I try to keep an open mind, but then again I can be quite opinionated. I'll start off with some definitions of Ukemi I found on the internet From http://www.sportsdefinitions.com/judo/Ukemi.html From http://www.aikidojournal.com/encyclopedia?entryID=735 From http://www.kiaikido.org/Resources/Articles/ukeminew.html I must admit, I rather like the above statement... although I also will admit, I don't fully understand some parts... in other words, I can see how the above statement could be misinterpreted to suit one's own agenda. And from http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Ukemi Oh, I do not like most of the above statement because I can see many "holes" in it that could lead to misunderstanding. For instance, I do not like that it states, "Within a judo or aikido context, ukemi refers to being thrown and getting right back up." The part I bolded goes against much of what I was taught in Aikido (and other martial arts). For starters, it was taught to get on your feet (e.g. get your feet under you so you could stand up); however, to stand up too quickly was discouraged. I have personally seen a few knockouts in martial arts due to someone getting clocked and standing up too soon while still dazed. Instead, I was taught 1) Get your feet under you, this puts you in a great position for suriwaza should you be attacked at that point... 2) Assess and be aware of your environment 3) When possible, inhale and expand your rib cage as you stand up (this keeps the blood pressure to your brain). This is your time (short as it may be) for recovery. 4) Keep constant pressure on the enemy (nage) as if you could attack them at all times. This is not the same as running circles around them, you need not move much, it is both body alignment and attitude that much be prepared to explode. I understand this may be different than how others were taught. This is why I created this thread -- for discussion.
I was taught to get up immediately after being thrown in aikido for ukemi. As a form of spiritual training, respect to the person throwing you, respect to the others training so time is not wasted...but most importantly personal growth and strengthening...developing spirit forging, or tenran.
Thanks for the post afhuss. I certainly would agree that developing fighting spirit and showing respect are very important in training. Personal growth and strengthening through hard and sincere training is something we should all aspire for.
-- Awesome, and great research. Also the goal is for uke to eventually give a much more precise and focused attack, so that inturn, nage may develop, and inturn uke may develop. At the highest execution of martial arts, there is no uke, there is no nage...there is no offense, there is no defense.
I couldn't find vids of my ukemi, they are all .vob files which are giving me fits...but here is a short clip of my mentor taking ukemi for his brother. One of the biggest things we emphasize is having the hand greet the mat well before the leg, and keeping that post leg on the ground as long as you can to reduce height. Whereas some teachers like their uke to pop up in the air, flip, and crash....we prefer to show respect to our teacher by having good, soft, breafalls...and getting right back up. A show of both spirit and technical astuteness, I suppose. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnX8__trqnQ"]Link[/ame]
With respect to the video above it can be dangerous in my mind to initially teach ukemi in that fashion. Making contact with the arm first can encourage new students to reach out towards the mat in a way that's conducive to broken things like hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders and collarbones. Sometimes uke doesn’t have a say in how they fall either. It’s up to tori to guide uke into the proper position for a safe breakfall, or not if circumstances dictate. When I was a beginner I used to accuse my fellow students or jumping for others and me when thrown. And then out of the blue one of the senior students threw me and I did what would have looked like a perfectly choreographed breakfall and I didn’t have a choice in the world but to do it. Ukemi is primarily the art of falling and falling safely, at least in my mind and both tori and uke play a role in this. It seems some of these are mixing up the act of ukemi, with the act of being a good uke. In a dojo setting standing straight back up after being thrown (performing ukemi) and being immediately ready to receive the next technique is being a good uke. In a self defense setting standing back up and being aware and alert has more to do with zanshin.
I think that a lot of martial arts are making a mistake for not teaching the proper falling techniques. When you learn how to deliver punches, you must learn how to receive one. When you learn hot to throw people top the ground, you must learn how to react when being thrown to the ground.
-New students don't learn hyaku ukemi, our name for jumping break falls....for obvious reasons. First they learn ukemi uchite renshu dai ichi and ni, which is to teach them how to slap the mat from a prone position, then koho ukemi ichi and ni, then zenpo kaiten ukemi ichi, ni, san, yon..then hyaku ukemi, then tobi koshi ukemi. In the 35 + years of the dojo the only ukemi related injury was a guy who's leg got caught in someone else's hakama and jacked up his leg (hamstring, MCL..freak accident). As a matter of fact, those mats are the hardest I've encountered in a dojo, have been discontinued (got them for a good price from Mr. Swain) and those that are able to break fall(don't have to if old, injured, etc), do so without injury or discomfort (depending on their level, of course). The way one properly breafalls in our system is to not leap up in the air and flip around, but to actually let tori throw uke...so uke doesn't go until he is made to. You can tell this is happening when you constantly get "feedback" from uke's body all the way through the throw...rather than pressing your hand against their for, say, kotegaeshi and all of a sudden that feeback/weight is gone...I hate that. -Uke shouldn't think at all about breakfalling...thats how people get injured...they anticipate whats about to happen. Shihan-dai Mauro is going where Shidoin Mauro is throwing him...as can be seen by the udegarami (katahiza tsuki) where Shidoin Mauro lets uke's arm get a little away from his chest and uke kind of falls away from tori rather than going straight down to the mat like would normally happen. -Of course it is, you're absolutely right...that is why uke waits to be thrown rather than anticipate and throw himself. It results in a later ukemi than a lot of people do, so we adjust for that. That, and a lot of our techniques go more down than out so we'd rather have soft breakfalls vice having arm and leg slam at the same time and shock internal organs. This way its spread loaded and shock is dispersed. -Not sure what you mean by this. Of course Shihan-dai Mauro is being a good uke, its an advertisement for his brother's business. With that, although Shidoin Karlo (tori) hasn't trained regularly in a decade (with the exception of the occasional seminar or yudansha shinsa), I can attest his technique as being very snappy and powerful. When doing dynamic jiyuwaza with either of the Mauro brothers, uke must not think at all but just let ukemi technique happen. Usually the brain has trouble keeping up with where its being relocated and uke's only lucid thought is to attack, attack, attack...the rest is training and feel. Cheers!
If the initial contact is correct the attacker shall be off balance THEN TORI can throw him into a breakfall rather than crash him into the ground. It is when some attempt to make a breakfall even when not unbalanced that is wrong. Photo one shows me waiting for the correct moment to throw Chas into a breakfall. Phot 2 shows Chiba shihan throwing me hard to toughen me up there was no comfortable breakfall for that one.
Lets see if I can figure out how to post pictures... first timer, so be easy on me: First photo should be me being thrown by my mentor from my uchideshi days, he's actually doing udegarami kuzushi (katahiza tsuki). My post leg stays as long as it can until tori totally steals my balance and finishes through (we don't do udegarami against the elbow..we actually drop all the weight or tori's forearm on uke's shoulder...keeping uke's arm pinned to tori's chest until tori finishes his dropdown kneel). Sorry for digressing; anyway, with keeping that post leg on the ground for so long, it greatly reduces my falling height...so really its hardly possible for me to be injured at all because I'm really only falling a few inches, rather than from waist height. Second picture is just an example of my hand hitting early. Basically just as my feet leave the mat my arm is touching down to break the fall and guide the rest of my body to the mat in a very soft manner and gentle manner...I guess its easier to explain in person, I apologize for my inability to make it make sense!
I hate that! It just feels so wrong from tori's point of view. I asked my friend's son to be uke in my nidan test...because I like him and because he wants to be uchideshi with my old teacher. Some of his breakfalls were anticipated and went before being sent (that's kind of clever, eh?). I just hate that feeling of loosing connection with my uke when they do that. For one, I think its dangerous because I no longer have control of him (unless I real him back in midair, which would be a pretty jerk thing to do)...he could go into a wall or another person...whatever. Now, he's a talented, young aikidoka and very mature for his age (I think 16). When I threw him very suddenly he did perfect breakfalls! No time to think, I suppose. That whole mushin deal spoken about in another thread, I guess. Usually when someone does that in class, you can just hear the difference...I'll often stop and ask them how that particular fall felt...usually not too great. You hear soft (slap....slap) for everyone's falls, then a crash/thump.
YES That is the way you should be thrown and the way you should fall At one seminar I threw my attacker and saw the attacker of Saito shihan just about to hit him as he was thrown. saito shihan simply turned his hip and redirected the guy and they missed each other.
Sorry for the confusing and thanks for the reply. After my first couple of paragraphs there I was talking about the original post and the quote they found questionable, not specifically your video.
I guess some finer points on what I'm doing in those photos: so as low to the ground as I am...that means my arm is bearing little weight, but spreading out a lot (again, falling from so low is really the key...the "two slap break fall" is just indicative of the height). Of course, my chin is tucked in so I can't hit my head...my shoulders would hit first. My tongue is touching the roof of my mouth, pressed against the back of my teeth so I don't bite it. The toes on my straight-landing leg are flexed back like I'm getting ready to do a mae geri with the balls of my feet. This flexes my calf muscles which, when landing, keeps my ankle a few inches off the ground so I don't bang it and injure my ankle bone (these details helps with the concrete breakfall club..and no, that's not something typical students do). I won't get into breathing, but we also have breathing method during ukemi (as well as technique). Oh, as for injuries.....our tests are a little 'old school.' We have one partner for the whole test (except for multiple attacker, of course). If uke can not finish test, due to injury or whatever...tori fails the test.
Ah, well your responses make sense in either context! as for hyaku ukemi...yes I know it means "100," but I have no idea why...I keep forgetting to ask.
Lol, my teacher calls aikido a "benevolent dictatorship." Sometimes falls don't feel so benevolent, but I guess its better than having joints snapped! I've certainly had a few "bombs" dropped on me, as some of us younger students like to say, but I didn't want to confuse the issue. Hitoshi Nakano Shihan, a relative legend in the Yoshinkan community, threw me so hard it knocked my hearing in an ear out for a few minutes. This was a sit back break fall (From katatemochi iriminage...a very different version than is common in aikikai) and my head never hit the mat. In essence, I did proper koho ukemi and still got rocked pretty well. As a matter of fact, here is a picture of that throw (now that I know how to post em)
Looks great. Below a couple of ara waza techniques. Chris cross trains in tai boxing so you have to "hammer" the techniques on him. I am sure we would get on great training together. regards koyo
-- Interesting...I was taught to get up immedieately after being thrown so that nobody else lands on top of you, or heads don't collide. I guess both could apply.
This was true for us too. Safety first. However, as in my first post... "get up" did not mean to stand up fully immediately, it simply meant to get your feet under you so that you could stand up. It was the time for recovery and awareness of the situation and environment. In randori, it was not frowned upon for uke to initiate an attack from a crouched position if nage was very close. A good nage at close range would just unbalance you again, before you could hit them. Like I said before, getting up too fast (standing up fully too fast) is a good way to get knocked out. IMHO.
Hi Rebel Wado There is a whole series of ara waza techniques which needs judo type ukemi as you litteraly crash into the mat with no chance of rolling. There are a few shown in my last post. And here is one of Chiba shihan putting me right INTO the mat with no chance of rolling.
