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Women's Perspective
For "The National Karate Magazine"
© 1988 by Lisa Dietz
Most women start karate because they're afraid. Not a day goes by when women aren't being attacked on the streets.
Women feel powerless, asking themselves, "Will I be next?" It is this fear which all women share that brought Kristen Murk and Lydia DeFord to the National Karate schools. Now both black belts, with a record of success behind them, they recall the fear that they used to carry with them as a part of their daily lives.
"I felt detached and afraid of things," said Murk, "I knew I couldn't defend myself if I had to. I felt clumsy and awkward."
"Karate completely changed my life," said DeFord.
Free of the fear of physical intimidation, they are now helping other women find their way out of the nagging fear.
"It's really hard at first. When women start sparring, they're often appalled." One woman told Murk, "I can't do that! I'm too nice." Women have been raised to be passive. It's not like most men who have grown up all their lives learning to fight and defend themselves. The "turn the other cheek" philosophy is great, said Murk, but for women, there's no choice. Physical passivity has been ingrained from childhood. Women typically just don't know what to do. They've been told that fighting is mean and women just don't do it.
Not all women! Murk takes her female students to the sparring ring slowly. She must train them not only to be physically aggressive, but also mentally aggressive. "Women tend to think like victims in a physical encounter," says Murk.
She must change that idea 360 degrees. "It's not that we want to turn her into a monster, but we want to give her choices. If she needs to, she has the ability to fight back.."
Murk recommends that her female students approach sparring slowly. She gives them understanding, acknowledging that this is something they're not used to. She warns them not to become fearful with aggression but to learn from it. She highly recommends enrolling in a women's sparring class, which she hopes to incorporate soon at the Brooklyn Park school.
For DeFord, her training paid off. It happened at work, when one of her co-workers, who knew she was in karate, continued to taunt her and try to goad her into a fight. DeFord tried repeatedly to ignore him and tell him to leave her alone. "He wouldn't back off though," she said, and finally took a swing. DeFord sent him to the hospital with a few broken ribs. "I learned something from that," says DeFord, "You can't fool around with this stuff. You can really hurt somebody."
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