Hey all -

At this point many of you don't even know me; I was at the dojo for a few years and left 4 (yes, folks, FOUR) years ago to head back east. Since then I have spent perhaps 10 or 12 hours on the mat, total.

But today I learned that muscle memory is a great thing, and learning how to take ukemi is an even better thing.

I was rollerblading in my bathing suit (I'm on Florida) with my mother-in-law, and we were going VERY fast. I'm not an experienced rollerblader, but the one thing I learned quickly was how to go much faster than I had any control over. Being fool-hardy, I was enjoying this. So while going VERY fast, with precious little of my body protected by clothing (I did have wrist guards, but no elbow guards), I lost control and tripped-or-something, and took a heckuva spill, landing SPLAT on asphalt while going 15-20 mph.

Somehow, I was almost completely unhurt. I pulled a muscle under my right arm, and my right flank will have a big bruise tomorrow, but nothing was scratched, torn, hurt, etc. Once I got up, and my mother-in-law and I had marveled that I wasn't in need of an ambulance, I realized that without thinking about it, my body automatically responded to the danger as if I were on the mat taking a fall - I had, in fact, managed to land almost perfectly, given my feet were encumbered with the roller blades. My arms, my legs, my torso - everything went were it was supposed to. And so I got up and kept rollerblading, instead of going to the emergency room.

I'm sharing this mostly for anyone going through a sophomore slump who might be wondering how practical all this rolling around on the floor stuff really is. I'm telling you: it works! 2 years of practice, 4 years ago. Still in the muscle fibers. Think about it.

Labels: Aikido