About Aikido of Champlain Valley
XX in Aikidoby Maria Hazen"Aren't you intimidated, being the only girl on the mat?" I looked around the dojo, familiar for several months, and suddenly realized that women were in the minority. I had been classifying people according to whether they knew more or less than I knew, whether they moved loosely or stiffly, quickly or slowly, and whether their katatetori grip would leave a bruise. It had never occurred to me to separate the people I trained with as "men" or "women" -- they were people! Traditionally, I've shied away from a feminist focus. Inwardly, I shrugged off as perhaps unnecessary the books and seminars especially for women in aikido. "Yeah we're built differently from men, get over it!" I thought. If we women exclude half the world in order to find oursel |