Serious injuries or deaths in aikido

Basia Halliop wrote: In that case, how is that less true of breakfalls? Is it just me or aren't rolls so so so so much easier to get right (maybe it just is me... maybe some people find it the other way around?) I've bumped my shoulders and back many times learning to breakfall, and my head at least once, but I don't recall ever having any forward roll related injury.

Your experience is the opposite of mine.

I learned how to breakfall first and was always comfortable with that. Rolls came hard to me and I often left the mat with one or both of my shoulders bleeding.

I don't know of one is more dangerous than the other. The important part is to disburse force. If you dive into your shoulder, that's going to injure something whether you intended a roll or breakfall.

Don J. Modesto wrote: Aside from these, the only injuries I've seen reoccurring on a regular basis were at a dojo where the instructor, perversely in my opinion, demanded that students do standing forward rolls in the first class.

Don, the interesting thing in my survey of acute knee injuries was that out of 101 dojos, 1/2 had NONE but ... well I may as well pull the quote:
"Half of the participating dojo reported NO acute knee injuries in training during the past five years. Fifty one dojo reported a total of 99 persons had experienced acute knee injuries in training. This is 3% of the total respondents; computed on a per-dojo basis the average acute knee injury rate is 4.45%. The figures are virtually identical for men and women.
Those half of the dojo reporting acute knee injuries were divided into three sections for comparison: those with the highest incidence of injuries (determined as those in the 80th percentile, which amounted to 11 dojo), the corresponding number of dojo showing the lowest incidence of injuries, and the remaining number comprising "some injuries."
What is intriguing is that the eleven dojo in the "high incidence" group represent less than 5% of the total adult members being reported on yet account for over 30% of the acute knee injuries. This accounts for the comment by many participating dojo that they really do not perceive knee injuries as a common problem, and raises the question of what, if anything, this group of dojo has in common with each other but not with the rest of the study group."
What I came away with, on the basis of this and on the basis of having been part of a dojo that had a high incidence of injuries, was the belief that there within each dojo culture there is an attitude and related practices that either promote safe training or expect injuries as the norm. Caveat emptor.

What I came away with, on the basis of this and on the basis of having been part of a dojo that had a high incidence of injuries, was the belief that there within each dojo culture there is an attitude and related practices that either promote safe training or expect injuries as the norm. Caveat emptor.

That certainly seems to tie in with the original article...