Hillary and any other intelligent, educated woman. I have an orthodox muslim man who told me before he signed up that he
cannot touch or train with women as his Muslim religion doesn't allow this.
We dont have but one or two women in our class.
But in your opinion, do you respect that as a woman and I would be interested to hear anyone elses opinion regarding this mattter, Koma
I had a similar incident not to long ago at my gym.....
The OMM stated that he won't train with women or homosexuals.... at which time I asked him ..."how about women homosexuals??" no response from him....my follow up question...
"how would you know if your training partner was gay? He said..."oh I'll know!"
After 3-or 4 awkward classes I took him aside and informed him that over half of the people he worked out with during the week were gay!! Needdless to say ...he never came back.
Leave your ego at the door along with your religious ideologies...no room for them OTM!
on a semi-related note, nearly all of the muslim men i dealt with in both iraq and afghanistan would do just about anything to get their hands on american women. all of the civil affairs girls were constantly being hugged and groped and getting asked to posed for pics and such.
i got the impression that they loved the idea of not getting in trouble for being able to interact with a female.
I'm not a female so not sure if I'm off base on this but I'd respect their wishes. It's their prerogative, what will it hurt if they don't roll with the female students?
If I was a academy owner then I'd be happy I have a new student signing up.
No one should be forced to train with ANYONE they dont want regardless of their reasoning. They are only limiting themselves and will be the ones who miss potential benefits in the long run.
Rick Screeton - No one should be forced to train with ANYONE they dont want regardless of their reasoning. They are only limiting themselves and will be the ones who miss potential benefits in the long run.
so you'd be cool with a white student saying he didn't want to roll with a black guy?
I agree with this:
"Leave your ego at the door along with your religious ideologies...no room for them OTM!"
TheParrot -Its his choice... I wouldnt be cool with it, but I cant force it. Intolerance is intolerance......Rick Screeton - No one should be forced to train with ANYONE they dont want regardless of their reasoning. They are only limiting themselves and will be the ones who miss potential benefits in the long run.
so you'd be cool with a white student saying he didn't want to roll with a black guy?
I agree with this:
"Leave your ego at the door along with your religious ideologies...no room for them OTM!"
What if a guy comes in and says he ONLY wants to train with women? 
I would not have an issue with this, as long as he was not disrepectful or rude to the woman in class. If he calmly said "i have nothing against you personally, but i am devout in my religion and I cant roll with you for xyz reasons". I can respect that.
If he was rude and treated the woman in class like second class citizens, then I would tell him that he might need to consider a different school.
Thankfully I dont own a school so I dont have to deal with these type of situations :)
so you'd be cool with a white student saying he didn't want to roll with a black guy?
Racism is a little different then religious beliefs...
I can't say I speak for all females--but pesonally, I don't find it disrespectful at all. He wants to train, and has only asked that his religious customs be considered--really it's nice that he has asked before signing up. As long as he is not being disrespectful to me or in any way disagreeing with my choice to train, I would honor his request. It's really not going to ruin my life because this one guy won't roll with me. Don't any of you have that one person you try to avoid on the mats too? I'm know I am guilty.
WOW! Some of you are really being the assholes. Are you the same people that want "In God we trust" taken off of American money, and the word God taken out of the pledge? Or the one's with the rebel flag in the back on your pickup truck because you don't know what it really means? Stop being such bigots. Not all Muslims are bad people.
I have several devout Muslims in my school, and they are some of the most respectful guys on the mat. I might not agree with them on a religious level, but I still allow them freedom of religion, and it doesn't interfere with anything that i am trying to accomplish. The women in my school respect the guys right to choose who they train with, as much as they have the right to do the same.
Seriously, look at yourselves before you judge others.
If a dude doesn't want to roll with a girl, I think its probably a benefit for the girl.
HughSlaman - Refusing to roll with women is not a matter of denigrating them, or seeing them as inferior or anything like that.
Islam as a religion places a high value on modesty and is aware of the serious problems caused by unfettered sexual relations between men and women; not only is fornication considered a sin against God, but even in the ninth century Islamic literature contained warnings that when sexual morality disapppears among a people, new diseases start to appear among them (not so unfamiliar, eh?).
Because of the serious consequences of unrestricted sexual relations, Islam legislates against the free mixing of men and women. They do this because they understand that fornication begins in social situations, with glances, conversations, seemingly innocent physical contact, and the like. As the Muslim scholars say, "There is no fire without a spark".
Muslims believe that God has commanded them to (a) not be in a room alone with unrelated members of the opposite gender; (b) not touch unrelated members of the opposite gender, even when there is no fear of attraction developing; (c) not talk to unrelated members of the opposite gender without a legitimate need, such as business or education. They beleive God has commanded them to do follow these rules out of mercy, and so that the evils of fornication can be completely avoided among them (as long as they follow these rules).
The refusal to roll with women is a direct consequence of rule (b).
These rules will seem strict in our liberal times, but the Islamic attitude is that if something is seriously bad, then one should block all the means that lead to it, even if in a particular situation they seem innocent to the person involved.
F THIS I WANT TO LIVE LIFE BRO!
and the ATTN Hillary......I don't get
Wow, alot of igonorance on this thread. Ignorance equals fear.
Hey PKM, way to be a communist d-bag. You discriminated against that dude for practicing his religion in a mofrackin FREE country. A country, btw, I fought for.
In his religion, his request honors women. He didn't say he must rape them before they roll.
Remember it is a sheik in a muslim country that has probably provided more $$$$ support to BJJ than ANYONE else.
joe90210 -HughSlaman -MickColins - If a dude doesn't want to roll with a girl, I think its probably a benefit for the girl.
Lots of girls (maybe even most) prefer rolling with other girls.
That's why you have so many women only grappling classes out there.
Why this should be such a big problem is beyond me.
you don't see a problem with a student refusing to roll with certain people because he considers them beneath him? that's the real reason.
I seriously doubt that in most cases that's the real reason.
There are also plenty of Muslim women who refuse to shake hands with men and, if they wound up in a BJJ class I imagine, would not want to roll with men. Do you think that's also because they think they're "beneath them"?
Some of your answers are mind blowing!
Dude can't roll with women cause of his religion either respect his wish or if you fear your female students feel disrespected by this to the point where they will quit tell him you can not promise such things and maybe your school is not the appropriate learning environment for him.
Im an Atheist but I believe people should be allowed to practice whatever religion they want despite me not agreeing with them. Also I am very aware of the fact that many people are born into religion and can not break from it or simply just don't know any better.
I don't get the big deal...we are all adults, roll with who you want.
^^^^^^^^^^
Seriously, you don't have to roll with any one you don't want to. Respect people's boundaries. Plus, the fact that there are hardly any women at your school makes it a complete non-issue.