It's a good point, really. I don't cover it. All the women in my class have short hair; all the women in my Aikido and taekwondo schools also have short hair. In short (pardon the pun), all the women I can think of have all had/have short hair. That's not to say that they can't grow it long.

However, strangely, there are several men in my Aikido school, and one in one of my TKD schools, who have long hair. And there are young girls with long hair in Aikido and taekwondo schools, so, for them, this is a real issue.

But I never gave the concept a thought. First off.... I don't have much hair. And I don't fit a demographic that would wear it long, even if I had enough to make a pony tail.

As a result, my ability to teach hair-grab defenses is not that great. And it's hard to practice with hair grab defenses, since so few people have long hair in any of my schools.

On the flip side, I do teach that grabbing the hair is a valid self-defense move, but, like any self-defense technique, if you botch the job, you'll enrage your opponent. Nevertheless, I admittedly don't cover the topic at all.

I have really long hair and I love it but I have to admit it's a pain in in training. I just scoop it up in a high ponytail and normally don't have a problem. Though if I'm thrown sometimes people play dirty and stand on my hair so I can't get up and pin me into a hold down. This makes me angry,which is good because then I fight harder and kick *** quicker. I have always been taught self defensive escape from hair grabbing for this reason .

The first thing I teach when I teach self defense is situational awareness. The second thing I teach is to keep people more than an arms length from you whenever possible.

The reason for that is that once your grabbed it's hard to escape, if you're not calm and have the skills needed to control the situation. You'll find that in a style like Uechi Ryu, we teach elbow strikes, eye strikes, and how to break from grabs. Of course, these things aren't a one and done. They have to be worked, practiced and become second nature.

To be specific to your question I can't think of one specific technique that would work all of the time if someone grabbed your hair. But I can say that working on the floor it would be easy to try different ways of getting away.

I know it's not a TMA but KM does address the "hair grab" on a regular basis during various curriculum segments. They cover three variations which include back, front, and side, which do include joint locks and manipulation, and striking. It is something that can come up in any fight scenario where a person is looking to establish control, or regain control, of an individual. It is always part of any women's defense seminar, or specific women's classes. It can be a key defensive technique in regards to domestic violence situations, as are wrist releases, arm grab defenses, and choke defenses. We also teach these for abduction prevention as well.

We do cover it. But not just for female students. We have males that have long dreadlocks too. We also teach students to grab and pull hair. One instructor goes over it practically every time he teaches. I teach it but not every class.

Also, this is taught in the school district where I work. It is part of our nonviolent intervention plan. Staff need to know how to get out of hair pulls, bites chokes and striking without being violent per board policy. We are required to have this training and certified every year.

It is not hard to practice hair grabs even if most students have short hair. The principles can still be taught.

Edit: Great question by the way. This is something that should be discussed and taught. I like the bear Idea that Kokoro mentioned as I never done that.

In teaching escapes from hair pulls I teach a nonviolent wa and a violent way. One is far that relatice or friend. The other is for if you are really attacked. Basically you have a choice to hurt/harm or not to hurt/harm.

the problem is that most "Martial arts" schools teach sports rather than true Martial arts. what you are talking about should be taught in every class.

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you are right that there an many self-defense situations but if you use only moves that work on a larger stronger better trainned attacker, you don't have that many So no in a 2 hour class you cannot work on all of them but many of them then rotate them as needed.

yes i teach how to escape as well as how to properly pull the hair, there is applications for this in several kata, for both aspects. most people dont realize there is a proper technique for grabbing the hair and pulling it.

tom is correct its not easy to escape a hair pull but there are ways to utilizing it to your advantage and less the pain,

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i teach self defense from the point of view of kata, and how a fight starts and escalates. i ask the students what they need to defend against, and take the techniques they need for it from a kata they know or are working on. although i do try and keep the techniques age appropriate, and gear it towards there age.

most of the people i train with or work out with do teach hair pulls defense, but im sure there are more that dont.

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yes a lot of women do have short hair but unless its a buzz cut or your balled you can still grab the hair,

heck i got thrown by my beard by one of my instructors and it wasnt that long. and he got a good grip on it,the next think i knew i was flying through the air with the greatest of easy and crashed into a wall.

you dont need much hair there just a good grip on it

Actually, if my memory serves me right, Aikido has techniques dealing with hair grabs called kami tori waza. I've only been shown a couple of them, since they were not part of my lessons at the time it was shown and was merely demonstrated to answer a student's question regarding hair grabs. I was shown how to apply Sankyu and Shiho Nage after someone grabs you by the hair both from the front and from behind. It was so simple I wondered how I never thought of it in the first place.

Yea but if your a grappler its just like breaking any other painful high grip bar the fact its way easier to get the persons arm extended then other grips. It's pretty easy for most girl don't tie your hair up and it gets in the way and gets pulled if your wearing a gi I imagine if you have short hair tell them to quite notching and treat it like any other high grip. we don't get taught self defence in judo beyond weaponless combat with striking and dirty fighting plus multiple oppents in a way. I think Brown is where the first self defence things are and that takes a long time to get close to.

I couldn't afford a self defence course so I decided to learn some tecniques and moves from the internet. This a good system I bought http://www.goobypls.com/r/rd.asp?gid=563

Cheers ;)

Just wondering how many of you regularly teach women and girls to escape from hair pull and hair grab scenarios. I train this self defense practice a number of ways in both joint locks and striking but i am always amazed to see and speak to women and girls come from numerous other training centers (some black belts) and have never encountered the problem and even if they have they rarely train the skill.

I often teach and train this skill and drill it with the students but do you....

1) teach it and make a conscious effort of promoting this to all students but especially the female ones?

2) If you do teach it, do you regularly practice the skill in a self defense scenario?

3) To the female martial arts students, how often have you been taught escapes and trained the escapes in self defense scenario training?

it's good question, you are right. women habit (if they have not train MA) would do it in fight, but acctualy not only women do it me else do it in fight but in technique to take down opponent. in real fighting there not rules our opponent could do anything to beat us, right? there any way to escape technique like this but must do so quick before.

You know no firearms for you.