Jits Happens welcomes a guest blogger, CuppaJo, a woman cutting her teeth on the Jits. Here she helps us all understand why BJJ has been relatively unsuccessful building its female ranks, and what we can do to make it better. Take it away, Cuppa!
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Hello everyone, I'm CuppaJo, I'm a woman and I love to grapple.

[Hi Cuppa!]

Somehow, David (our beloved host here at Jits Happens) and I got into an email discussion about women and grappling. I found myself on the same soapbox I have been getting on the last few weeks over and over again when explaining my thoughts on why women don't grapple. David thought I should share them with all of you.

I'm pretty new to grappling. I have only been taking BJJ for the last 4 months so please understand that my perspective is that of a newcomer and not a long term grappler, or even a long-term Martial Artist, even though I did study Tukong Moosul for a bit as a kid. While I know there are many women that practice some form of Martial Art, the fighting arts have remained predominantly male. A friend of mine goes to a women-mostly non-profit Dojo in town (Karate - not BJJ) and I remember being rather surprised that such a thing could continue to exist over the long term. But still, I would never really feel uncomfortable or awkward taking Tae Kwon Do or anything. Lot's of women do it right? Then I decided to try BJJ, sort of assuming it was like the others, with a smaller, but dedicated group of women at each Dojo. You know, something like a 1 to 10 ratio. I honestly didn't even consider that I might be the only girl in the place. It turned out to be a rather poor assumption on my part. Though I cannot find documented evidence of this, I would put the ratio at closer to 1 in 25 or more. Why is BJJ even more predominantly male than other Martial Arts?

Since I have been doing this long enough now to really spend some time thinking about why BJJ doesn't have as high of a attraction or retention rate with women, I keep coming back to:

1. You almost need to break a magic threshold number to make a class where it is either women-only or there are enough women that you have at least two women show up every class. The reason I believe this is key is because...
2. Women don't wrestle around with other people as a natural part of their socialization. Little girls are discouraged from roughhousing types of behavior from a small age - even those that are encouraged to participate in sport. Boys are likewise schooled not to roughhouse with girls. When you add that to the general uncomfortable-ness of rolling around on the floor in close contact with members of the opposite sex who are little more than strangers I think most women just sort of drop out over time.
3. You also have to admit the sport can make you look like your spouse beats you - especially if you bruise easily. :)

I also want to throw in a note here about how hard BJJ can be for new practitioners. When you start you don't really know what you are doing, you don't know what everyone else is doing, and BJJ is not that intuitive. BJJ tends to be a much more 'relaxed' martial art when it comes to curriculum, traditions, and belt-testing. This leaves beginners with a vague idea of where they are going and how to get there, while fighting to just breathe -- much less win. Now imagine you are smaller and weaker than everyone else. It means you are probably going to spend the first year or so of your Jits life getting your rear kicked. I'm sure a lot of women just think “why am I paying for this?”

Martial Arts of most types are pretty boyzone - but the ones who do the best in attracting and retaining women tend to be pushing the self-defense angle pretty hard.

I also think that BJJs choke-out moves are really useful in self-defense situations. I may not want to arm-bar a guy attacking me because a broken arm may not incapacitate him - but choking someone out allows you to escape from the situation. Further, when most people are attacked they are so freaked out they are being attacked they can't actually do anything about it. All the rolling in BJJ gets you used to having someone trying to hurt you and helps teach you to remain calm and fight back.

BJJ could probably do more to attract women by doing self-defense seminars tailored to women and focusing more on defensive moves that incapacitate your attacker and get you out of danger -- rather than focusing on the sport of BJJ where we concentrate on point systems and the 101 ways to arm-bar in a weight-leveled competition. It would also be good to focus the techniques on negating strength and size differences. I think BJJ pays a lot of lip service to being good for women and for negating size and strength advantages, but I haven't seen very much in the way of technique modification to compensate for those differences or any real self-defense-focused curriculum.

The Fight Works Podcast has a great show on this topic (find it here) where Valerie Worthington (her blog is here) discusses it from her purple belt perspective. She talks about reasons she has been given when some guys refuse to roll with her, how to try and deal with those situations, body differences and “forgetting gender.”

So help a sister out! If you are a woman and have been thinking about trying BJJ - do it! Call your local BJJ studio and ask how many women they have attending. If you are a woman studying BJJ, recruit a friend! BJJ is a great workout and tons of fun and I feel pretty confident more and more women will come roll with us and bring their friends once they have an ally on the mats.