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Notes -
Two Notes on Women in BJJ
I went up to New England to visit my in laws over the weekend. While there I visited a local BJJ gym three times. It was great to get a new flow, some new partners, some different tricks thrown at me and some more success with stuff I normally can't hit. But two funny things happened:
Sunday night, after too many cocktails, we were sitting around with some of her older family members and we were chatting about the new gym I had found up there. And I was trying to explain the sport, and naturally this turned into "Show us something on Mrs. Fivehour!" So I have her get on top of me on the ground, and slap me like she's throwing punches. Then, gently and smoothly, just to demonstrate not with any force or intent to harm, I swung her into closed guard, tied up her hands, and then went for the triangle choke. I never even fully locked the triangle, I was just bringing it around to lock it in casually when she tapped as hard as she could and let out a yelp. I untangled myself and she was flabbergasted "Holy shit I couldn't breathe, oh my God, wow, that was terrifying! How did you do that? You can just do that?" I'm not particularly good, and I certainly wasn't abusing my strength, I was just playing around; but I have pretty thick hamstrings and I often catch training partners earlier in a triangle before it is "technically" closed. Everyone laughed, we talked more about it, totally normal.
That night, we go to bed, to set the scene when we're in New England at her parent's house we sleep in Lucy and Ricky style single beds next to each other. She comes over to my bed and says, hey, FiveHour, can we snuggle? I was really freaked out when you choked me earlier. She said she's looking at me differently because she suddenly realized how easily I could kill her, that just for a second the air had been completely cut off and she was terrified. She said it was like when she saw our dog murder a rabbit, and she suddenly realized the dog was capable of that, that she'd never realized I could do that to her.
Now, Mrs. FiveHour is a very strong athletic woman. I shit you not, I have seen men on the motte or similar internet forums talk about their lifts when they're doing Starting Strength who were months in and still squatting less than her. And we lift together so she knows I can knock out deadlifts that are better than twice hers. But still, she wasn't ready for just how easy it was for me.
Point for those who claim that the male-female gender gap isn't sufficiently understood by most people.
On the other hand, Monday morning I went to the gym, and I rolled with everyone at the new gym, and I tried not to be overly aggressive because I was new. And at any gym, I basically never turn down a roll unless I'm injured. I do typically avoid the girls at my home gym, but mostly just by positioning myself away from them when everyone is pairing up, if they ask me to drill or roll I will. More of a Pence Rule thing than anything.
Well we were doing positional 2 minute rounds starting with one partner in front headlock position, and a nice young woman about eight inches shorter and eighty pounds lighter than me asked me to roll with her. I let her get the front headlock, and I probably let her get it in a little deeper before we started than I would have let a man. And I tried to avoid using any muscle or weight, just flowing through the moves and trying to use good technique, letting her work. And the little bitch managed to tap me out. I gave her too much slack and she hanged me with it. It's the first time I've been tapped by a woman, and for several seconds I couldn't believe it. She got me in a perfect front headlock strangle, and there was no way I was getting out of it without trying something desperate and more likely to injure someone than escape smoothly. And anyway, she had earned it, she had the strangle on tight, and I tapped. She was the only one to tap me that practice.
So on the other hand, that was humbling, a point for women in the battle of the sexes: there is a point at which a woman can submit me, if I'm not at least a little careful.
I've actually started, when rolling with partners who are much smaller/weaker/estrogenic, listening to one of the coaches and once we are in contact on the ground in guard, I'll close my eyes and try to flow roll without looking, trying to feel their bodyweight shifting and reacting to mine. I'm not sure if it has "helped," but it is a really neat experience.
I went to a HEMA tournament a few weeks ago. It was peak hayfever season, I was keeping myself somewhat functional with an ample supply of antihistamines and complementary coffee, I had barely slept, but there I went to compete, I cannot do otherwise. I ended up in a pool that contained the following types of fencers:
1 and 2 made short work of me. I got a few sloppy hits in, but otherwise got justly dismantled.
3 turned out to be left handed, and I completely failed to adapt to that in time (I ended up having to realize that I grossly overfitted my entire fencing style to defend against strong blows from my opponent's right). We fought again in the eliminations, I tried to recall my best anti-lefty techniques but failed to pull them off, then just switched to maximum aggression and threw a wide variety of different attacks at him which got me a lot further, but but my opponent used his superior mobility to get safe hits in and retreat.
4 did exactly what he did in every fight so far, going in hard and fast to push me out of the ring - I saw it coming and tried to use his momentum to swing him out instead, but fumbled it. From then on I used what worked against him in the past, kept him at a distance and hit his exposed extremities. No pretty fighting, but it worked, I won that one.
6 had previously gotten absolutely pounded by 4, who won the match by repeatedly going in close and grappling her with little resistance. I fought 6 last in the pool, and was by then thoroughly exhausted. I first scored by doing what 4 had done to her, went in close, grabbed her right arm with my left and just gave her a one-handed bonk on the helmet. I could have probably repeated that a few more times, too, but instead I wanted to do better and tried to outfence her at medium distance, which just turned into silly sword-waving on both gassed-out sides. She ended up winning that one by pushing herself and paying actual attention in the end, while I was just phoning it in out of fatigue.
First time I lost against a woman in a swordfight!
Also, 4 took an honest-to-God nap right next to the ring. I was very impressed.
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