Christian Tissier: Ukemi

Ron Tisdale wrote: Hey Mr. S! quick question: If during normal training, uke learns direction of the throw from the nage doing the throw with less power, and less speed, while engaging uke's center...and uke therefore knows that nage can complete the throw... How do you feel about a full power full speed demonstration with said uke anticipating the throw to avoid any possible injury? In other words, Uke does anticipate, know nage will complete the throw, but they move in that fashion to protect themselves? Not saying this is happening here, just trying to reason some things out. Best, Ron

Hi Ron,
As you can read in my response to JO, more you have cooperation from attacker, less you should need anticipation from him. It is not a case here.

Normally, when the attack becomes very difficult, nage will close almost all openings in this technique. Then uke has no choice, but anticipates to protect himself- and again, this anticipation should come from his internal feelings of nage work, not from learning intellectually what usually nage does in such situation!

What we see here, very cooperative attack, a lot of openings in nage technique and despite of that, large anticipation from uke.

Harmony with Universe is not preserved very well.

Hey Szczepan,

An ideal is something that you aim to for without even knowing if it can be reached. My ideal would be to be able to control somebody trying to kill (extreme violent intent in the attack) me without the need to injure him.

I don't know what the best methods in aiming for this ideal are, but it certainly does not help to remove the martial aspects of the art. So I think uke need to attack, and as strongly as nage can hope to handle (at least some of the time). It is also important for nage to know where the risks of injury are in a technique, in order to avoid injuring his partner. But I still think the technique should work without needing the threat of injury. When people talk about great aikido throws by people like O-sensei they usually talk about making a grab and finding themselves on their backs without knowing how they got there. In such a case, fear and intent play no part, uke's brain has not even been given the time to process any information or emotion.

I think intense and very martial practice can be safely done if nage doesn't mind letting his technique fail once in a while. The truth is I've rarely if ever seen anybody get hurt by the uke, it is usually a careless nage that is not being sensitive enough to the position of uke that causes injuries. He forgets that the training is cooperative and that the resistance and counters are part of the cooperation and not an actual attempt on his life and limb.

Jonathan Olson wrote: An ideal is something that you aim to for without even knowing if it can be reached. My ideal would be to be able to control somebody trying to kill (extreme violent intent in the attack) me without the need to injure him.

Jonathan do you think M.Ueshiba's ideal was similar?

Jonathan Olson wrote: Hey Szczepan, An ideal is something that you aim to for without even knowing if it can be reached. My ideal would be to be able to control somebody trying to kill (extreme violent intent in the attack) me without the need to injure him.

Hi JO,
First of all, I would replace 'without the need to injure him' by 'to injure him as less as possible'.It is far more realistic for us, mortels LOL
Well, in my opinion, 'save practice' will never teach you to read intend of attacker and without such capacity, your ideal is technically not possible to reach.

I'm not sure what O-sensei's ideal was on a technical level. From what I've read, he seemed to be focussed on things quite outside such "practical" matters. He lived in a world of spirits and gods and the divine that has little resemblance to the Universe as I understand it.

Szczepan, I'm not sure what you mean about detecting the intent of the attacker. Put it this way, you have a dojo, how do you instruct your students to behave as nage and uke, and how do you train them to read the intent of an attacker? I've trained with you enough to know that our training methods are not so drastically different, so what is it I'm missing in your opinion.

By the way, causing the minimum injury necessary is not an ideal, it is common sense. If you cause more injury than is needed to defend yourself, you may end up being classified as a violent criminal. The difference in having no injury as an ideal is that it makes you try to find ways, through increased skill and understanding, to deal with violence in ways that are less destructive than what you could have managed in the past.

Jo, Ueshiba Sensei ***trashed*** some of his uke. Plain and simple fact.

Mr. S., nice post, more grist for the mill.

Best,
Ron

Greetings.

I fall for Christian on regular basis and even though I am far from being any good at it, I still believe I have found a couple of point that might be of help.

1) control your legs: keep them together so that they make one pendulum instead of two, their vector should go in the opposite direction to the direction of your ukemi (looks as if they stay on the original spot) 2) the "focus of the technique" (spot where the technique is applied) and your spine should form one frame of reference (when your wrist, for instance, start to move and your spine doesnt follow, you wont get the result) 3) timing: if you wait for the technique to work, it is too late (Christian is one or two reference points ahead of his uke). Dont worry, its not faking, its actually still pretty much real, your articulation just get a chance to keep its shape. (in case of doubts, please combine this kind of practice with strong static technique by which you might verify)

Hope I was of help. Wish you great fun with your ukemi practice.

Dave B.

David Bradna wrote: 1) control your legs: keep them together so that they make one pendulum instead of two, their vector should go in the opposite direction to the direction of your ukemi (looks as if they stay on the original spot) 2) the "focus of the technique" (spot where the technique is applied) and your spine should form one frame of reference (when your wrist, for instance, start to move and your spine doesnt follow, you wont get the result) 3) timing: if you wait for the technique to work, it is too late (Christian is one or two reference points ahead of his uke).

I have been doing this stuff for a long time, I am pretty comfortable being tossed around, and I have no idea what you are talking about here.

This thread was finished in 2008 but revived today.
I agree with most of the writers that Tissiers ukemis are very flashy and if you only know him from videos: he naturally chooses his best ukes for the videos.
I went to a few seminars with Tissier and assure you that he is a great tori, he throwed a 5th kyu from my dojo and it looked spectacular. But the only secret to fall like that is training as much as you can, be very relaxed and have confidence in your tori.

Hej,
my teachers are also very much influenced by Tissier and I can only agree to what Carsten and others said earlier: no, you do not have to anticipate the throw, and you most definitely never, ever jump or throw yourself. The whole ukemi gets very strange then and it is one of the capital mistakes we have to stop most beginners from doing...

I have been falling like this for a few years now and after a while it becomes quite comfortable and natural. And secure, too - I've fallen when uke held both my hands so I couldn't slap - a bit awkward but in no way painful. I've actually tried falling without a tatami (though concrete is a little too hardcore for me), on a normal gym floor - no problem at all, normal forward rolls actually hurt more because I had more contact with the ground.

I don't know if I could fall like that from any throw, there's a lot of styles and Aikidoka that I haven't trained with yet. All I can say is that until now, I've never had any problems. And that that kind of ukemi is a lot of fun to do!
If I'm not thrown into a high fall, I just do a backwards ukemi - where's the problem? I don't decide how I fall, nage does. Unless it's a special exercise to train the breakfalls, obviously!

Willi Brix wrote: I have been doing this stuff for a long time, I am pretty comfortable being tossed around, and I have no idea what you are talking about here.

Hey, thank you for your reply. I am only sharing my thoughts here, ok. Check out this video 1:22 (Bruno taking ukemi) and watch his legs. It almost seems as if he keeps them together and on the spot. That is what I ment by my rather long description. Peace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MIVo68o6Sg