Kaze Uta Budo Kai Forum Archive

It's been said the most imporant thing we learn at the dojo is falling. I think someone said most of us are more likely to use ukemi to defend ourselves from a fall than techniques to defend ourselves from an attacker.

Amy fell Friday on her way to the car on the last day of the school year. She tripped on the sidewalk, carrying the last box of her stuff, and staggered forward before stumbling off the curb and falling in the parking lot. Despite the fact she has resisted me showing her anything Aikido or Judo related, she actually took a half-way decent sidefall. No injury to her head, neck or trunk. A few scrapes and brusies on her shoulder and leg. Unfortunately, she had her arm tucked under her body. The impact broke the index and middle fingers of her left hand.

Luckily she didn't hurt anything seriously, but she fell in litterly the last five minutes of the school year and will have to wear a cast for the entire summer break.

Yep. Ukemi has saved my ass a number of times, and not a single attacker in sight....

Here's an old post about that very subject.

http://www.mokurendojo.com/2007/03/best ... re-is.html

Including a cool story about my wife falling - very similar to your story.

P

When I was in Midland, I taught a guy who was 72. He took a bad step going down some concrete style stairs at an apartment complex. He put out his hand like he was going to do a front roll, and rolled all the way down the stairs. He had a big chunk taken out of the meaty part of the hand, and got scraped up, but did not break any bones or suffer any major injury.

Once when I was in my 20s, I was street racing a borrowed Suzuki 250 two stroke against a guy on a Honda Hawk motorcycle, and I wasn't wearing a helmet. We were tearing uphill when the chain came off my rear wheel and locked it. My bike skidded sideways and hit the kerb, at which point I went flying head-first over the handlebars onto the sidewalk. Having trained at Judo for a couple of years already, I just did a forward roll and came up standing. The other motorcycle riders stopped and came back to check I was okay, and I will never forget the look of total disbelief on their faces because I hadn't got a scratch.

If I didn't know ukemi, I would probably have killed myself back then.

Years later I got into Aikido. One of my students some years back, a guy named Ray Mazzone, told me that one of his sons (who did Aiki for a while and dropped out) slipped on a wet rock at the beach. His legs just flew out from under him and he fell backwards heavily. It was only the breakfalling he learned - to tuck your chin to your chest and slap with the outspread hands and forearms - that saved him from cracking open his skull like an egg. Yes, ukemi saves lives!

Happy New Year, everybody!