What is ukemi?

Most martial arts practitioners, particularly those of the grappling arts of Japan such as Judo and Aikido, will tell you that there is a whole lot of falling down that occurs in any given practice.  Not only is this valuable  practice misunderstood by many, but the term itself is also quite misunderstood.  

This whole falling down business in Japanese is referred to as ukemi.  More often than not this is translated as breakfalling, or simply, breaking ones fall.   While this may serve as a decent and easy to disseminate translation, it fails to convey the entire and deeper meaning of this part of training.  Ukemi at its root, means to receive a technique.  This may help to understand why the term uke (oo-kay), is translated as "one who receives".  In the video shown above a friend of mine Chris, is seen taking ukemi from my Aikido instructor Meido Moore Sensei.  

Judoka in mid throw 

The role of uke, and of ukemi, is primarily there for safety.  Outside observers of these arts will often think they see a person purposely falling down during practice. Quite frankly this is true.  Particularly when it comes to demonstrations of technique by whoever may be leading a class.  It is within these sorts of demonstrations that the teacher is doing his/her best to show the students a technique as close to it being perfect as can be. Uke will receive and go with the technique to assist the instructor in doing this.  Students will then take their visual understanding of what they saw and attempt to duplicate it.  The reps done with an agreeable partner will help to develop good habits of movement and then the practitioner may graduate to a training partner who resists the technique.  This is typically done at the discretion of the instructor and there is a wide variety of how and when you should start utilizing a resistant training partner in such drills.  

I recently attended a Judo clinic that was hosted by our friends at Valhalla Grappling Academy in which Eb Keislich Sensei, 6th Dan was teaching those in attendance.  Keislich Sensei demonstrated incredible judo skill.  I was nearly equally impressed with his uke for assisting in the demonstration of technique. When a teacher develops a good a student to take ukemi properly they are only helping to continue the quality of the budo in which they are training and or teaching.   Through the years, I have heard many high ranking teachers in Japanese budo (including Keislich Sensei this weekend) discuss the need for everyone to take falls as a means of developing an understanding of the throwing aspect of technique.  While this is initially misunderstood by most beginners (who doesn't want to come in and just start throwing people down), I have found this to be incredibly true.  

Moore Sensei demonstrating, Uke is Craig Caudill

This past summer my  Aikido instructor made his annual visit to our dojo, I had the good fortune to take most of the ukemi for him during the weekend seminar.  It had been quite a while since I had taken so many falls.  While this proved to be very entertaining I suppose for our Bluegrass Budokai members who enjoyed seeing me thrown across and into the mat many, many times.  It was an incredible learning experience for me.  There were things, nuances I suppose, about technique that I had seen before, but had the opportunity feel for the first time.  Taking so much ukemi, only served to make my practice better. 

In summary, ukemi  means to receive the technique.  This means through your instructor, your training partners, and if you are practicing solo, simply receive the mat.  Otherwise, you will simply just be falling down alot....