Zempo Ukemi in action

Discussion in 'Ninjutsu' started by pearsquasher, Nov 6, 2007.

  1. pearsquasher

    pearsquasher Valued Member

    Yep.. I'm lucky I can type and think and recall memories and breathe oxygen.

    Sorry this ain't on youtube.


    After a hot port after training last night I hopped on my trusty bike and pegged it towrads home, which is pretty much a down-hill cycle all the way to town. On reaching 20 yards before a major T-junction, the lights turned from red to green in my favour and I kept on cruising at high speed to pass the cars that had stopped at the lights and were just about to take off. From the other direction a car decided it could makes its right turn before the cars on my side got going but not before this "uke" was about to intersect with it the way water doesn't when it meets a rock in a fast flowing river.

    Instinctively I jammed on both breaks. Luckily or unfortunately, its hard to tell really, the front break was a little ahead of the back one so instead of skidding in a lateral motion I got buckarooed like a mid-western cow-wrangler straight up, pushed by the rising saddle, and over the handlebars, at great speed. The ways these things go I was utterly unconcious of what my body was doing. It must have gone completely vertical as I let go of the handlebars, or they let go of me - either way we parted company, as the bike twisted and tumbled and I found myself meeting tarmac with my face turned to the left, my cheek about 1cm from the ground and my palms and forearms and elbows making a perfect "V" under my body. The bike came crashing down soon after to join me again but this happened as I crumpled back down after the initial absorbtion of the forces and so I sort of cought the thing by the spokes as I stood up and I immediately jumped on it in some sort of semi-aware state of "getting on with it".

    One car had breaked too ahead of me and the owner shouted if I was ok and I gave the thumbs up - lucky to have em - while another driver rolled down her windows and stared wide-eyed. I shrugged that it was ok and me and my bike cycled on as the lights were still green - I hadn't even crossed into the junction at all. What must the drivers have seen!

    So I basically did a pefect ukemi at high speed on tarmac from a large hight. This is something we've practiced at low speed on mats from a short hight and the same shapes and structure saved my hide bigtime more than any lock or kick probably will.

    All I had was bruised palms - not even cut as i didn't slide and my wirsts took a lot of the force but they're able to take a jarring and are perfectly fine thanks to my teenage years stenghtening them with pushups.

    There you go - direct self-defence through martial arts practice. I thanked my instructor first thing this morning.
     
  2. fire&steel

    fire&steel Valued Member

    Larping again ! Any real martial artist would have applied a rear naked choke after passing the cars guard, & mounting it or at least sparred with the other traffic in the intersection PPfffffffttt. :p :eek: :D

    There was a elderly Japanese man that had a similar car uke attack him from the rear while he was a bike Tori a few years back. He too made training that night ;)

    Gambatte
     
  3. kouryuu

    kouryuu Kouryuu

    Glad you're ok Ali, how's the road????? :D
     
  4. elftengu

    elftengu Banned Banned

    I love the way we turn our experiences into such drawn out descriptions.

    I turned up at A&E once, having walked a mile barefoot in pale grey jogging bottoms and a tie-dyed fluorescent yellow and green Fat Freddy's Cat t-shirt, all of which were soaked in blood, and holding a substantial amount of toilet roll against my forehead, covering a 1.5 inch gash running upwards from one eyebrow.

    The nurse on reception asked my what I had done. I explained that I had, perhaps unwisely the morning after quite a heavy drinking session, been practicing bojutsu, the Japanese art of using a staff, and had been spinning a six-foot-staff from waist level to a position above my head but hadn't lifted it quickly enough and one end had struck me in the face knocking one lens out of my spectacles and causing me some kind of injury from which a hell of a lot of blood seemed to be coming. It was even coming out of my mouth (I hadn't realised it was running into my mouth and then running out again, I thought I had caused some internal injury).

    As I was sitting in a hospital cubicle a few minutes later being seen to, I heard one nurse ask another what I had done. I puffed myself up, expecting to hear her repeat my account of an unfortunate mishap during the austere practice of an ancient martial art involving something called a bo staff.

    But she decided to shorten it somewhat. The conversation went something like this:


    First nurse: "That's a fair bit of blood. What happened to him?"


    Second nurse: "He hit himself with a stick".


    :D
     
  5. fire&steel

    fire&steel Valued Member

    ROFLOL :D
    That's a classic !
     
  6. Banpen Fugyo

    Banpen Fugyo 10000 Changes No Surprise

    This is why ukemi is the most important part of any martial art. Its the one thing you WILL use, regardless.
     
  7. DaveyM

    DaveyM New Member

    Glad the ukemi worked and you survived intact !!
    No guesses what the training will include next class then Ali ?! ;)
     
  8. Nick Mandilas

    Nick Mandilas Resistance is an option..

    Bah...had you been training more "alive" by moving your dojo to the middle of a freeway....you would already have been comfortable in the application of ukemi
    :p
     
  9. pearsquasher

    pearsquasher Valued Member

    Cheers everyone. My palms have massive bruises now btw......Normski, the road must look like something outside a Chinese theatre in Hollywood :D
     
  10. SWEHurricane

    SWEHurricane Valued Ninjer

    That must have been a wierd experience.

    I don't know if I would ever be able to do that on instinct in a situation like that, no matter how long I would train I don't think I could count on it. Glad everything worked out fine, it must be a really wierd feeling afterwards.
     
  11. pearsquasher

    pearsquasher Valued Member

    I wouldn't say "weird". When you first do Zempo ukemi, it's weird alright -
    "what the hell am I doing with one foot in the air, not rolling"

    Then you train it and get a feel for it...then it pops up now and then within training as your thrown fast, near an object, head first, in armour possibly.

    We've done it for years but think it only this year with the kinds of throws done in Kukishin Ryu Dakentaijutsu that it's actually come out in context. It's probably also becaus emy own levekl is sucha that my instructor can throw me head first, knowing I'm able to ukemi safely. Shu-ha-ri.

    DKMYS DVD 1991 has some nice examples from various Shihan.
     
  12. StingKing

    StingKing Valued Member

    Mine wasn't that exciting but I feel it saved me.

    Out with friends at a bar one night, we wandered into a private party with a lot of drunk people (the area wasn't fenced and didn't have any signs to indicate it was a private function). I was having a beer waiting for a friend to buy his drink from the bar, all of a sudden a big guy pushed hard enough it sent me flying backwards towards a steel table full of glasses with a bunch of ladies sitting there.

    Instinct took over while I was flying backwards, I bent my knees, lowered my center of gravity, my legs went into Ichimonji no Kamae position, then stopped totally grounded and firm. All these happened under 2 seconds, might not seem much but if it wasn't for the training I would have slammed my back into the table or the ladies, breaking a disc or two in my back.

    Didn't spill a drop of my beer too :D
     

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