It exists karate feminine?

"Sebben that we are women..." The question does not seem idle: in some disciplines sport the performances are comparable to those male ones (see run of bottom, ginnastica), in others, like soccer and the speed, much less

of Sergio Roedner

In the West until little time it makes the fight of the women was considered a phenomenon from large shed: Million dollar baby was di.là.da to come, two women who menavano (possibly half-naked and in the mud) were themselves only one exciting show for the males. The fencing, one pleasant exception. Also in the martial limbs the feminine participation always has been minority, but the tradition, more or little leggendaria, of the kung was Chinese and of the karate ones of Okinawa it proposes however some figures of "masters" who knew themselves to impose to the respect of the other sex and to which style is attributed to the foundation of one and one quite own school.
Pack-saddles to remember the leggendaria sacerdotessa Ng Mui, escaped to the destruction of the monastero Shaolin di Fujian here, than, observing the fight between a snake and a crane, decided to create just a style that then it transmitted to an other woman, Yim Wing-Chun, that it would have used disliked the learned techniques in order to rintuzzare the advance of a "getlteman of the local war". From the student of Ng Mui the name of the style would derive wing chun, rendered popular in the West from Bruce Lee, more celebre the student (somewhat eterodosso!) of master Yp Man. In the karate ones of Okinawa the figure of Yonamine Chiru is remembered, moglie of "karate" Sakugawa, master of Matsumura and founder of shuri-you, than it would have married it after to have been defeated from she in combat. From then much water it is last under the bridges: the judo feminine it has become olympic discipline in 1992 to Barcelona, the karate ones we do not know if and when it it will become, but in taekwondo the feminine categories they exist from the times of Seoul.
In 2004, to Atene, Chen Shih-Hsin, representative of Taiwan, have gained the medal of gold in category 49 kg, in front of the Labrada Cuban and to the thailandese Boorapolchai. At the beginning of years Seventy, when I have begun, the karate ones were "for men only", like soccer, rugby and the boxe: nothing women and children. From we the pioneer was Michela Turci, student of the master Makes itself, Cristina Rissone and Nadia Ferluga. I have had personally the pleasure to train with Nadia and memory to me that on the tata to me uncontrollable Triestine was the last one to yield and that its maegeri made very badly. But in contest the women made the kata one alone, and in arena (with the exception of Nadia) trained themselves between of they; when she was herself in uneven number and a man had to make brace with a woman felt itself in punishment, "it made flat", or to the contrary he tried to strafare in order to demonstrate its superiority. The corpetti protect to you still they had not been invents to you or they were not "martial", like of other part the paranocche, and this did not facilitate sure the mixed combat without impediments. Not that the Japanese masters encouraged to us on the way of the parity between the seies: uniforms on nearly all, were agree in advicing against the feminine kumite ones. Felt what still declared to me in 1983 master Nakayama: "Because the women must make the contests, it makes to see who us wins or she does not win? In the western combats, like boxe or the fight, feminine contests do not exist. Why in the karate ones? For the moment I cannot believe that the women must make contests of kumite. They can catch up the same result through various roads ". Master Shirai, interviewed from Grey (Karate Union of Great Britain) gave one answer not much various one: "the women are technically much precise. I consider more important to practice good karate, fundamental ones and kata, than the sport kumite ones. To my warning too many women would not have to practice the kumite ones, even if some women have good techniques for the free combat ".
Not even Kanazawa, for a long time outside from the Jka and head of a concurrent organization, was dissociated from the chorus, but it gave one "philosophical" justification to just the skepticism: "Not there is a precise reason, but creed that in the universe exists two poles, positive and the negative. The man is the positive one, the woman is the negative: the woman is not made for the combat ". The single voice outside from the chorus was to the age that one of master Yamaguchi, technician of the kumite ones on behalf of the Jka (not to get confused with omonimo the patriarch of the goju ryu, nicknamed "the cat") that with pioneering farsightedness it declared Carl Pedrazzini: "I think that to remove the kumite ones to the women it would be like excluding them from one good part of the karate-budo. For a woman moreover the kumite ones covers double importance, in how much offers an optimal one to them of personal defense half. It is important that the women learn the same spirit of the karate ones and search the same aim, that is common to men and women ". In the 1982 the Wuko to giving an abrupt one to us accelerated to the "balancing" between the seies thought, introducing the feminine kumite ones, with three categories of weight, to Samples to you world-wide of Taipei. Of forehead to the alternative if to renounce to the medals or the principles, as often it happens in the agonistico sport, they were these last ones to come it sacrifices to you. And therefore also those Countries, like the Italy, in which never a kumite Italian Championship of feminine had not been disputed, organized hastily of the selections and sended own representatives. From those first World-wide ones emerged the supremacy of the nations that for a long time gave to the women "equal opportunity on the tata one to me", like Holland, France, Japan (although the anathemas me of the founders) and Great Britain. Lofty on all the unequalled Guus Van Mourik, practicing Dutch of kyokushinkai (currently 6° dan), that it gained four tito them world-wide ones before withdrawing itself imbattuta. Italy Fikda (fresh of unification between Fik and Fesika) defense honorably with the bronze of Nadia Ferluga and from successive year (1983) was believed well to include the feminine kumite ones in the national contests. In 1984 the society from trained me, the Students' Karate Club, conquered the title Italian it to feminine squares, two tito characterize them them with Giovanna Citrelli and Rosemary Ghidotti, and, thanks to same the two athletes, the absolute Championship in front of Carabinieri and Yellow flames. Citrelli and Ghidotti entered in national and participated, sometimes with happening, to several It samples to you European and world-wide; the bay ones more meant were for before the title it European Wksa in 1992 and for second the silver medal, to the shoulders of the Van Mourik, to the World Cup 1984 of Budapest. The reasons of this happening are not sure due to my particular skill of technician (in male field have not never caught up turn out you of equal relief) but, beyond that to the bravura of the athletes, to one chosen made with decision since the debuts: that one not to discriminate in some way my students and of having in their comparisons the same pretensions and expectations that I nourished towards their companions. Therefore I did not expect from they single style and precision, but speed and kime; in arena nothing in the mixed contest and braces but "mixed apartheids" training kumite; nothing you discount by jumps in the turns, the abdominal ones and the foldings. Thanks to this "preferential treatment", the teorizzate physical differences between men and women (smaller muscular mass, smaller physical force, greater fat mass, etc) in my experience of instructor decidedly have been reorganized until becoming insignificant to the ends of the athletic performances, because perhaps compensated from greater motivations.
I must but unfortunately to find that it forces and real effectiveness of the techniques they always do not come valued in the women to the examinations of dan and in contest. To kata, to Naples, the lamented arbitrator Samples to you absolute of Cesar Baldini quite removed a tenth one to the bassai from of one the my athlete asserting that it had executed the kata one "too much strongly". Al.di.là.della quality of their performances, I find that the women in the dojo shine for those dowries of seriousness, reliabilities, perseveranza and mutual respect that are the carrying columns of the associate life in a generalized manner and of the practical one of the martial limbs in particular. Currently, in my advanced course, they are seven on fifteen, equal ones to 46%! I know well that the proportion is not representative of the truth of the Italian arenas, but is just this eccezionalità to inorgoglirmi.
Not it must in fact (ahimè!) to the sex-appeal of the elderly instructor, but to the happened one of a formative contract faced and respected with seriousness from both the parts. Insomma, to my judgment, draft not to adapt the karate ones to the women, but of giving they same them chance to learn and to practice karate "true", in all the its opportunity, primis that search of the maximum effectiveness that can give they greater serenity and confidence in if same in a World in which the violence against the women vergognosa daily practice is still one.