Ukemi. That's how I roll.

Every now and then it's good to go back and review the basics. I often hear the phrase that "You have to learn how to walk before you can learn how to run." In Judo, that translates into "You have to learn to fall before you can learn to throw."
The attractive thing about the judo to many people is the impressive throws. A smaller man or woman can easily throw someone bigger with proper positioning, balance, and leverage. However, in order to practice these throws, that means someone has to hit the ground at a high rate of speed and sometimes from great heights (Try getting thrown with kata guruma by an over 6 foot black belt). With enough practice in ukemi (falling techniques) a judoka can easily take a fall backwards, forwards, sideways, and diagonally.
Here's my problem, I've been spending too much time wandering around the classroom looking wise and black belty and critiquing other peoples technique while not taking any falls myself. I decided that wasn't right and I've been participating more in the ukemi practice and taking more falls during technique training. I discovered then that ukemi is a lot like a favorite hobby of mine from my younger days: horseback riding. Participate often and all is natural with no side effects, take a few weeks off and you're going to be walking with a limp for a while. Well, let that be a lesson to me and hopefully to any of you who think there's no benefit gained from practicing ukemi every class.

Note: I can't claim that I came up with the title of this post, but most experienced judoka will think it's hilarious. You can actually get shirts and bumper stickers with that slogan at CafePress as well as other judo related apparel.

Judo and Life Meet

This past weekend I actually used judo in the "real world". Most martial artists hope they never have to use their training outside of the dojo, but you have to defend what you love. Unfortunately, it was at a wedding.

It was my cousin's outdoor wedding and my little girl, Lena, was the flower girl. The wedding itself went very well and Lena was, of course, precious. It certainly wasn't the disaster I, as the father of the flower girl, imagined it might be. The festivities had shifted over to a big tent where the reception was taking place. As I was walking through the snack line, I noticed that at the end of the line was one of those chocolate fountains that you can dip food in.

I love chocolate. My wife is a 5th degree black belt Chocoholic, and that has rubbed off on me during 6 years of marriage (I think I'm a second degree brown belt, now). So naturally, the chocolate fountain and the items around it had my attention. I dipped a couple of cherries, some pineapple, a pretzel stick, and my pièce de résistance, a giant strawberry on a stick twice dipped. I grabbed a cup of punch and headed back to where my family was sitting.

When I passed my younger brother, Caleb, he reached up and took the strawberry off my plate. I'm generally a passive person. If someone takes my seat, I'll find another one. If you cut in line, I probably won't say a thing. However, I love my food. If you try to take food off my plate, there will be words. If chocolate is involved, there will be injuries. Both of my younger brothers know this, but they like to play games like this with me from time to time. Probably because I was the typical mean older brother in my youth (or before I found judo ;-).

I quickly set my cup of punch down on a table and grabbed Caleb's wrist before he could get my chocolate strawberry to his mouth. I still had my plate in my other hand, so I couldn't really do anything but hold on. He tried to stretch his arm down towards the ground, which then made it easy for me to set my plate on the ground and concentrate both of my hands on my dessert. I turned his wrist in, straightened his arm, stood back up, and tucked his arm under mine. As I plucked my chocolate strawberry from his now limp hand, I suddenly realized I had my brother in a textbook standing waki-gatame. I didn't even think about it until I had achieved my objective. After I let Caleb go, he sullenly consoled himself by drinking my punch, but I still had my chocolate covered strawberry. My wife later told me she was proud of me for defending my chocolate.

So there you have it, I used actual judo training in a real life situation. No injuries were sustained by anyone and the situation was resolved with maximum efficiency.

I learned that day that victory is sweet, especially chocolate covered victory.