This year I did some cross training with a judo group and I made some interesting discoveries about my skills. As nervous as I was about taking ukemei from guys who purport to like to throw hard I found my break fall skills were more than up to it. More than that I found that the guys in this class had a very difficult time throwing me. In randori even the sensei had to gas me out before he could start tossing me around. My aikido training had been pretty effective in this respect.

The thing that really surprised me was that I found myself unable to throw any of them very well. Yup, after the better part of a decade on the aikido mat I found I couldn't effectively throw judo green belts. When I analyzed my performance a little the reason was actually very simple. I had never prepared to throw someone who doesn't want to fall.