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
