Break Falls

I am not a fan of break falls. I first learned to do them about 35 years ago, when I studied Tomiki Aikido. We learned them from kote gaeshi. It's been about that many years since I've done them. Going into last night's class, I was in no way expecting that we were going to focus on techniques that required a break fall.

I missed Tuesday's class, because I spent the day working out in our yard. I cut the grass, and finished the small retaining wall in the back yard. Silly, I know; it was only eight blocks that sat just above, and a few inches behind, the other eight blocks I'd laid about two weeks ago. Since that time we've had some very warm, humid weather, and enough rain that our basement had seeping water more than once. I'd drenched myself in sweat throughout the morning, and my hands hurt from carrying and placing the blocks. Arthritis is not fun. My recommendation is not to get old. I did, however, end the day with a feeling of accomplishment, since my wife had been asking me to take care of the wall. I did not like looking at the extra long grass in the yard. Still, when 7:30 came, and I was sitting on the sofa, I had that awful feeling I get when I am not in class. If you think about Martin Sheen's opening dialogue in "Apocalypse Now" where he explains that not being in the bush means that Charlie is getting stronger while he is getting weaker, you'll get the idea.

Last night I was determined to go. And I did. We would work on a technique using regular ukemi, then ramp up the technique so that uke had to do a break fall. We did shiho-nage first. My take away from it was that during a "normal" (and I use that word advisedly) shiho-nage, I would do a back fall or back roll. Last night nage cranked uke's arm out to the side a bit after the irimi step so that a break fall was the only way to go. As uke, I really had to work hard to position myself so that I could face nage just as I was going into the break fall. It was the turn that gave me a bit of trouble. With nage so close to me, it was difficult to get my elbow over nage's shoulder, and make the turn to face him so that I could fall the proper way. What I noted was that once I did the first break fall, I had little trouble going into the others.

We also worked on two different versions of koshi nage that were almost exactly like the Yamada sensei video I posted on my last entry. We did the technique to both sides.

On both techniques I was honestly okay with doing break falls. My only hesitation was on the first fall. Once I got that one under by belt, I was okay with doing the rest of them. And there were plenty more to do.

Unfortunately, on one of my koshi nage break falls, something happened. I don't know if I did something wrong, or my nage did something different that caused me to do something wrong. Whatever it was, I landed flat on my back. I felt my neck snap back like I was in a rear-end collision in my car. I felt the back of my head bounce off the mat, then I felt a spasm of some sort start at my neck muscles on the left, and travel down my right arm to my elbow. Ouch.

I stood off to the side for about a minute to let the feeling pass. Once it did I got back on the mat and took another break fall or two just to get back "on the horse." Luckily I could feel that I'd be sore today, but that my injury was not serious.

Today my neck is sore on the left side, but otherwise I'm good.