MT: Teaching Women to Hit

[Knowledge Bot]

Teaching Women to Hit By RITFencing - Fri, 08 Jun 2007 17:01:52 GMT

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I've been teaching fencing for about 6 years now, and one very common thread I've found among some (but definitely not all) female students I've had is a certain reluctance to hit me or other fencers. Most fencers, male or female, have to go through a period where they get over the fear of getting hit, and that seems to cure itself very organically anyway. The inability to hit someone, even an instructor who has been hit tens (or maybe hundreds) of thousands of times and is wearing very thick leather coaching gear, however, is something I have had to help many students overcome, with varying levels of success.

Most recently I had a woman (late 20s, early 30s, not a young girl) take an introductory lesson with her boyfriend/spouse/partner (I never asked about the exact relationship) and when I had them drill or bout with each other, or even when I had her hitting me, she would extend very slowly and timidly, kind of tap the target with her tip, then immediately start giggling and apologizing. When I told her that it would be fine, that we were all wearing protective gear and that it was hard to really injure someone in fencing anyway, she replied with "But Sean, I'm not a violent person!"

Inside, part of me was screaming "Then why on earth did you take up an activity that involves smacking people with long metal sticks?!"

This is a real issue with fencing because there are no kata or forms, almost all bladework drills are done with a partner and involve hitting them (and being hit in return when it is the partner's turn) so someone who has a mental block about this is going to have a rough time.

I've tried explaining that it doesn't really hurt, that it won't make them angry, that they are SUPPOSED to be hitting their partners and so shouldn't apologize, etc, and I've had hit and miss results.

I realize that a lot of this comes from the societal pressure to be ladylike, which generally involves not hitting people (and sometimes seems to involve a lack of direct confrontation at all, which I think is very unhealthy to children), which can be ingrained by family and society from birth. I understand that this is difficult to overcome, and I don't want to persecute my students (I always try to be as supportive as possible with someone I teach, regardless of gender) but I would be very grateful with any advice that people could share with me.


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[GranFire]

Having fenced myself I guess the better angle would be in making her bend the weapon, rather than hit the target...

Ah, girlishness....sigh...

[Little Apple]

read some of the other posts on similar subjects. I would say in brief: be patient with her, immediately praise when she hits, and challenge her enough in a work out for her to forget she's supposed to be timid.

[Red Rum]

I have encountered this a lot in males and females alike.

I spar with all types of weaponry and people are afraid of going too hard on each other.

Similalry in sparring if you glove people up, some people go at hammer and tongs. Others are afraid to hit each other.

Do you feel that the reluctance to hit stems from a genuine compassion for their opponent? Or is it more a case that they don't want to get hit back?