akiy

Hi Rob,

Personally, I don't think breakfalls should be painful, especially if done on a mat. Usually, a painful breakfall is due to a bad landing position. That's why, personally, whenever I lead people through learning them, I spend a lot of time on having people get the proper landing position first. If you're ending up battered and bruised, most likely you're not working enough on things like the basic landing position and being relaxed.

Otherwise, if people continue to launch themselves into a breakfall with an improper landing position, the landing hurts. This causes people the next time they do a breakfall to anticipate the pain. Anticipating the pain usually involves tensing up. Tensing up usually means the fall and the landing are improperly done. When the landing is improperly done, then it hurts. Thus starts the vicious cycle that only reinforces pain and improper execution of breakfalls.

I've seen some athletic folks "get" breakfalls in a short amount of time. It may take other folks a while longer. Don't be in too much of a hurry! Just like the rest of aikido, learning breakfalls, even with a qualified instructor who can provide a good foundation and help "fix" things as you progress, may take a while.

Just my thoughts on the subject...

-- Jun