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Friday, October 12th, 2001 02:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerAfter an extremely frustrating week of computer crashes (Nimda virus on a Windows machine and a screwed up boot record on the dual Windows/Linux system causing a kernel panic) it was nice to get down to some virtuous physical activity. Our self-defence course has finally got off the ground, with the first lesson yesterday. They seem a nice bunch of kids: two boys and ten girls, all about fifteen-sixteeen years. A lot of giggling but no goofing off or horsing around, and let's face it, expecting fifteen-year-old girls not to giggle is like expecting construction workers to keep their trousers above their bum-creases(U.S. readers should substitute "pants" and "butt" here, I think.
What was interesting was that while none of kids had problems physically, quite a lot of the girls just couldn't do a decent gi-ap (martial arts yell - kiai in Japanese). It just goes to show the weight of social conditioning when girls who can probably scream their lungs out at a pop concert get all inhibited when actually asked to shout at someone while kicking them. They'd walk up to their partner and do a passable stamp-kick, then, almost as an afterthought, make a little "mweek" sound. Don't these kids watch Xena?
BTW, if any readers who attended self-defence courses can give me tips on what they found useful - and more importantly, what they found counter-productive - please let me know.
What was interesting was that while none of kids had problems physically, quite a lot of the girls just couldn't do a decent gi-ap (martial arts yell - kiai in Japanese). It just goes to show the weight of social conditioning when girls who can probably scream their lungs out at a pop concert get all inhibited when actually asked to shout at someone while kicking them. They'd walk up to their partner and do a passable stamp-kick, then, almost as an afterthought, make a little "mweek" sound. Don't these kids watch Xena?
BTW, if any readers who attended self-defence courses can give me tips on what they found useful - and more importantly, what they found counter-productive - please let me know.
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self-defense
Date: 2001-10-13 02:49 pm (UTC)What I didn't like about self-defense was that I didn't take it with a friend. I always had to partner up with some stranger, and one or both of us didn't feel comfortable enough with one another to get all intimate. I mean, we had to do some real wrasslin'. And when we, say, had to straddle someone, we'd do so very gingerly, the total opposite of how an attacker would do it.
I also didn't like how choreographed it all felt. I think spontaneity should have been emphasized. In most cases, I knew exactly what my partner would do next -- like, she'd go for a choke-hold -- so I already had my reaction planned out. I think spontaneity and speed should have been a focus, later in the course anyway. But the whole thing was, generally, pretty choreographed and in slow-motion.