Re: soft breakfalls
I believe that the effort of reaching the arm over to contact the ground early may be being over-emphasized. In my experience, the soft falls are result of twisting the upper body more deeply into the throw. In addition to positioning the rear arm for connection to the ground, this movement also causes your body to be farther along on the roll sequence than it would be during more basic ukemi. The advantage is not only that you can lower yourself, by that you naturally contact the earth farther down your body, allowing you to roll out of the fall, drop into a kneeling position, or if properly motivated, land on your feet, perhaps even in a standing position. Another advantage is that your head clears the perigee of it's movement toward the earth much earlier in the sequence. These factors combine to form a great advantage when taking ukemi for techniques such as tai otoshi (the bent knee aspect of which can be applied to almost any throw, such as shihonage, for challenging ukemi practice) because they allow you to move the two bodily elements at greatest risk during ukemi (your head and your internal organs) past the danger zone in a very efficient manner. The arm appears to be at risk because it looks over-extended, but in fact the practitioner can achieve a feeling of unraveling the arm. This unraveling, relaxed extension keeps the arm from being in a position to sustain damage.
Last edited by bkedelen : 10-06-2004 at 11:54 AM.
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