5 Women Who Dominated the Martial Arts World
In the male-dominated world of martial arts, women have finally entered this world of fighting, making themselves prominent year after year. Because of this more and more schools like the Washington Kung Fu Club and others have opened their doors to female martial artists. The following are the five prominent female fighters in martial arts.
1.Ronda Rousey
Ronda Rousey started as a judoka athlete before going into MMA and became one of the famous female pro-MMA fighters. She started martial arts with the influence of her mother who was also a Judi champion to cope with her childhood frustrations.
When she was 16 years old, she won the half-middleweight division championship and claimed the gold medal at the World Junior Championships in 2004, and Pan American Judo Championship where she defended it later in 2006. Unfortunately, in 2007, she only won second place and became the first American woman to win medals at the championship within 12 years. She also won the Pan American games despite having a knee injury. She finally retired after she won a bronze medal in the 2008 Olympics, garnering 46 medals in her entire judo fights.
In 2010, she joined MMA and won her first fight as an amateur. She made her first pro-MMA fight in 2012 after dislocating her opponent’s elbow. She has become the UFC Bantamweight Champion and already has modeled several magazines.
2.Lucia Rijker
Lucia Rikjker was known as a Lady Tyson, the Dutch Destroyer, and the Most Dangerous Woman in the World. It is believed that her punches are harder than an average male MMA fighter, which made her championed the kickboxing and boxing sports from the year 1980s until the 2000s, having 49 knockouts.
She was one of the greatest women fighters that ever existed. In fact, the ever-famous Ronda Rousey hired Rijker as her personal coach in 2012.
3.Gina Carano
Gina started her career in martial arts after being recruited by her then-boyfriend Kevin Ross who is a professional Muay Thai fighter and was trained under Master Toddy. She then became the first American woman who won a Muay Thai title in Thailand with a 14-1-1 record.
4.Cecilia Braekhus
Cecilia Braekhus started her martial arts career as a kickboxer and later became a boxer in Norway when she was still 14 years old. Since then, she was able to win many world championships.
5.Tae Yun Kim
The first woman to be able to attain the status of a grandmaster in Taekwondo was born in a shack and was abandoned when she was five years old.
She was introduced to taekwondo by her uncle, but because the sport was dominated by males, her interest in a martial art was never taken seriously by her male counterparts. She begged and they finally trained her, paving her way on attaining a black belt in Taekwondo and a Grandmaster title in the said martial art.
When she moved to America at the age of 20, she practiced a new discipline called Jung Suwon.
Some women who are noteworthy to acknowledge besides what we mentioned above include Keiko Fukuda, Angela Lee, Mackenzie Dern, Amanda Nunes, and many more. While it is true that since ancient history, the male has been dominating the world of martial arts, women of today have proven that they, too, are so much capable in the area world.