Rory Miller

Discussion in 'Self Defence' started by Adrastia, Feb 12, 2014.

  1. Adrastia

    Adrastia Valued Member

  2. Kave

    Kave Lunatic

    I don't believe that it covers the actual issues of retaining women in a martial arts class. Here are some of the issues I feel are more important:

    1). Women feel uncomfortable if they are the only female in a class (and that is understandable).

    2). The uncomfortableness can be exacerbated by the fact that martial arts inherently involves a lot of touching, often in a way that would be considered inappropriate outside a martial arts class.

    3). Self perpetuating cultural attitudes that regard fighting as a masculine practice mean that women often have a stronger aversity to physical conflict.

    4). As I am often the smallest guy in the sparring classes at my gym by a fair margin, I know how it can often seem futile when you only ever fight people who are bigger and stronger than you (and who also often have more training as well). I can only imagine that the sense of futility is just as bad if not worse for women who find themselves constantly pitted against stronger opponents.

    On top of these issues, it is hard to get girls to even consider signing up to a martial arts gym. For every 40 guys we get through the door we might get one girl. When 99% of the fresh meat that comes through the door quits after 1 or two sessions then we cannot expect any girl that walks through the door to have any higher likelihood of staying than the guys. The key to finding that 1% of girls that wants to stay is targeted advertising, It is the same as for men, if you get 100 girls through the door you might keep a few, but if you are only getting a 3 or 4 a year then you will be hard pressed to find the few that decide that your gym is the right fit for them. You have to sift through a whole lot of sand to find the few flecks of gold.
     
  3. Adrastia

    Adrastia Valued Member

    Link to Rory Miller:
    chirontraining.blogspot.com


    Good points, Kave.

    but Rory isn't addressing martial arts classes. or marketing.

    He's discussing the role and practice of the instructor of SD4Women

    "Recently contacted by an acquaintance about how to attract and retain women to a self-defense studio. His assertion was that the women who left wanted it to be fun, but self-defense was a grim subject, inherently un-fun.....

    Miller has very direct comments about what instructors (most often men)
    must do in SD classes:

    "First, you must make an emotionally safe place to practice physically dangerous things. And then you must make a physically safe place to do emotionally dangerous things.

    Do you know how to do this? Do you actually do this?

    A number of MAP participants do or speculate about women and self defense.
    What's your take on his POV?
     
  4. Simon

    Simon Administrator Admin Supporter MAP 2017 Koyo Award

    What is your association with Rory?
     
  5. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    Being a martial arts instructor doesn't necessarily mean you're emotionally intelligent. If you're emotionally unintelligent you'll struggle to retain students full stop and especially women, and yes you're likely to run into problems running self defence scenarios with women.
    Rory's books are full of this type of problem though, he has a tendency to focus on the extreme end. People who just want to feel a bit safer in their suburban life won't enjoy being constantly told about how to avoid being shanked in a prison riot.
     
  6. Kave

    Kave Lunatic

  7. Adrastia

    Adrastia Valued Member

    No mystery. I admire him, learn from his stuff. There's so much controversy
    about the issue but I don't think he's commented as directly as he does here.
    I'm planning on using his Conflict Communications material in a class in April.
    I'm glad he posted this. Not many women either here or @ MT but many of the
    participants post about SD4W. Maybe Rory can generate some change.

    what do you think of his post?
     
  8. mattt

    mattt Valued Member

    I don't see the content as women specific, how does that differ from his approach to a male joining his class?

    Students shouldn't stick around self defense classes IMO - unless to teach. They should take the confidence they are lacking and move on.
     
  9. Kave

    Kave Lunatic

    I agree 100% that the in-class approach should be the same for both sexes. That being said, an instructors role is also to ensure that the policy of equal treatment also is shown by students to each other, and this is something that needs to be actively monitored.
    I don't know about this. In terms of the unarmed combat portion of self-defence classes, every extra lesson should allow you to further develop your skills and therefore become better able to defend yourself. There is not a fixed cut-off point where you should be able to state "I can defend myself adequately". Personally I am not a big fan of RBSD as it is generally taught, where nut-punching and eye-gouging reign supreme; and paying mega-bucks for short courses, seminars, and video instruction seems to be the norm rather than the exception. I would much rather see people commit to training regularly over a long period of time in order to gain some degree of mastery over the subject matter. As it stands, it seems that many RBSD instructors seem to be claiming that they can teach people to defend themselves in a very short timeframe (or even via video), which I call poppycock (I would use stronger language if I was not on MAP).

    It doesn't actually cover gender-specific issues regarding retention, and seems to imply that there are no gender issues around retention of students, which I wouldn't necessarily agree with. Other than that, I strongly agree with this point:

    However, a lot of the post is standard RBSD hyperbole. I love the line
    it is so dramatic. In fact the whole post seems overly dramatic and fails to focus on the realities. Making your classes "emotionally safe" will not be sufficient by itself to maximise student retention, it is just the basic level of shared humanity that any gym should expect from students and instructors. It seems a pretty low bar to strive for. As for re-creating personal incidents of victimization with senior students, it sounds like this guy fancies himself as an amateur psychologist. I think there are ways of pressure testing techniques without trying to re-traumatise people by recreating past abuses.
     
  10. mattt

    mattt Valued Member

    You see, here is a philosophical divide.

    Personally, I train for refinement. I have no fear of attack and do not train for self defense, other than the natural, healthy fear that keeps me alert.

    Many people who train for a long time aren't in it to 'learn that extra technique that might make the difference between life and death' IMO... they instead are just always trying to improve, and enjoy the social, mental, and health aspects of training.

    People who are seeking out SD who are in the 'vulnerable' section of the spectrum should, in an ideal world be taught the skills necessary to move past this block and achieve their goals in life.

    I actually am somewhat against the concept of 'retaining women' in training because I feel it smacks of McDojo and the desire to put a constant payroll on the books rather than help a person out.

    Also, the reason I separate out the need for that 'one next technique that could save them' is that there is never that last technique, that is the mindset of a person in a refinement spiral. All they need is to learn comfort and self acceptance, through their belief that their skills have improved and their ability to navigate life has been restored.

    MA for people who need SD training is totally about learning to be comfortable with who they are as humans.
     
  11. Convergencezone

    Convergencezone Valued Member

    My club has historically been about half women, and We have usually attracted women who are mostly black belts in other arts.

    I personally would not make the assumption that women as a group want self defense training to be "fun", or that they need an "emotionally safe space"...give me a break.

    In my experience women want to be treated like everyone else. Some women who ended up in our club have told me that they were sick of previous instructors who kept holding back on them. The women in my club spar hard like the guys, get bruises like everyone else, and get knocked around like the guys.

    They are martial artists. Just like they guys.

    Oh yeah...one other thing: martial arts are not the same as "self defense", but that is another story.
     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2014
  12. jorvik

    jorvik Valued Member

    I think it's a bit unfair to judge Rory on one blog without knowing more about him.
    He was a prison officer and then worked in Iraq and he has written books such as "meditations on violence" he has a backround in Sosuichi ryu............he really is in the vain of most US self defence people like tony blauer et al
     
  13. Dean Winchester

    Dean Winchester Valued Member

    Sosuishi-ryu.

    双水執流
     
  14. jorvik

    jorvik Valued Member

    yeah it's my computer,I actually looked up how to spell it:confused:
     
  15. Dean Winchester

    Dean Winchester Valued Member

    Sorry but I'm allowed to be picky about that one. ;)


    :D
     
  16. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award


    quick bit of info, the ''Sosuishi-ryu'' that Rory miller was trained in, seems not to of been the official line real deal.

    source - http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=72464
     
  17. greg1075

    greg1075 Valued Member

    I agree with the core argument Miller's making. In my experience, very few women stick around. Lack of fun, "inappropriate" touching , emotional and physical demands of training - most women simply do not enjoy it and don't have a great interest in culturally and probably biologically a swell. Women don't see a great need for SD skills as they are less likely to engage in physical combat as men. Another factor is that most people (men or women) simply lack self-discipline. Whether we're talking about SD/MAs, music, dieting or whatever, most people just don't keep it up over time. I was once told that only 1 in 2000 MA students makes it to black belt. Not sure how accurate the figure is but the point is that most people give up, even when they're super excited and motivated at the beginning. I think that of the women that do begin training, some do have an interest in it and a lot do so after a traumatic event, either personally experienced, witnessed or that they heard about. Whenever news break of a rape, murder or case of disappearance etc, my female co-workers start emailing me to ask questions about ma/sd for them or their kids. They're always "very interested" and want to take a class etc...then the news fall by the wayside and so does their interest. This is true about men as well but to a lesser degree I think as, as mentioned above, they are more likely than women to be involved in a physical altercation. One of my guy coworkers came to me once asking me teach him a few things because he had frozen in front a guy in a bar. Same dynamics applied...he forgot about it and went back to the things he likes more (football in his case, usually working out to look good for women).

    The only thing I don't quite agree with in Miller's post in the minor point he makes about the bad math of spending $1200 to save $100. If your money is all a mugger wants, you give it to him and walk away. So you'll actually be out $1300 or $1200 and your phone. I'm sure that Miller knows this so I was a little surprised by the statement.
     
  18. jorvik

    jorvik Valued Member

  19. greg1075

    greg1075 Valued Member

    Miller a fraud? What is the world coming to?
     
  20. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    nobody said Mr Miller was a fraud.

    If he was claiming to teach mainline koryu then, after going through his actual background he may or may not be, but he doesnt claim that AFAIK.
     

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