Complications

Most martial arts are co-ed.

That's a fine thing. It's good to learn how to defend one's self, regardless of gender.

Further, I'm of the opinion that most martial arts really drive home how irrelevant gender is in a fight. Sure, men have better upper-body strength and are usually more used to roughhousing, but women have better endurance and usually have better balance (at least in my experience).

Most external (striking) styles, like karate, depend heavily on speed. All the power of strikes comes from the hips, so upper body strength counts for jack.

Thus, back when I took karate, I learned to have a healthy respect for any women I sparred.

I personally find it hard to have a female opponent in any kind of sparring exercise or indeed any exercise where there's a good risk of injury. Mainly that stems from how I was raised. The thought of striking or harming a woman is abhorrent and so I always find myself holding back. In sparring that's good for avoiding any injury but it also means I lost matches a lot.

[Edit] This doesn't mean I "went easy". I probably would have lost the matches anyway, but I do know I was reluctant to fully throw down. [/Edit]

Fast-forward a few years.

My current style has a lot of grappling moves in it as well as throws and the like. There's a lot of close-contact.

And the students are, for the most part, younger than me by a good amount (though there are several my age).

I'm going somewhere with this. Really.

So today, part of our exercises involved getting out of being grappled. It's a laudable goal and a good thing to know.

I found it hard to take my particular bit of this seriously given that my partner for this exercise was a very pretty young woman who was easily half my age and size. Seriously. I towered over her.

So for her, the exercise was probably a good thing. If she were attacked, odds are pretty good her opponent would be bigger than her, so I was probably a good match.

Her grappling me? Not so much of the threat. Very hard to take that seriously. Let's face it, most heterosexual guys would not try to get free if a pretty young woman grappled him.

Besides, she could barely get her arms around me for the grapple. Odds are I won't encounter that situation in a street fight. Heh.

Oh, the exercise was fun, but I'd be lying if I didn't feel a bit awkward during the whole thing.

Ah to be fifteen or so years younger...