Repost: Why Women Should Fight - by Jennifer Deschamps
Why Women Should Fight - by Jennifer Deschamps
If someone had told me when I was in my early twenties that I would not only be training in Martial Arts, Boxing and Wrestling, but I would become a teacher and coach, and a strong advocate for women training in the Combat Arts, I’d have told you that I didn’t have a violent bone in my body and, if you pressed the matter, I’d probably cry, the only way I had to get the people around me to back off when I needed them to. I cried through many of my earliest Martial Arts classes. But then one night I got attacked leaving a 7/11 parking lot, a day after a vigorous class in Kali, Philippine Martial Arts. We had trained one self defense series so vigorously that I reacted before I knew what I was doing and broke one guy’s nose and knocked a second into a heap at my feet. I have never looked back since. The feeling of power that I felt at that moment, was the kind of power to which most women never get access. We are taught from young ages that good girls are never ever aggressive. Boys get to punch each other. Sometimes someone gets hurt. But mostly all the aggression and anger gets worked out and they’re back to being friends not long after. Girls use words and passive aggressive attacks, we torture each other with gossip and exclusion. We claim to be against violence yet so easily torture each other every chance that we get. That is the behaviour of the powerless. I’m not advocating violence for violence’s sake. What I am advocating is that, as women, we use our bodies in ways that men have been allowed to do since the existence of human kind. Training in Martial Arts, Boxing and/or Grappling is not about hurting your training partner, it is about taking control. It is not just a superb form of exercise... It is not just about learning to defend yourself, which every woman and girl today should know how to do. Training for Combat is a way of finding out what it is like to channel the aggressive instincts that exist in every single animal on this planet, including human beings.. including women and girls. It is also about learning that it is ok to be competitive. Wonderful actually. Many women who first try Combat Training cry at first. I did. For many of the same reasons. But most of my clients will tell you that, even after the most rocky starts, the feeling of Empowerment that comes with hitting something or throwing it around, has become one of their favorite things to do. If you had told me any of this before I started training I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But I tried it. And I have never once been sorry that I did.
https://www.facebook.com/HITTScarborough/
If someone had told me when I was in my early twenties that I would not only be training in Martial Arts, Boxing and Wrestling, but I would become a teacher and coach, and a strong advocate for women training in the Combat Arts, I’d have told you that I didn’t have a violent bone in my body and, if you pressed the matter, I’d probably cry, the only way I had to get the people around me to back off when I needed them to. I cried through many of my earliest Martial Arts classes. But then one night I got attacked leaving a 7/11 parking lot, a day after a vigorous class in Kali, Philippine Martial Arts. We had trained one self defense series so vigorously that I reacted before I knew what I was doing and broke one guy’s nose and knocked a second into a heap at my feet. I have never looked back since. The feeling of power that I felt at that moment, was the kind of power to which most women never get access. We are taught from young ages that good girls are never ever aggressive. Boys get to punch each other. Sometimes someone gets hurt. But mostly all the aggression and anger gets worked out and they’re back to being friends not long after. Girls use words and passive aggressive attacks, we torture each other with gossip and exclusion. We claim to be against violence yet so easily torture each other every chance that we get. That is the behaviour of the powerless. I’m not advocating violence for violence’s sake. What I am advocating is that, as women, we use our bodies in ways that men have been allowed to do since the existence of human kind. Training in Martial Arts, Boxing and/or Grappling is not about hurting your training partner, it is about taking control. It is not just a superb form of exercise... It is not just about learning to defend yourself, which every woman and girl today should know how to do. Training for Combat is a way of finding out what it is like to channel the aggressive instincts that exist in every single animal on this planet, including human beings.. including women and girls. It is also about learning that it is ok to be competitive. Wonderful actually. Many women who first try Combat Training cry at first. I did. For many of the same reasons. But most of my clients will tell you that, even after the most rocky starts, the feeling of Empowerment that comes with hitting something or throwing it around, has become one of their favorite things to do. If you had told me any of this before I started training I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But I tried it. And I have never once been sorry that I did.
https://www.facebook.com/HITTScarborough/
#mma #boxing #fighting #womenfighting #hittscarborough
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