Women In MMA

This morning, Fatal Femmes Fighting made an appearance on NBC’s Today Show. Last month, well known EliteXC fighter Gina Carano was among the top search terms on MMAJunkie.com. The Oxygen television network airs a show called Fight Girls. Anyway you break it down; it’s clear that women are breaking into the mixed martial arts business left and right. From their ever increasing popularity and appeal, it looks as if they’re here to stay

Although professional female fighters haven’t yet broken into the ranks of Liddell and Hughes, they’re certainly on their way. Gina Carano was the first female in a major organization (EliteXC), but these wily women have been beating each other up for quite some time. Yuka Tsuji, possibly the most famous female in the biz, has been fighting since 2001, boasting an impressive 18-1 record. She also received some mainstream exposure in the television series Jackass, in which she knocked cast member Ryan Dunn unconscious. However, these women aren’t just around for entertaining the drunken Vegas crowd and they certainly know what their doing. Learning some of the toughest MMA styles around and earning black belts in their various disciplines, these women deserve to be taken seriously.

While these professional fighters are impressive in their own right, you don’t have to be committed to 8 fights a year a grueling training regiment to learn one of the world’s fastest growing sports. In fact, most female practitioners of MMA learn the sport casually or in a class with friends. Jessie Shoap, a student of Krav Maga in the Philadelphia area, spoke with Martial Base on some of the advantages to learning a mixed martial art.

“Most of our exercises were done with someone coming up behind us or attempting to choke us" said Shoap. These exercises not only provide the women with exercise and knowledge of a new sport, they serve as a viable self-defense method. She continued, “They would mostly put us with guys, and guys that were much bigger than us. We learned how to escape from a choke up against a wall.” It may not look like much in a classroom, but the techniques employed by Jessie are some of the same ones we see being utilized in the octagon on a regular basis.

While females in MMA may never reach the status of the Liddell’s and Jackson’s, they can certainly hold their own and provide a fascinating alternative to the types of fights we’ve been seeing repeat for years. For every professional female fighter, there are hundreds who practice MMA to stay in shape and feel confident when alone. For that majority, MMA is not just a sport, but a way of life.