Martial Arts: Sparring with opposite sex

zidine100

It depends on the art to be honest. If its more of a striking one then awesome. If its a more grapple based art... well it can lead to some awkward situations, especially if you miss a grab annnnnnd your hand lands on a awkward chest area.

sheermomentum

Its been awhile since I did this, but as I recall it totally, totally sucks when you're trying to spar with a guy and he's not taking it as seriously as he would with a male partner. Until you pop him a few times. Then its a little more fun.

mbaker566

if they are up for it, then I say gender doesn't matter.

cwolfman13

DodgerBlue19891 wrote: »

Would you be comfortable sparring against someone from the opposite sex?

my cousin and sister are pretty good friends with Holly Holm...I would not feel comfortable sparing with her because she could easily beat the living *kitten* out of me, even if we were just sparing...



I'd imagine it would depend on who exactly the person was and how advanced or not they were...

CSARdiver

My first sensei (Shorin Ryu) was a petite 5' 2" blond woman who loved empowering the smaller stature students by using me as a sparring partner and "volunteer". I never had an issue with this in most styles, especially external styles, but judo and hapkido I was much easier on women in the throws, simply due to physiology.

stealthq

zidine100 wrote: »

It depends on the art to be honest. If its more of a striking one then awesome. If its a more grapple based art... well it can lead to some awkward situations, especially if you miss a grab annnnnnd your hand lands on a awkward chest area.

Fencing with college guys was a pain because they always target a woman's chest. They're not dumb or being particularly sexist. After hearing us complain about how much the damn metal chest pieces hurt us when we get hit, it was the most logical legal target to go after.

It did backfire on them a couple of times when the woman just went absolutely ******* on them and pummeled them with blows too fast to counter (easy enough since we were all total novices). I may have been guilty of this.

Irritating that the comparable target on the guys was not in the legal target area.

AmericanIdiot666

I am involved in fencing and there is enough protective gear that it doesn't matter whether you spar with a male or female. Chest protectors have come a long way, and most women choose the one piece plasticized version as opposed to the two metal Madonna metal cones they used back in the day. I don't think I have ever seen a guy "holding back" during a bout because he was fencing a woman.