Mae Ukemi exercise

Finally I'm ready to post about basic rolling exercises as I could take some illustrative photos yesterday. The following text is couple of months old but it's still valid. Read on if you want to know how we learn forward rolls (mae ukemi).

"Last week I had the privilege to instruct the class as the master and several other students were away to attend a 3-day seminar by Fujita Masatake Shihan. Some of the students who stayed in London requested that we should practice rolls. I prepared with lots of rolling exercises but, unfortunately, I couldn't show all of them. Knowing how to roll, however, is very important as this way you can minimise the likelihood of at least one type of injuries.

To prepare my list of roll-learning exercises, I searched the web for instructions and explanations as to how to roll. I found a forum where a new student asked members of the forum to give him some hints on how to improve his rolling skills. The responses were all something like 'o, yes, in the beginning your rolls suck' and 'go to your master and ask him' to 'you need to practice and practice and practice even more'. These are all true but, unfortunately, don't answer the question. It is very good, though, that there are some other web pages that explain the principles of aikido rolls by giving illustrative pictures and some text that describe how you can do a proper roll (e.g. [1] and [2]).

There are many other sources as well but I'd like to recommend the DVD in which Doshu Ueshiba Moriteru demonstrates some basic aikido movements and his uke show how to roll.

Mae ukemi

I'd like to give you the instructions that helped me to learn to roll the level I am at now (and there's always plenty of space to make rolls smoother and less energy-consuming).

In this post, I'll give you some instructions on mae ukemi (forward roll) from shikko dachi (sitting-like position). When we learn to roll, first we do it from shikko dachi to minimise the possibility of injuries. It is perfectly suitable to learn to 'be a sphere' :) and apply the principles you would also use in tachi waza (standing position). Let's see the steps of a simple rolling exercise:

• You start from shikko dachi where one of your legs, or more precisely, knees point forward and there's a 90-degree angle between this leg and the other (so your other knee will point sideways). Let's use the example where it is your left knee that is in front and it is at a right angle with your right leg which faces to the right (right? :)). You will get a right angled triangle formed by your two knees and the toes of your feet (the latter is considered as one point as toes of your feet are very close)


• Let's transform this triangle into a square. Put your right hand to the fourth point on the mat (which will make the triangle a square). This will help you not to fall over when you start doing the forward roll at slow speed.


• Now you will roll on a line diagonal to your body. For this, you will need to use our left hand which goes between your right hand and left knee. You start rolling by leaning forward and pushing yourself with your toes (also forward).


• Keeping tegatana at all times, you start rolling on the edge of your left hand which is followed by forearm, upper arm, shoulder touching the mat and then your roll goes across your back (diagonally!) and when the right side of your hip/pelvis reaches the mat you are almost finished. It is very important that your spine touches the ground at one point only because you don't want to risk a spine injury in a tougher rolling situation later in your aikido career (or when you fall off stairs at the age of 100+).


• Finally, your right leg (knee facing right) and the balls of your left foot need to touch the ground gently and you have just arrived at the exact same position as when you started you roll: shikko dachi, left leg forwards.


• You can continue practicing by stepping forward and rolling on the opposite side (right leg pointing forward at the beginning).
  

Things to be careful about:

• Keeping tegatana. If you don't do this you may hurt your elbow or shoulder when you do a faster roll. That is why you need to roll like a round ball. Or planet, for philosophers :).


• Feet closely pulled in. If you leave your legs straight you won't be able to stand up at the end of the roll as your legs will just hit the mat with a noise. Making noise consumes energy, hence you will need to use your own energy to stand up (as the energy of rolling is at least partly lost).


• Protecting your head. Your head (face) mustn't touch the mat during rolling as it is very vulnerable to injuries. Turn your head a little bit sideways when rolling.

I will describe some more, very basic, rolling exercises in later posts."

The next will be a basic ushiro ukemi (backward roll) learning exercise in a couple of posts from now.

How to fold a gi properly

Many people put their gi away into their bags after training as if the keikogi was a piece of kitchen cloth. Even if you wash your gi when you get home I think it deserves a "fair treatment" until it gets to the washing machine. I rather don't describe the look of the poor uniform if you just pull it out of your bag when you next use it. Despite these bad examples, I see many beginners who try to fold their gis but I also see a kind of confusion on their faces as they don't know how to do it properly.

My suggestion is that you can fold it anyhow you want but try to minimise the wrinkles. This will also show others how tidy you are. The next couple of pictures and bullet points illustrate how to fold a gi the way I learned it.
But before I get comments about how dirty my gi is as opposed to what I'm preaching above, please note that my gi is white and clean, I just photoshopped the images to emphasize the folds better ;).

• Step one: put the jacket down onto the tatami (or any other clean surface) as shown.
• Step two: Put the bottom of the gi on top of the jacket at its middle.
• Step thee: Fold one side of the jacket onto the bottom and fold half of the sleeve back.
• Step four: Do the same with the other side of the jacket.
• Step five: Now fold the bottom part of the gi bottom up.
• Step six: Fold the bottom up once again.
• Step seven: Repeat this for again, and it will look pretty nice as the last fold will just fit on the rest of the gi.
• Step eight: Wrap your belt around your folded gi and tuck the end of it below the already wrapped belt sections.

Bow - Part 2

In the previous post I introduced why you should bow during a training. Now there's a list of when bowing is expected.

1. When you enter the dojo you bow at the door towards the middle of the room. You acknowledge the place of training.
2. When you step onto the mat (tatami) you bow towards the kamiza (shrine) which is sometimes just a framed picture of O'Sensei. Some people do this in seiza (the traditional formal way of sitting in Japan) while others simply from a standing position. You show your appreciation towards O'Sensei who created this martial art. Please note that this is nothing to do with religion, you simply show your respect but it's not kind of worshipping a god.
3. (When there is no space between the door and the tatami, i.e. the mat area starts right next to the door, you can bow only once.)
4. When the training begins, you start with a short meditation in seiza and then first you and the master bow towards O'Sensei which is followed by a bow towards each other (students towards the sensei, sensei towards students). You may say 'onegai shimasu' (pronounced as oh-ne guy-she-mahss, you mean something like 'please teach me') when you bow towards your sensei. I don't think this needs any explanation. It is nice though that the sensei also bows towards you as he accepts teaching you and he can also learn from you during the training by correcting your mistakes or simply finding out which way of demonstrating a technique is best for students to understand how it should be executed properly.
5. When the master finishes the demonstration of a technique the uke he 'used' (inappropriate, but sometimes used word) bows towards the master and says thank you (domo arigato gozaimashita). The students also bow from seiza as they were sitting and observing the master's demonstration.
6. When you find a partner to train with you ask them to practice with you by going to them and bowing. You can say onegai shimasu (~ 'thank you for training with me'). Your partner accepts you by doing the same. Please note that rejecting someone is considered to be very rude and is never done unless you are to practice in pairs and two or more people bowed towards you at the very same time.
7. When sensei says 'yame' (yah-meh, 'stop') or 'seiza', you finish immediately whatever you were doing (if it's possible, even in the middle of a technique except when it would cause injury, e.g. in the middle of a throw), and you bow towards each other and say thank you. You usually say this in Japanese but English, or any other language that are used by both partners, can also be accepted, you just need to show your appreciation.
8. When you are practicing in groups and someone has finished his/her 'round' of being the tori (who does the technique, also called nage), s/he bows towards the next person who will take his/her place. If it's the first round, the order is usually from senior to junior (so that beginners can observe the technique more before actually doing it), if it's not the first round you should use your memory to remember who's next :).
9. Some people bow towards each other after every uke-tori swap (usually after four techniques, two each side). In our dojo this is not practiced (probably to save time), we only bow when we are asked to take our place in seiza or change partners.
10. When you don't understand anything and want to ask the sensei, I think you know what to do: bow :). But the most important thing is that you should go to the sensei and bow and not hail him like a taxi and when he comes to you, bow :). You do the same when you need to leave the room for whatever reason or need to stop for a while. This includes drinking some water which you should do only for a very good reason during trainings (e.g. in 65 degrees Celsius :)).
11. At the end of the class, the same meditation-bow-bow procedure is followed as at the beginning of the training.
12. Similarly, when you leave the tatami and dojo you do the same bows as when you were entering. This way you will use the same procedure to get back to the civil world as to forget about your daily problems when entering the dojo.
13. If you are not training but watching the class, you also bow when entering and leaving. Apart from these, you only need to bow when the others, after the meditation, bow at the beginning and end of the class. During the meditation part you should stand up as another sign of respect.

This may sound many if you are a beginner but you will soon find it natural.

If I left something out please let me know in the comments, otherwise bow whenever you feel it is appropriate in reflection of the above points. :)

Bow - Part 1

If you come to England from abroad and you read the word 'bow', first you will probably think about Robin Hood :D. If you come closer to London you will see that Bow is a part of East London (and name of a station). But if you come to a dojo, bow takes on a completely different meaning again.

A bow is a fundamental part of aikido training. It shows respect towards the place you train in, towards O'Sensei (Ueshiba Morihei, the founder of aikido), your sensei (the instructor of the aikido class) and your fellow students. It is part of the training that you always show respect.

You must have seen films, movies with Japanese people bowing all the time. This is part of their culture, they show the appreciation for whatever they think you deserved it. It is very similar to the English culture though, just the manifestation of showing respect is different a bit. In England, you are always 'brilliant','fantastic' but at least 'nice' (ask foreigners how unusual this can be for them/us :)). Even if you don't like someone you don't tell this to them in their faces. I think this has a very nice ( :)) side as, even if you don't think so, you show some respect and don't allow the situation to become aggressive. After a while, you get used to forcing yourself to be positive and at the end you may as well end up becoming more positive (you can as well call it self-programming). So in an aikido training, bow whenever you think the situation allows a bow, this way you learn to respect others (even more ;)).

More on when to bow is to follow this post but you can send me comments before that if you like.

Beginners' guide - how to tie your belt

Another post for new people in aikido: beginners of our dojo sometimes have some martial arts experience, these people often come to do aikido because they had an injury before and don't want to risk their health again. Indeed, injuries are not so frequent in aikido, although you still need to be careful to avoid injuring others or hurting yourself. To get back to the point, these people usually know how to tie a belt, there is only one difference, as I can see, between how we do it and how others do it: when finishing the 'knot', we tuck the end of the belt (also called obi) in between the gi and the belt itself.

One problem beginners find at first is "the knot is not as flat and nice-looking as yours advanced students". There might be two reasons for this: 1) you really didn't do it properly, or 2) you just need to give it some time until it almost automatically goes into place.
I'm addressing the first option here so you can be calm and patient, and focus on the second point and, obviously, the training (hopefully instead of your belt).

The following video shows how to tie your belt.

You may notice that this belt is quite hard while yours might be softer. You should still apply the same steps though if your belt is softer, it shouldn't make any difference at all.

There is another version of putting the belt on, I'm using that. I find the middle of the belt, put it where the knot will be, cross the belt at my back and tie the knot in front exactly the same way as shown in the video. Some say this version is not ideal as the crossed belt might hurt your back during the (incorrect) execution of some techniques. I haven't experienced any problems with the crossed version but I might change the way of tying my belt when I need to change my belt to a black one :).