Product Description

This is a reference for women in the martial arts, showing how to find the right school, deal with menstruation and pregnancy, get in touch with women's groups and find the right equipment. It directs women on how to get the most from their workout and use their strengths to best advantage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1035306 in Books
• Published on: 1998-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 255 pages

From the Publisher
Synopsis of Martial Arts for Women
Martial Arts for Women: A Practical Guide addresses the many issues faced by female martial artists. The first three chapters are a guide for the new martial artist, including choosing the right art, the customs and procedures of a typical martial art class and the practical concerns unique to female martial artists such as finding the right equipment and clothing, adjusting to a contact sport and persevering during challenging times. Chapters 4 through 6 address the technical aspects of the arts including self-defense, sparring and conditioning respectively. These chapters are rich in photos depicting fundamental martial arts exercises and skills. Chapter 7 details basic injury care and prevention, including proper warming up and cooling down exercises. Chapter 8 helps the reader decide whether competition might be right for her, and if so, what events are suitable for her goals. Chapter 9 is a detailed guide to finding the right school. It covers dozens of points for evaluation including pricing, instructor qualifications, facility/equipment safety, teaching style, and meeting personal goals. A check list that may be photocopied is included for readers to use in their evaluation process.

About the Author
Jennifer Lawler is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a free lance writer. She trains at New Horizons Black Belt Academy of Tae Kwon Do, in Lawrence, Kansas, under Masters Donald and Susan Booth. She also teaches Tae Kwon Do and self-defence classes. She is the author of several books and she has published numerous articles on martial arts and women. She recently earned her Ph.D in English. She lives in Lawrence with her husband, Bret Kay, who is also a martial artist.

Customer Reviews

Sub-mediocre effort with an abysmal review of martial arts.
The beginning of this book is the best part. The author clearly states her goals and concerns and then proceeds to elucidate on them a bit. Unfortunately, the first chapter is as good as it gets and everything goes downhill from there. There are gleanings of good information to be found, unfortunately these are among such a huge morass of misinformation and stylistic prejudice that they are swamped.

Ms. Lawler's inapparent exposure in any way to any other forms of martial arts besides tae kwon do and even besides her own school of tae kwon do is baffling to me, especially in the light of her book being on martial arts for women, not tae kwon do for women. Her lack of knowledge concerning even the most fundamental aspects of common arts such as judo and aikido is apparent in statements such as "judo and aikido rely on upper body and arm strength" (this may be a paraphrase, as I do not have the book in front of me). This is followed by advice to women to not do arts involving a heavy reliance on upper body strength. However, the basic tenets of judo and, especially, aikido involve movement based around one's center of gravity, hips and legs and are generally well-suited to female martial artists. Such gems of misinformation would have been easily corrected with a brief reference to any of the 10-20 basic aikido or judo books that exist or even a 5 minute conversation with a teacher of these arts. More such biases appear throughout the book and lead one to believe that the author did most of her research on the various martial arts other than tae kwon do by talking to people who didn't practice them.

Her views towards the use of weapons by women are nothing less than dismal. She seems to advocate not training in any weapons as they will just get taken away from any woman who attempts to use them. A good hard look at some of the weapons training and self-defense courses out there (as seen in Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women's Self-Defence) would be a much more realistic and fair assessment of the role of weapons in women's martial arts and self-defence training.

As a practitioner of an art which does not teach competition sparring, I have very little to say about the majority of the midsection of the book, as it focused quite heavily on that aspect of her art. However, I do find that her attitudes towards males seem to advocate her going all-out on them (including anecdotes of cracking ribs and the like) but them treating her more gently than they'd treat an equally sized male. Again, some valid points, but lost in a haze of sexism.

The section on choosing a school was somewhat better, although her focus on and bias towards large, commercial schools was lamentable, as was her bias towards striking and competition arts. Ms. Lawler comes from a large, commmercial dojang and has apparently only participated in a striking, competition-oriented martial art.

Suggestions would include not buying this book at all. A much better (although still limited) book is A Woman's Guide to Martial Arts : How to Choose and Get Started in a Discipline, by Monica McCabe-Cardoza. Other suggestions for the author would include retitling the book Tae Kwon Do for Women and/or doing a lot more research on the martial arts in general before proceeding in this vein.

inspiring book
I am not a martial artist, yet MARTIAL ARTS FOR WOMEN: A Practical Guide both intrigued and entertained me. Lawler obviously has a zany sense of humor and the many personal anecdotes that she included in her text made MARTIAL ARTS FOR WOMEN a very enjoyable read. The chapter on self-defense contains plenty of practical information about self-defense techniques that any woman could use, even if she is not well-versed in martial arts. And the chapter on physical concerns includes many warm up exercises that would benefit any athlete, not just a martial artist. For someone like me, who is curious about martial arts but has no background in them, MARTIAL ARTS FOR WOMEN is a perfect beginner's book. Yet enough solid information is presented to satisfy the most avid female martial artist