A Ronda Rousey Video Breakdown
[Disclaimer: This will be, like all of my videos, informational, and educational at its core. From a martial arts perspective, but also a social psychological one. I get bored with the norm and tend to march to my own beat, those who “get it” will get it…..for purists, this is mostly NoGi, so I will do my best to use Japanese and English terms to describe technique, but I do not speak Japanese. I will focus on Sutemi, Ne, Atemi, Renraku and Nage Waza. No fear, the Bushido spirit is alive and well]
In studies of social animals, the highest-ranking individual is sometimes designated as the alpha. Males, females, or both, can be alphas. Alphas may achieve their status by superior physical strength and aggression, *or through social efforts and building alliances within the group.*
The Urban Dictionary defines an Alpha Female as “If you need to be advised what an Alpha Female is, then you wouldn’t recognize one even if you saw one. You would just be another scalp she has collected before you realize you met her.” Which may be more accurate, and is certainly a more jovial description of Ronda Rousey.
While I don’t particularly like referring to women as “females” and I’ll leave my reasons for that to me, my sister and a long-running joke, I think “Alpha Woman” just lacks rhythm like “Alpha Man” and sounds like a movie trailer beta males will be downloading off of DC Comics website (I kid…..sometimes?).
The Alpha Female
Also noteworthy, is I find the concept of “Alpha” a tad overused and in today’s society, maybe in need of an upgrade. My original concept was to make a video of the concept of the modern alpha, and how the “alpha nerd” seemed to be the ones running shit. Of course, I did a little research and saw one Alpha Nerd T-shirt, which subsequently led to me abandoning the idea entirely.
Luckily, after recovering from the cold sweats, I figured a much more interesting concept was that of the most dominant athlete on earth right now (argue all you want, numbers don’t lie): “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey. I thought about doing more of a play on words, and leaving out the word female entirely, but I think it is important to embrace the concept of an alpha female, but not in the subservient to the (many delusional betas, but also) alpha males.
One distinction I think that separates the etymological definition, and the modern, social, human context is that she is not reliant on anyone. I hope you enjoy this study on the social aptitude and skills (see what I did there, no?) of this, as Joe Rogan would say “not once in a lifetime….once ever” athlete, role model, and most importantly amazing person that is pretty difficult to not respect on some level. Cheers.
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Music: Desmeon – On That Day (feat. ElDiablo, Flint & Zadik) [NCS Release]