to be irritated that female fighters have to be so slim?

[Bloodystupidusernamer00lz]

I am overweight by quite a bit, I think technically according to BMI's I am obese. I am trying to do something about it by going to the gym.

The gym I attend does a lot of martial arts and many of the men do competitive fighting but so far there are no women doing it.

[sooperdooper]

The women don't have to be slim to do the class though, surely anyone can join? What does their weight have to do with it?

[Sparklingbrook]

There are no women doing it. So how can they be slim? I am not with you.

[MajesticSeaFlapFlap]

I should imagine they have to be very fit so tend to be slim.

Why not join, then there will be one woman

[BombadierFritz]

Go and learn martial arts. Being slim has nothing to do with it. Being fit helps tho

[curren]

I am a competitive kick boxer and certainly not 'slim' I am about a stone over the weight I consider to be 'slimish'

I don't get your point

[Stratter5]

Not sure how you extrapolated 'women must be thin to fight' from 'there are no women who do martial arts at my gym'. Am assuming logic is not your strong point.

[newnameoldstart]

I don't know anything about fighting but I am overweight too - i think I would be a really good fighter just because the little ones wouldn't be able to Throw me and at a push I could sit/lie on them until they gave up

[00100001]

Does it say they have to be slim to join the class??

[SaucyJack]

All fighters- male or female- have low body fat, as they are categorised by weight, and they obviously don't want any useless flesh bumping their weight up.

I'm not sure what this has to do with you doing a weekly boxercise class at your local gym.

[mudandmayhem01]

Newname, you fight people in your weight category

[BrandNewAndImproved]

I do martial arts and I'm over weight on the bmi chart. Where I train there's a good handful of women but they don't like the actual sparring as much as the men. I do I bloody love fighting but in competitions there might be say 100 women doing patterns and then 10 doing the actual fighting comp where as the men it's almost the opposite.

You can still do a martial art without actually fighting.

[newnameoldstart]

Mud- damn it my new career plan is out the window.

[BackforGood]

Come on OP - explain the link between the two for us please.

[Bloodystupidusernamer00lz]

Oops, didn't realise I had created 2 threads by mistake! The other one has my full explaination, I didn't finish writing it before I posted

[PurpleDaisies]

I have been very confused by this thread as I misread the title as "why do female firefighters need to be so slim"...

This appears to be a duplicate of another thread where to op is answering questions.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2616615-to-be-irritated-that-female-fighters-have-to-be-so-slim

[PurpleDaisies]

Cross posted op!

[Tartsamazeballs]

What on earth are you talking about?

For competitions you'll get classed by weight so whilst it can be useful if you can drop water weight before a weigh in to get down to a lower class and then rehydrate back up to normal, there's no inherent weight barrier to doing a martial art. In any case there's nothing saying you have to have a low body weight to simply train.

Even if you are on the heavy side your weight isn't aways a block to competing, go google Gemma Gibbons if you don't believe me. She's not massive, but I seem to remember her being overweight by BMI (competes in the -78kg class).

[Tartsamazeballs]

Read your other post. Ignore the above, you're right to be pissed off!

[mudandmayhem01]

If you are a beginner/ not very serious about a sport it is quite common to be overweight. I see lots of slightly overweight men enjoying 5 a side football, or back of the pack marathon runners achieving their goal carrying a few pounds. Fantastic great for their overall health, no reason why martial arts isn't the same. As you take a sport more seriously, train for more hours, watch your nutrition etc most people lose weight. Nicola Adams, Paula Radcliffe and messi obviously don't carry any fat, doesn't stop you enjoying a bit of sparring/ five a side or jogging.

[curren]

I compete, weigh more. So do women at my dojo.

Never heard anything so ridiculous

[mudandmayhem01]

Just read your other thread, completely agree with you this needs to change or maybe look for another association or branch of martial arts. Ignore my last post

[Sparklingbrook]

Why are there two threads?

[Bloodystupidusernamer00lz]

Didn't realise I'd accidentally created two

[Sparklingbrook]

Probably need to get one deleted.