By Shappi Khorsandi

In a YouTube clip I keep replaying, a young Iranian woman dressed all in black as a ninja runs towards a wall, skips a good few paces up it - yes, up the wall - and flips full circle through the air, landing back on her feet. She is one of an estimated 3,000 women who are training as ninjas in Iran. Over the past few years, Iranian women have been turning to martial arts in droves.

To understand why, we need only recall the dismay of Iran's Olympic women's soccer team, which turned up to play a qualifier match in Jordan last June only to be disqualified because they were wearing hijabs. Fifa, international football's governing body, would not take into account that these hard-working athletes were forced to wear the hijab by their government, and their dream was shattered. How cruel is fortune that they played football in Iran and not Hounslow like that lucky Asian girl in Bend It Like Beckham. She didn't know just how good she had it.

Imagine the frustration of an athlete whose participation is barred by injury - and then imagine the frustration of an athlete barred from playing because Fifa believes an item of clothing she is forced to wear represents a choking hazard.

There is a metaphor for Iranian women in this - people don't learn to walk up walls without a reason. They are tired of being choked by 30 years of restrictions imposed on them by an oppressive Islamist system.

"The preacher of the Friday prayer has called the sending of female athletes abroad a sin, according to the Qur'an, and regards their participation at international competitions as prostitution and the beginning of fornication."

This bit of crackling radio news features in Kick In Iran, a documentary that follows 23-year-old Sara Khoshjamal Fekri, the first female Iranian proponent of Tae-kwondo to qualify for the Olympic Games.

The film charts Khoshjamal's relationship with her female trainer Maryam, as they bid for gold at the 2008 Beijing Games. At one point in the film, a male journalist is seen putting to Khoshjamal that her chosen sport does not suit the "gentle" character of women. "I'm not gentle," she replies.

I asked the film's director Fatima Abdollahyan why she thinks Iranian women are turning to martial arts. "It's a way to focus sexual energy and it empowers them when it comes to men," she said. "They condition themselves physically and feel better about their bodies - more powerful - and this can translate into words, so they stick up for themselves in day-to-day situations."

Anyone who takes part in a sport, understands its powerful effect on the mind. The endorphines released when I go for my morning run set me up for the day. Sports give your mind clarity and strength as well as a firm bottom.

While female cousins in Iran are not allowed to pull on an old "Frankie Says Relax" T-shirt and shorts and do a lap of the park, martial arts allows them to practise indoors away from prying eyes. The feeling of being strong in your body is an enormous confidence boost, which is crucial in a country where the government is intolerant of your gender and kicks you down.

With womens' participation in sport not being socially acceptable, it's a hard decision to become a female athlete in Iran. Yet athletics is a brilliant pastime in a society where there is virtually no nightlife.

Women in Iran are not allowed - they're just not allowed. This was one of my early stand-up lines and, in essence, remains true. Iran's regime doesn't like women.

While clips of young women dressed up as Japanese assassins, chopping bricks in two may make quirky viewing on YouTube, the "gentle sex" in Iran is taking its sport seriously - and kicking back.

(Shappi Khorsandi is a comedian and author whose family was forced to flee Iran.)

 

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Iran: Dawn of the Female Ninjas | Global Viewpoint