Ukemi

[paul manogue]

Hello all,

I have been working a lot on my ukemi recently and have been wanting to get some input from others as to the purpose of their ukemi practice.

A brief intro so you can understand what I'm looking for. I started aikido at the yoshinkan honbu dojo, and for those of you have trained yoshinkan the ukemi is old style, like daito ryu,direct protection for uke, not fancy, or even that pretty, but good protection. In 1991 I switched to aikikai (buikukai) aikido in Japan and the ukemi emphasis was still on saftey for uke, to the point where we almost never did high falls, and to help nage learn the technique. Once I came back to the states I found that the emphasis in some dojo is on teaching nage proper form, and putting your body (as uke) in a safe position, but less on absorbing the fall. Having done ukemi on non-mat surfaces its eassy to see somethings work and somethings don't.

My personal feeling is ukemi is for uke's saftey and to learn to take a fall, but I am also finding the benefit of taking falls a bit more acrobatically for nage's benefit, as well as to test ones limits.

Since many of the aikidoka here train in various styles and various places I thought here would be a good place to get feed back, and we havent had a lot of good threads recently.

[EmreDikici]

Hey Paul,

Still practicing both aikikai and yoshinkan I can say that the ukemi gets very confusing sometimes. Nevertheless when i practice yoshinkan, i take old style ukemi, high falls and all, but i still try to protect myself. I believe it is the ultimate aim for proper ukemi. My first yoshinkan instructor always insisted on breakfalls. On the other hand when i practice aikikai it is always to protect myself. During aikikai i do not take breakfalls unless they are absolutely necessary and i always try to position myself in such a way that if nage screws up i am in good position to reverse. I think training in both styles is very beneficial for me. I would suggest take ukemi as you see fit but bear in mind that you have other options when you need to...

[Dave Humm]

I look at ukemi with differing eyes.

On one side of the coin I understand that high quality ukemi is absolutely essential to the development of equally high quality technique yet I wonder how often a student makes ukemi without thinking if the technique applied absolutely requires what they do.

I study Aikikai Aikido and see many students making large dynamic 'flowing' ukemi and whilst I see this has an aesthetic value I don't see any martial value at all. Being a good uke however is something entirely different.

I've experienced technique from several Japanese Shihan and a few European Shihan and realised afterward I didn't have the opportunity to determine how I made ukemi, it just happened. Despite understanding there are a number of Aikidoists worldwide who have the ability to influence our body's in such a way we have little choice over it but, I suspect there are many many more who somewhat rely on a degree of compliance in uke to make ukemi regardless.

Ukemi amongst several other things is a means of survival however; I feel that although we endeavour to 'give' just enough to tori to create a situation where a particular technique can be applied, there isn't the same level of resistance when uke senses the technique is 'off'.

Osae waza is excellent for determining if an uke understands what being a "good" uke is all about. Being able to whiz about the mat flinging nage waza off just about anyone won't IMHO.

Kind regards from the UK