Ukemi

When Kyoko talks about taking falls here, she’s referring to some specific skills. Learning to fall down or be thrown without being injured in the process is a major skill in a variety of martial arts; judo and aikido are the two where she learned it, in large part because I have the most experience with them. Though given that both are Japanese in origin, and she was studying in Tokyo at the direction of her rather traditionalist father, it also just makes sense. There are numerous differences between judo and aikido, but for the purpose of this note I’m going to be treating them as a unit, since falling is mostly the same set of skills in both; this skillset is referred to as ukemi. For terms I’m generally going to be using a mixture of English and romanized Japanese, mostly because it’s the format I learned in. If you want to follow along with the descriptions, there are numerous videos which showcase the falls in question. Forward roll and side fall, and front fall are both good ones to reference for this conversation.

A forward rolling breakfall, also called a front roll or various other names, is one of the core types of fall in the art. Generally, if you’re falling forward, you want to make it a front roll rather than a direct front fall. The difference is that in a front fall, you’re falling directly forward and faceplanting. This is a fall that sees practice, but it’s not one you want to do much. The bulk of the time, a front roll is better; in that, you’re essentially doing a somersault and landing on your back. The more prolonged landing, the momentum being more forward rather than down, and the general body position all make this fall much less likely to cause injury. If there’s room and bodily position that allow for a front roll, it is almost always better than a front fall, and being able to convert one into the other is a major part of ukemi as a skill.

There are two basic types of front roll. The first type, rendered in Japanese as zenpō kaiten ukemi, is what she’s trying to do here; I also habitually call this a toshi fall for reasons I’ll get to in a moment. This is what is considered more proper form, for a number of reasons; the exact methods and mechanisms ar enuanced, but for our purposes the important part is that in this fall the torso proceeds directly over the leading foot and down, and the legs follow in a single plane of movement. This translates the momentum more directly forward and sets up a smoother landing. It’s also challenging to maintain proper form for this, though, and what Kyoko is mostly doing is the other type. This one is referred to as tobi ukemi or variants thereof; I also refer to it as a guruma fall. In this the start is the same, with the weight proceeding over the leading foot. But the torso turns more away from the trailing side, and the legs swing out towards the leading side, effectively causing the body to turn sideways and land with the legs splayed to the side rather than more directly forward. Some throws force this to happen, but by and large if you don’t actually have to you would rather do a toshi fall. It is, however, easy to end up doing a guruma fall instead if you don’t maintain quite the right posture and form through the fall. The narration is noting that Kyoko is having issues with that and struggling to maintain the more technically correct toshi form.

A double side fall or double-footed side fall is another type of fall, though not one that is relevant as often; it mostly shows up in certain foot sweeps. A regular side fall, which is one of the most common falls, proceeds roughly as follows: The body is falling backwards, but with the weight biased towards one side. A left side fall has the body landing on the left flank or the left side of the back rather than with the weight evenly distributed. This fall opens with the left foot swinging forward and to the right, while the right foot remains on the ground; you then fall mostly directly downwards, and land with the left hip the first part of the body to contact the ground. Upon landing, you roll back onto the left side of the back. You see this happen in situations like slipping on ice, when the left foot loses traction and can’t support the weight of the body. Done correctly the skull does not impact the ground forcefully, most of the momentum is dispersed by that rolling motion, and you don’t try to catch yourself, which is generally a terrible idea.

A double side fall is much the same. The difference is that (using the left as the example again) the right foot also comes off the ground, you go fully airborn, and you end up falling directly onto your back rather than being able to roll and disperse that momentum. As a result the impact is much worse. This is not a type of fall most judoka want to take very often.

If you want to see these falls as they would show up in practice, there are some specific techniques that are very clear examples. Tai otoshi shows a zenpō kaiten fall clearly enough that it’s habitual for me to call these toshi falls by reference. Hiza guruma is a similarly clear illustration of a tobi fall and is why I habitually call them guruma falls. A double side fall is most often seen in okuri ashi harai. In addition to these videos from the Kodokan, if you find the topic interesting I encourage you to visit a dojo if you have one in your area. They’re often happy to illustrate techniques for visitors and talk with them about the art.