Ukemi isn't about how high you are, how fast you are or how much momentum you have been 'given'... Ukemi is about dissipating it with your surroundings/mind. Handstands, slaps, rolls, smart remarks, lowered heads, pointing fingers, a stiff arm, an unexpected movement into a space someone else was going to, standing up for a friend...or the negative of all those. Ukemi is sometimes the end, sometimes the middle..and so on. Sometimes it is part of the endless repetition. Sometimes it is the punishment. Ukemi is 50% of Aikido so I can obviously just go on and on about what it 'is'. I once knew a man who walked into a classroom full of children, as he went through the door calculating the area and space..he rolled, arrived at the teacher, broke the teacher's arm. This happened because the teacher shouted at the man's daughter. There was no ukemi there.
Dude. MA instructors should special-order Aikido guys just for rolls and falls. I pulled my shoulder trying a standing forward roll. At least now I know how to learn it properly.
No mate..you need to 'special order' people who will come in and pick you up and throw you down as hard as they can in as many weird angles as you can think. heh. Hurting in practice means less hurting in real life.
I don't need one of those! My own master does that just fine! The real problem is that we really only practice rolls and falls about twice a month, so it's hard to get good at that quickly.
I've been taking ukemi now for 16+ years and I'm still crap at it (lol) One might think it a very simplistic attitude but I can fairly accurately 'judge' a student on two aspects of their aikido.. 1) How they conduct themselves during the class rei (IE how they bow) 2) How they take ukemi There are those who don't place a great emphasis on the importance of formality, It's been my experience with these aikidoists, that their aikido is equally as laxy-daisy as their attitude toward even the very basic form of formality in the dojo... The Rei. IMHO their minds are not focused on the events at hand. As Chiba Sensei once said... "Empty your tea-cup" When I see a student with fair to good quality ukemi (all relative to grade and experience) I also generally see a willing and co-operative (co-operative not compliant) training partner who's aims are to help and give back rather than simply take & take more. Generally, learning technique is easier than learning ukemi, firstly because we'll inevitably do more technique than actual breakfalls during any one session, and secondly it isn't always explained in great detail the purpose and importance of quality ukemi. One has to additionally remember that ukemi is ultimately a dojo practice, nothing more. Aikido should not be taught in such a way that YOU are taught to do ukemi in the street. This is a defeatist attitude IMHO. Ukemi - Breakfalling is in its rawest form, no more than a safety mechanism specifically designed to allow Tori/Nage to repeatedly practice a technique without the need to find new training partners after each instance. I won't deny that to know how to ukemi is a valuable skill however, if one was violently thrown to the floor (outside) and one attempted to perform ukemi in the exact same way we do on tatami, I can assure you, a fairly serious injury will result, regardless of what will already happen to you as a result of being thrown to the floor in the first place. If there was a way of training in the ways we need to develop, and could be done so without a training partner, ukemi would cease to exist. Sorry for the digression... Another night shift to wile-away (lol)
I've done Judo before and breakfalls and rolls were big on at least the first three belt tests. We weren't big on formality aside from a couple bows and yes sirs, but we certainly tended not to get injured much when thrown. I guess in a striking art like TKD, breakfalls aren't really necessary. We have our own ukemi, though, when we do 1-steps involving takedowns especially, and part of that involves etiquette: helping your partner back to his/her feet or obligingly repeating the opening strike a few times if he/she can't think of an appropriate combo to do
And I can take you to a Judo Dojo not 6 miles from where I live that has produced three Olympic medal winners, and they don't have a Kamiza, sit in grade order or even refer to instructors in terms of Sensei. etc etc etc. It is nothing more than a sport to these guys who are mostly pre-occupied with winning. For nothing more than the mere fact they wear Judo Gi and coloured/black belts, no one would really know what they do is called a martial art. That's ok with me, and one of the main reasons why I'm not in the slightest bit interested in 'competitive' based (so called) martial arts. Regards as always Dave
So Dave... If you're club is the real martial one and those judo guys only do 'sport'...who would win? :woo:
Mark........ Quit stirring trouble Anyways, you should be practicing just as much ukemi as 'throws/projections' as you should always let your partner beat you up once you've finished Hence 50%
I'll pit my aikido (relative to grade and experience) over sport judo ANY DAY OF THE WEEK, all I have to do is take my Gi top off, what do they have to grip with then ? I'll tell you a short but relative story, near to where I live there are very well established Karate/Jujitsu/Judo/Aikido schools, one of the Karate yudansha has a bit of issue with one of the Judo guys and actually challenged him to a scrap to settle their differences. Both agreed. They met up in a neutral dojo.... And the Karateka took off his Dogi top. The Judoka complained that this was an "unfair advantage" the Karateka said "unlucky" I don't think it takes too much imagination to work out the conclusion. I'm certainly not decrying Judo as a sport or martial discipline however, I have watched the 'sport' school here several times and I can say with some degree of confidence, they don't study a 'martial' system at all. They rely upon contact through clothing. Principally flawed if you were to take that into a fight scenario with nothing else in your bag of techniques. Additionally I have physically tested my skills with people who aren't interested in scoring points, and would have quite prefered to bitch slap me for the uniform I wore
I started Judo as a kid and I still think it is a great, relatively safe, introduction to fighting arts. I became disillusioned with Judo and the BJA when I saw several large, heavy clubmates with poor skills get to blue belt in a few months. How - pick em up, slam em down and sit on em in the open competitions - few techniques ever demonstrated, just power. Didn't the Japanese heavywieght Judo players suffer a similar fate from the huge Anton Geesinck in the Olympics (60's?)? Some years later, I took up Aikido as, from what I'd seen, it was a more about technique and less about weight and strength. It never occcured to me that it would actually prove to be a superior fighting system as well as a real martial art. The only concession I will make to the Judo camp is that I do believe Judo is superior on groundwork, leg locks and choking/strangling, which I've rarely seen taught well in aikido dojos. Is that typical? I've met several aikidoka who moved across from Judo because they saw the graceful ukemi described earlier and thought Aikido would be 'softer' than Judo. (you can all stop laughing now!) However, not all aikido dojos are good at teaching ukemi. It's true that in at least one aikido dojo I know they never teach side or 'double' back breakfalls (i.e. with a 'slap') - if they can't roll, they just sit down!! Kind of bears out what Dave was saying - watching the ukemi, especially of the Dan grades, is a good pointer to the overall quality of the club.
It makes sense that for one to be able to perform high speed dynamic technique in a reasonable level of 'realism' the person you do this to MUST be able to 'live' with what's about to happen thus, their ukemi is of such a standard they can receive the technique, and survive. If high quality Ukemi is missing from a Dojo, students within that environment will NEVER improve past elementry levels, because it is the standard of Ukemi that dictates what we can physically do to each other. Think of it like this... As A Yudansha, I go over to a raw beginner and apply a tenkan kote gaeshi, and do this at speed. It's pretty obvious he's gonna get hurt. Imagine now, a dojo of yudansha who can't take dynamic ukemi, what level of ability and development would these students reach ? All relative to how a student can breakfall and ukemi in general. Kind regards as always Dave
I got bored with Judo as a kid when they kept telling me off for executing "illegal" techniques when countering throws. If I had been poking peoples eyes out i would have seen the point. But I was only tripping them up from behind. Maybe I'll I'll understand one day in a sudden moment of enlightenment. It's true. A student who does good ukemi is normally a good all round Aikidoka. They give as much as they take and if not they give even more. They also normally know their basic techniques inside out and backwards. Oh no! We're all in agreement again. We'll really have to stop being so nice.
If you're wondering where your posts went, visit the 'Judo bashing thread' Judo's relevance to Aikido
Look at your navel... Hi Kevin. We would usually encourage newcomers to look at their belts at the moment when the foot pushes away from the floor to start the momentum for a forward roll. The reason for this action is that as one tries to look at his belt he will be tucking in his head thus; positioning his whole form to outline a natural circle. We realized in the dojo that many newcomers would actually tense up during a forward roll because they gaze ahead on the mat or stare some distance on the mat floor. Because of the fear factor, they will unconsciously try to put up an arm to protect their face (breaking the unbendable arm principle here) and oftentimes, their heads are not tucked in causing the head top to also scrape the mat when it should not do so. When this happens, the impact will send a jarring force that will momentarily compress the chest to the belly like an accordion - and this hurts. So, looking at one's belt during a first time forward roll hopefully breaks the fear factor, relaxes the arm and streamlines the body form for a smooth forward roll. However, looking at one's belt during rolls is just a teaching aid. Of course, as one progress in ukemi one is free to do his own style of rolls. Keep up the practice and eventually you'll soon love the feel of the mat.
