Murder, rape and robbery are planned actions, and they will occur in a place that benefits the attacker. That is part of his job, and an experienced predator is good at his job. –Rory Miller
Thursday BJJ at Bellevue.
I got snipped at by Prof Carlos today for not pairing up with Christie first... which was not a planned action; it's just that I had John sorta cornered because he was at the head of the line and I was 2nd, so it was easy to head him off. Carlos asked me to remember what it was like when I was a girl white belt and nobody wanted to work with me, which speech I would have totally related to if not for the fact that he was contrasting it with nowadays when (according to him) "everybody" wants to roll with me.
????????????? He just snipped at me last Thursday for being the last person standing alone four or five times in a row while we were doing short rotating spars. In what alternate reality am I not still struggling with this issue too much to be worrying excessively about the person on the other side of the room struggling with this issue? There have been times that I've gone to the other side of the room to roll with the white belt girls only to find them paired up by the time I got over there.
I did manage to stammer that that was not really my assessment of the situation, but I could tell where he was going with the conversation, so I just said Yes Sir and zipped my lip.
Positional sparring from closed guard, rotating partners. Then a roll with Christie, who is doing very very well.
I'm not a fan of this, simply b/c it dissuades everyone from being gender blind. :(
ReplyDeleteMixed feelings here. Yes, ideally everyone would be gender blind, but I'm not sure it's a realistic goal in this culture at this time. The first year is very critical in retaining new students- especially female students. The vast, vast majority of them quit- I think most because of feeling hopelessly overwhelmed, unwelcome in the group, or getting injured (all of which issues are alleviated to some degree if the more experienced women make a point of spending significant time partnering them). There's definitely an argument for making this type of effort at least until they have enough skills to survive well enough that they may stick around.
ReplyDeleteI agree, and I should have included that I based that on the assumption that he said it out loud for everyone to hear.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, you're getting mixed messages and it's kindof crappy of him to say that no one wanted to work with you as a white belt.
No, he said it privately. I don't have any problem with him saying that no one wanted to work with me as a white belt. It's true. The departure of opinions came at the point where he seems to assume that has changed due to my present rank; I often feel that it has not (my gender has not changed and neither has my size).
ReplyDeletePart of the issue here- for me- is a redux of something that has happened in my other arts as well: I stick around long enough that it starts to appear that some people expect me to take on some (usually unofficial and unacknowledged) leadership/mentoring roles, and my reaction is a genuinely flabbergasted and confused "Huh??? ME???!? But I don't know anything and I suck!" so I get a real internal conflict going with that. I wouldn't even be able to answer confidently if you asked whether I really think the brand new white belt women even want to work with me. I don't really feel like I'm doing her a favor to do so.