how many times have you gotten hurt?

Karen Wolek wrote: Me too!!!! I don't have the best ukemi in the world, but I am still working on it. Most of my (minor) injuries have been as uke, but the busted nose, I was nage. Ikkyo ura, elbow in the nose. Ouch! Ma'ai is VERY important, people!

ick, I accedently punched my sensei in the nose doing an atemi last week....he said do the atemi with feeling, uke should get out of the way....this was about 10 seconds before I hit him, thankfully no broken nose, no blood but it was a good laugh

Reckon I should continue arguing with all those instructors then

Hehe, well I wouldnt 'argue' perse, but I have pressed the issue once and It was just sort of bypassed and considered by this individual to be not too important, so I havent bothered since. Whenever I teach I generally do a half and half mix of ukemi/technique for the focus of the class. Im also trying to introduce some of Waite Sensei's softer ukemi too.

Alot of people also attack incorrectly (flaws, openings, lack of committment etc etc) and this is something I believe should really be focused upon...

Nick Simpson wrote: Hehe, well I wouldnt 'argue' perse, but I have pressed the issue once and It was just sort of bypassed and considered by this individual to be not too important, so I havent bothered since.

That's been my experience too so far

Nick Simpson wrote: Whenever I teach I generally do a half and half mix of ukemi/technique for the focus of the class. Im also trying to introduce some of Waite Sensei's softer ukemi too.

Sounds good - your students are lucky!

Nick Simpson wrote: Alot of people also attack incorrectly (flaws, openings, lack of committment etc etc) and this is something I believe should really be focused upon...

Absolutely agreed - everything from the limp lettuce leaf attack to just being plain off-course make it incredibly difficult to study Aikido effectively. As tori you either have to change the technique completely or modify it so much to prevent uke from injuring himself that it just doesn't work anymore. If only more uke realised just how dangerous they make things for themselves with poor attacks..

Or we could just let them find out the hard way

Ruth

Sounds good - your students are lucky!

Thanks, But Im just the dogsbody assistant instructor

Absolutely agreed - everything from the limp lettuce leaf attack to just being plain off-course make it incredibly difficult to study Aikido effectively. As tori you either have to change the technique completely or modify it so much to prevent uke from injuring himself that it just doesn't work anymore. If only more uke realised just how dangerous they make things for themselves with poor attacks..

Again, Im totally down with this. What can you do though? Everytime I want to do an indepth striking class, theres no novices present

Ron - I originally broke my rib practicing kung fu...a type of "one inch palm strike" my friend and I were trying on each other. Pure stupidity I'd say. Then I broke it again free sparring full contact, which is more of a moderate level of stupidy. Then the third time was during an over zealous "tai-atari" irimi attack that was more like a yokomen uchi. That time it may have been my training partners stupidity on top of my own. Now I cover my ribs with a forearm during tai atari practice...a bit non-traditional for SBK ukemi but the days of taking chances are over in aspects such as this.

Ah, they joys of practice.

-L