I might update this post as I find better ways to present the information or discover new things. Last Updated January 4th 2025
I have abandoned the traditional way of teaching ukemi for around two years now. I have been having day 1 beginners joining the rest of class and doing constrained randori in most classes immediately. Many have messaged me to ask how I did it. This series is at least a year late due to my inability to decide on how to explain it and scrapping the last 3 drafts and videos I made in the past and starting from scratch.
The first part of this series will explain the anatomy of a fall and why ukemi makes falling suck less. Understanding these mechanics can help coaches design practices and adjust the risk tolerance for their students. The key point to making a new student learn and retain ukemi skills faster is to make the drills representational safely by scaling fear and the sense of loss of control. Solo ukemi drills almost never meet these criteria and decouples the falling from the fear and sense of loss of control. In my opinion, other proponents of this method of learning focuses on jumping directly to how representational the falls are to actual judo throws and not focusing on coupling it with the fear and loss of control.
The text part of this post below is meant to be notes that complement the video and is not meant to be used by itself.
Anatomy of a fall
maximize surface area, explain pressure (sharp pin vs book being pushed onto you)
Force = mass x acceleration
purpose of slapping
counter force, increase time it takes to slow you down to stop
angular velocity, tucking in decreases the moment of inertia and increases speed, extending out increases the moment of inertia and decreases speed
prevent over rotation (competition is an exception where you want to over rotate)
don't land on your partner in order to not add mass
go slower to not add acceleration
don't drive your weight down
don't hold your uke up for beginners
fear and loss of sense of control is when people fuck up and post
relax to disperse force via loose muscles and prevent the force from reaching the spine fully. Breathing out as you slap is a useful cue.
telling people to relax or not be scared is useless and it just comes with time and desensitization
Scaling fear and sense of loss of control
going outside their comfort range of fear and loss of sense of control is when people fuck up and post
three things you can scale to affect fear and sense of loss of control
1. height of fall (easiest to control by using constraints)
2. speed of fall (hardest to control cause its up to the students to have self control)
3. weight of fall (try not to use this with beginners)
Scale up once you see ~90% success (goes beyond the challenge point framework for safety reason) and see that the student is able to be relatively relaxed and not bracing while doing the games. I might go into the challenge point framework in a future post if there’s interest.
In the next part I will go over some of the drills and games I use to scale the falls.