I’m a student of Aikido. This blog is about a few core concepts I think are fundamental to attacking in Aikido.

Aikido is a non-violent Japanese martial art for self-defence. Aikido in Japanese means the way of combining energy, where

‘ai’ translates to combining,

‘ki’ means the energy and

‘do’ is the way.


It was developed by Morihei Ueshiba O Sensei as a synthesis of his years of martial studies. Aikido aims at both physical and mental fitness and taking on opponents with calm of mind. This is done by applying various techniques that harmonize with the opponent, break their balance and use their energy, instead of applying muscular power or resistance.



This blog is to share my learnings around Ukemi that I’m trying to imbibe in my own practice.

Uke is the attacker and Ukemi in Japanese literally translates to “receiving the body”, which also implies receiving the technique.

Ukemi is a fundamental part of Aikido. With good ukemi, our defence and techniques rise up to the next level. There are a lot of things that contribute to doing a good ukemi.

I’ll talk about the 3 things about a good ukemi that I feel are very crucial. I like to call it as “The 3 Cs of Ukemi”.

The 3 Cs stand for -

  • Connection

  • Continuity &

  • Caution



1. Connection

Connection is a broad term, it can mean different things to different people in Aikido. For me connection means link/attach our energy to the opponent’s energy and their centre.

In the context of Ukemi, connection I think means connecting to and affecting the nage’s centre.

Imagine me as the uke, attacker, for simplifying the visualization of the examples.

Let’s consider a wrist grab (Katatedori), though the physical connection we see is only between the hands, the actual flow of energy is starting from my centre. I’m generating energy and that energy flows through my hand, to nage’s hand and then to their centre. To me, this flow of energy from one center to another is the connection.

There are 2 reasons why I feel it’s important to connect.

  1. Loss of connection in an attack means loss of commitment. At any point if the uke loses the connection, the attack is more or less dead at that point. This is not how a real attack would be. So, to keep an attack more realistic, it’s important for us, as ukes, to keep the connection good, and make a committed and sincere attack.

  2. The other thing which happens is that the technique nage is trying to practise becomes forceful, because the uke isn’t connected.

    E.g. Irimi tenkan,

    Uke attacks with a katatedori, and nage does an irimi followed by a tenkan.

    During an irimi, if uke doesn’t maintain a good connection, there is a gap formed between the nage’s wrist and uke’s palm. At that point, nage can simply release their hand and do an atemi on the face. Or they can do a Kokyu-ho. So due to loss of connection, in some cases the technique we are trying to practise might not be the best fit. Or to make it fit, nage will have to make an extra effort.

    Connection is not a responsibility of the uke or nage alone. Both uke and nage have to contribute their fair share for the technique to work.

Note: when I say connect properly, I don’t mean grab the hand tightly or squeeze it. Even a slight touch of uke’s palm with nage’s wrist is pretty good. We have to sense what the nage is doing and react to it, that’s what I mean when I say connect.



2. Continuity

By continuity, I mean following the attack. At every single point throughout the technique, as uke, we should strive to get back to the nage. After one strike, the other should follow. The intention should be to get the nage every single time.

Both Connection and Continuity come with commitment.

Let’s take an example of Shomenuchi (head strike) with Iriminage. We use gravity and momentum here for an effective strike. Let’s imagine that nage did an irimi in response to the first strike. What next? At that point the nage doesn’t have much to work with. Unless the uke continues to attack, either a strike or moving towards nage, facing the nage. Which gives nage a threat to deal with, a reason to continue the technique.



3. Caution.

As ukes, we have to prioritize our safety first. Posing an attack, compromising our own balance and safety is not smart. To make a committed attack and pose a right challenge to the nage, we often risk our own safety.

Let me give an example. Imagine a Shomenuchi attack, and an Ikkyo as the defence.

After the nage performs the first cut, sometimes we resist here with the arm to see if the Ikkyo is working. It’s important to notice here that as uke, my elbow is completely straight which is not good for me. Because the nage can press it and put just a little weight to crack my elbow. I think such mindless resistance should be avoided while practising.

Or sometimes one would step ahead showing their back to nage to show that the technique doesn’t work. Exposing the back where the nage can kick or punch with the elbow. This is again a meaningless resistance which is unsafe for the uke, we should be cautious about that and avoid it.

Better ukemi for this could be to go low on knees instead of bending back, keeping eyes continuously on the nage and waiting for an opportunity to come up again.



Glossary

Uke: attacker

Nage: a person who is defending

Sensei: teacher

Shomenuchi: head strike

Katatedori: wrist grab

Irimi: entry

Atemi: attack, often done by nage as a defense to distract the uke

Tenkan: turn

Ikkyo: first technique of aikido

Kokyo-ho: another technique in aikido, which starts with an entry and ends with throwing the attacker



That’s all about the 3 Cs.

To summarise,

3C’s for improving our ukemi are-

  1. Connection — to move with the opponent and affect their centre

  2. Continuity — the intent to get the nage each single time, at every moment of attacking.

The secret ingredient for the above 2 as we talked above, is again a C — Commitment in the attack

  1. Caution — safe and mindful ukemi



Thank you for reading.

Happy rolling… :)