had to go easy or give me special treatment? How much girl is too much for an MMA gym? As I wrote in my very first entry, I was completely paranoid about being laughed out of the building when I first walked in, so a lot of my focus in the beginning was on trying to avoid such attention and just blend into the crowd.

Over the following weeks, I became more and more comfortable with the people that I was training with. I stopped caring if my shirts were shorter or more fitted than what the guys wore or if the colors stood out more. I stopped worrying about tops riding up or shorts or gi pants coming off...I mean, that's what underarmour capris and sports bras are for, right? And at this point, I'm happy enough to alternate between the darker colors and things that are distinctly girly. For example, I have four pairs of MMA shorts, one of which is a glaringly bright pink and white camo design...which I sometimes wear with an electric blue heat tech t-shirt (please forgive the fact that I have no sense of fashion or color coordination...I said that I'm a girl, not that I'm a very good one). And while I'm damn sure aggressive on the mats, I can also relax and be less so in between classes and drilling instead of continuously acting like some sort of butch manbeater.

Unlike most of my female friends, I'm average height, am not built like a stick, and I don't want or need to be exactly like other women. Then again, I clearly am one. In something like grappling, that often feels like a contradiction. It seems like many women in the sport struggle to figure out how much of a guy they need to be in order to fit in or to be taken seriously, and as a result, many women are too uncomfortable to continue or to even try training at all. Of course, immature discussions on the interwebs abound.

Guys at other gyms worldwide seem to bitch and moan about the trials and tribulations of rolling with the other sex. It's just wrong, women don't belong on the mats, there must be something wrong with them. I would feel like I'm cheating on my wife. My religion doesn't allow it. Working with chicks does nothing to improve my game. Luckily, this has never been a major issue at Ronin, but it's disappointing to read such things or hear it from female athletes elsewhere. The ironic thing is that such crap is said even in cases where the women are taller and/or stronger than many of the men. So for someone like me to show up and act like...well, a girl (at least when appropriate) is something that I would never have thought possible when I first started.

Ultimately, how I'm seen as a training partner is the most important thing to me, no contest. But whereas in the beginning, I'd never have worn bright colors or acted silly or allowed a single shred of girlness to breach the surface, I've now reached a kind of compromise. I even have two pairs of custom tie-dye gi pants that bring epic joy to my jiu jitsu life, even if they make Christian want to gouge out his eyes (in my opinion, if Liz can wear bright orange and yellow gis, I can damn sure sport tie-dye Fenom pants). I'm comfortable joking around and being more like my quasi-girl self rather than acting like a total dude. Because I know the people I train with now, and they know that when I'm on the mats, I'm there to work hard and to learn the same as anyone else, regardless of my ridiculous MMA fashion choices. In some ways, I feel like the more I train, the more I have to prove that I'm still a girl...a complex which manifests itself in the unacceptable amount of pink I've been wearing this past year. Hell, if I can find a tie-dye rashguard and/or MMA shorts, you can bet your ass I'll be sparring in those next!

Stripes and Sexism

I know I've dropped off the map for a while when it comes to maintaining my blog, but in my defense I'm at the gym 4-5 times a week and it's hard to find time to come home and then write about it. I didn't mean to disappear either but finding a happy balance has never been my forte.

Luckily for all of you, I have new things to write about. For example, I am now a 4-stripe white belt and have long since been converted to primarily training with the gi (remember how I once insisted that I'd never EVER be into gi, because nogi was "the shit?"...yeah, I'm over that phase; give me a gi). I will write more about all that soon but in the meantime, I wanted to address an irritating article that I read by a black belt instructor in faraway Idaho.

The article, which has received major backlash due to its blatant sexism, is titled "Can Women Really Handle Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?" and one of the saddest things about it is that its author doesn't even seem to realize how chauvinistic he actually is. I love my gym and the people I train with so much, and am so comfortable there, that I constantly forget there are gyms run by people who just don't "get it" when it comes to women grappling...or doing any contact sport for that matter.

When I first started, I was at a clear disadvantage. I was the only girl in most of the classes. I was totally out of shape. I was shorter/lighter than most of my training partners. I had no idea what I was doing. And to top it all off, I have a slight handicap - my right hand doesn't work properly, and has no opposability, so I can't easily grab or hold onto things the way everyone else can. And yet, I never actually felt any of these disadvantages (aside from being out of shape but you know...that's why I was there) because the people at my gym never made them a problem. My first class, I was paired up with another new guy, taught the same way as him, expected to do all of the same things as him, and never babied or treated like "the girl." On my second day, when I was wondering how the hell to lift a heavier guy clear off the ground with one hand that didn't fully work, the head instructor came over and yelled "No excuses! What would Jean Jacques Machado do?"

Now imagine that, instead of treating me like every other student, they had gone out of their way to give me extra attention, be it intentionally or inadvertently negative ("don't worry, we'll take care of you because, unlike the men here, you need special treatment")...well, I sure as hell wouldn't still be doing jiu jitsu a year and a half later because I would have felt singled out not as "the new student" but as "the new girl."


This is why Keith Owen's article is an epic failure...because he has no understanding of this most basic distinction. Instead of genuinely seeking advice or starting up a discussion on how to improve his female membership, he presents the situation as a problem with the women themselves. Instead of asking "what am I doing wrong?" he is saying "Well, it's not me, it's them!" And that immediately tells most readers all that they need to know. I have seen articles from guys before asking how to improve female membership at their gyms...and those articles have been inspiring. But this guy is doing nothing more than whining and blaming it on the chicks, and completely failing to recognize the many hypocrisies within his little rant. Julia wrote a great reaction article here, where she even goes so far as to rewrite part of his post, substituting "students" and "white belts" in place of "women"...and it works much better. But this is my own response to him:

Keith, in spite of insisting multiple times that you welcome women and are not biased against them, everything about your point of view is sexist. Since you seem completely oblivious to this fact, here are some examples:

The article title itself. Talk about ignorant generalizations...a genuine discussion would not have used an inflammatory title like this.

<<They will even come in and DEMAND to try it out.  I politely let them know what BJJ is and what it's all about up front.>>

So they come in and DEMAND to try out grappling without knowing what it is? They walk into a room full of men and don't realize from the start that they'll be rolling around with their faces in sweaty dude crotches? Doubtful. MAYBE once in a while I can see that kind of misunderstanding  - on the parts of both women AND men - but it's rare.

<<My guys are very nice, respectable gentlemen (some schools are not)  and treat the ladies with respect (or I’ll kill them)>>

Well, are they "gentlemen" to each other, or just to the women? Because if you're trying to promote the fact that they're being "good men" instead of "good teammates" then you're already doing something wrong.

<<I treat the women students like any other male student>>
<<I never force them to roll until they are comfortable>>

Which is it? This doesn't sound like equal treatment to me. This sounds like you are coddling them and trying to prepare them to "work up" to rolling with men. But...many guys may at first feel a bit awkward about getting into such positions with other men. So do you habitually let your male students know that you understand it can be uncomfortable to be in such close proximity with another man's junk, and that they can build up to it and only start grappling with other men when they're comfortable doing so? If not, then this protective attitude towards your female students is insulting, and you are most definitely NOT treating them "like everyone else." You are singling them out and implying that they need extra care to do the same basic things the other students do.

<<The ladies always stay for a short time but they ultimately quit.>>

There are female practitioners of all belt levels, all over the world, so instead of generalizing and acting like "the ladies" of your gym speak for "the ladies" of gyms worldwide, perhaps this should indicate that the problem is not with "the ladies" but is in fact with YOU.

<<Some of them have gotten pregnant>>

Ugh, really? I've known of far more men who've left or taken time off for family than women who "get pregnant" and quit. Again, sexist and ignorant. Also, some women - just like men - with new babies on the way or in their lives, may take time off and then return later. It's not a woman thing, it's a "person with a family" thing.

<<if any women can get a black belt, it’s from me.>>

Well, obviously not. But somehow, they manage to get blue, purple, brown and black belts from plenty of other schools.

<<I have given out a number of blue belts to women as a matter of fact.>>

So? I don't understand...do you want a cookie or something? If they earned it, why boast about it like you're doing a public service? If they're blue belt level athletes, then that's what they are.

<<It then makes me want to do a  male only class because we don’t want to waste time on someone who is just going to quit even though we are excited to have her and we try to take care of her and make her feel welcome.>>

So you're saying NO ONE in a male-only class would ever quit on you? How do you know that one of the men you are "wasting your time on" won't just bail later, like they often do? Or that the one woman might last longer than some of her male teammates? I mean, again, which is it? Are you excited to have the female students and are you making them feel welcome or do you feel like you're potentially wasting your time? Because if it's the latter, you can bet that attitude is projecting loud and clear, even if you're not conscious of it.

<<My male students are usually married and take a bit of a risk with their spouses by wrestling around with the opposite sex.>>
<<Your significant other has to be comfortable with you being in a class full of men>>

Double standard much? If someone's girlfriend or wife can't handle them rolling around with other hard-working ATHLETES, regardless of gender, then that is THEIR problem to sort out at home, not the woman's. I roll almost entirely with men, many of whom are married or otherwise in relationships...and I don't spend the seconds in between attacks, submissions and escapes wondering if we might hook up. I'm a little too busy trying to not, like, die or break an arm. If their significant other is that jealous and insecure, they should probably crawl into a hole and cry about it.

<<But I always seem to accept women into the fold and try to do my best hoping that they will be the kind of person that can handle the challenge of Jiu-Jitsu.>>

Why is this statement about women? PEOPLE in general have trouble when starting out. They find out they're not tough enough, or that it's too challenging. This is not, like, a "girl thing." Yet your attitude says it is.

<<I just say “I will do my best to take care of you and make your experience a safe one while you’re here but you need to look internally to see if you can handle wrestling with men.”>>

Okay, so instead of welcoming women to the gym like any other student - which you keep claiming is the case when it's clearly not - you burden them with the task of proving to you that they can stick it out. Basically, they come in with negative points. Well, it's no wonder that women don't want to be at your gym when you're throwing them all into this immensely sexist, generalized group of "womenfolk" instead of treating each and every STUDENT who walks through your door as...what? That's right, a STUDENT. A unique individual, who may or may not be the same as any other individual who's strolled into your gym. You clearly make it about gender from the start, and it's not surprising that they're picking up on it and bailing. For all you know, they didn't quit jiu jitsu...they just left your gym and went to train somewhere else where they were seen as students instead of as females.

<<Remember ladies it ain't easy but stick with it.>>

To be honest, you have no business trying to present a challenge, motivational message or genuine discussion when you clearly don't know the first thing about women in jiu jitsu. I'm concerned about your attitude not as a person but as an instructor, and your willingness to make broad assumptions about all women who walk into your gym when you clearly don't have preconceptions about male newbies even though I'm guessing plenty of men have come and gone at your gym over the years too.

Basically, I recommend that you get over yourself and haul ass to a gym that actually knows how to treat its female members, then get back to us once you've worked out your obvious issues. Thanks.

The Return of Reese

So...I'm back! From my unofficial hiatus. It was totally unintentional but I only made it to the gym a few times last month. First, I lost a week due to skin allergy testing that resulted in me not being allowed to sweat lest all the disgusting chemicals plastered to my back mixed together into a toxic mess. Then I had some major projects to finish up for work and was so stressed out that I couldn't even conceive of taking an hour or two to train, even with the gym being just 15 minutes away. And then...well, okay, I admit it. I GOT LAZY. There, I said it. I got out of my routine and became an unmotivated couch potato, only hitting the gym four times in the space of 3-4 weeks. It was like a flashback to my past life...and it was totally unacceptable. NEVER AGAIN.

Luckily, this story has a happy ending. As of two weeks ago, I got my lazy ass back on track and have picked up my routine again. Of course, every muscle in my body atrophied during this stupid month of sin and I feel like a total fatass for the moment, so I'm building back up to where I was a month before. It sucks. People...if you're ever thinking of taking time off from training and you don't have the luxury of an excuse involving broken bones or surgically altered body parts, don't do it! It's not worth the misery, regret and total shame!

Anyway, it feels great to be back on the mats and working my ass off once more. There are a lot of new faces lately and there's even a new chick in the mix who beat me up during kickboxing today, so I should have some fun new stories soon. Thanks for bearing with me during this embarrassing time and man, it's good to be blogging again. I had no idea everyone at the gym was so fucking concerned by my lack of updates but rest easy, guys, it's business as usual from here on out.

Rolling Under the Influence

So...apparently, people from my gym read this blog. Lots of them. I was not aware of that. I came to the realization last night at Christian's birthday party, when 90% of the guys I was talking to started referencing things I've written about and trying to guess whose nickname refers to who. It was kind of funny and kind of WTF because I had no idea so many of these dudes - yes you, lurkers, you know who you are - had found the link, presumably through Facebook, let alone read through it and were following it. I mean seriously...stalk much? It's making me reconsider an upcoming post that features a photo of me in my pink fleece froggie jammies.

It was a good night though. A little crazy, a lot of fun and kind of surreal to see everyone outside of the usual gym setting. I got to the bar around 10 pm, was only going to stay for an hour or so, and ended up leaving a little after 3 am. Luckily, I was in a responsible enough mood to space out my drinks because I get very friendly when I'm drunk and I didn't think that grappling partners were an appropriate crowd to unleash my wilder side on, so I spent the night in a happy, chilled out zone. The same cannot be said for some others, but that's another story. I'll just say that it was damn amusing and I enjoyed getting to know some people that I'd only worked with once or twice before. For example, I've discovered that Krypton is as much of a cat person as I am and we spent an unhealthy amount of time swapping pictures of the furry little critters and discussing how cool it is that they are natural BJJ practitioners (ever seen cats grapple?...'nuff said). Got to know C-Bear much better too, talked with him a lot, then Diesel and Curly, who has finally gotten his hair under control. He seems very zen about the whole thing.

I actually went to the party last night already feeling tired. Thanksgiving dinner plus leftovers left me in that sluggish OMG I'm fat again! state of mind and I tried to make up for it by going to a light open mat earlier in the afternoon. Ziggy summed up my feelings perfectly by informing me before we rolled that he was basically sweating butter. Weren't we all. I hadn't even planned on rolling because I've got 4 stitches in my head and, until they come out next Tuesday, I need to be really careful. As a result, I was just going to work on muay thai kicks and do cardio work, but Christian said that it was not healthy for me to stand around playing with inanimate objects all afternoon and had me roll with a few different people until we all felt too lazy to continue and called it a day.

Having not gotten home until 4:15 in the morning, and then going to bed an hour or two after that, I woke up this morning around half past noon and was a total wreck, mildly hungover and exhausted. I considered staying home, but after binging for the last few days and not exercising as much, I felt obligated to try to redeem myself and off I went, half-asleep, to open mat.

I'm really glad I did. Almost everyone else was equally hungover but it was a solid 2-hour workout that made me feel much better than I would've just lounging around at home like a fucking beached whale. Big Boy and The Kid came in and worked together all afternoon, doing various exercises and drills for the duration, which was cute. It's like they've put together their own little kiddie boot camp. Meanwhile, I spent most of the time trying to improve my guard passing skills. I rolled with Buzz first, who really helped me to get a better handle on passing the butterfly guard, then with LJack, who let me drill standing guard passes with Christian coaching from the sidelines. I'm telling you, that little guy is damn hard to get past. His feet are literally everywhere you turn.

While taking a break, I watched Krypton and Curly roll, which was really fascinating. I love the flow that more experienced grapplers have, where the game moves smoothly and looks so coordinated. I hope to reach that point someday and feel that while it's a damn long ways off, I'm moving in the right direction. I eventually interrupted the dynamic duo to roll with Big Boy and it went really well. I felt a definite change today, like I'm rolling with much more purpose now, keeping an eye open for specific moves to try, and developing the ability to adapt and slip from one position to another along the way with greater ease. I'm sure it'll still be months before I can roll with any sort of real flow, but whether it's because I finally learned how to go to mount or all of the guard passing practice or escapes drilled in the last two weeks, or I just got into some sort of zone, I really did feel a distinct difference today. I wasn't able to submit him but he only tapped me once and it took a long while for him to get there. I think at this point we know a lot of the same stuff and have kind of evened out, so we just...rolled. Back and forth, alternating offense and defense, a really fun, even game. It was very inspiring to feel like it's actually possible for me to do something other than flounder aimlessly. I need to hold onto that feeling and try to get to that place again next time.

After another break, I rolled with Krypton for a good while and, except for trying to watch out for my head, the dude showed no mercy. He's huge, his technique is solid, his guard passes are not to be fucked with, and I was totally destroyed. It was an incredibly fun challenge though, and I always love working with new people. I'd like to roll with him again once these annoying stitches come out. At one point, I tried a North South choke and did a pretty good spin but forgot to clear his arm first. He said it was a really good transition though, and that I'm doing very well with applying pressure from the top. Near the end, he helped me to drill armbars from mount and other submissions from side control that Christian gave me a quick tutorial on, building on some of the moves that Dom showed me last month, such as turning a stepover armbar into a sneaky kimura. I left covered in bruises but feeling physically back on track and highly motivated by my super slow but definite sense of progress.

Finding a Gym

So...I've decided to join a Mixed Martial Arts gym. I've been thinking about this for a while now and finally, after much procrastination and whining to myself about the effort, settled on a place in Midtown that's gotten good reviews and seems to be the only true "full service" MMA school/training facility in NYC (at least that caters seriously to adults rather than being a more traditional, family-oriented school). At 27 years old, 5'4 and 149 lbs, no one thinks that I look "overweight" but I don't feel healthy or in shape and that needs to change. I want to reach 130 lbs and I want to be physically fit like I was back in high school when I was captain of all the varsity teams. Doing something interactive like MMA seems like it would be so much more motivating than trying to convince myself to get up from the computer and haul ass to the gym to work alone with a bunch of machines.

In my quest to find the "right" place to train, I came across aforementioned gym and stopped by there earlier this evening to check the place out, see what kind of vibe I got from it. I walked into the room and was greeted by the sight of god knows how many huge, sweaty guys, grunting and rolling around on the mats all red in the face. My first internal response was: RUN!! There's no way they'll take you seriously; you're just going to look stupid! They'll laugh you out of this fucking place! How could you ever think you'd fit in here??

Luckily, before I turned and walked right back out, the owner and head instructor came over and introduced himself, talked with me for a while and convinced me to return tomorrow night for a free trial during the Fundamentals class. He said if I show up an hour early, I can join in the kickboxing class too, which is great since that's what I primarily expect to be doing. So I'll be coming back tomorrow evening and we'll see how it goes then, and whether or not I feel like this is the right place for me. At this point, seeing BJJ up close and personal (I'm telling you, it didn't seem half as intense on video), I'm thinking I'll try it once and then probably stick to kickboxing.