Study

The enforced social isolation and the inability to go training as usual at the dojo…

I wrote this article several years ago, I think 2015. It was intended mainly for…

What is basic training? It is what beginners are expected to learn. In time and as experience is gained the more advanced teaching is shown while the basic way of doing things is reduced if not abandoned entirely. This is very typical in approach to teaching but it does not explain what basics is and how important they are.

Learning to fall in Aikido, ukemi in Japanese, is half the training. Falling is not quite the right way to describe this aspect of training. Receiving would be more appropriate and much closer to the meaning. Receiving emphasises a way to take the throw, the pin and how to go with it, with the outcome that you still fall or get pinned etc. At first it seems awkward