Trích dẫn:
The practice of Aikido requires the presence of a partner. A few exercises may be done in isolation to hone your strength or technical skills, but the key to good training lies in the interaction between uke and nage. Some people incorrectly simplify the definitions of uke and nage to “attacker” and “defender”. Such simplification is misleading as to the true nature and importance of the roles of nage and uke. More correctly, nage means “the one who throws” and uke means “the one who receives the force”. If you think in terms of attacker and defender, it is likely that you will regard the role of nage, the one who is attacked and executes the technique, as the important role, and the role of uke as merely giving the nage a body on which to practice his technique. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Ukemi is the art of being uke, and the quality of nage’s practice depends on how well uke has learned this art. Ukemi involves creating the conditions that make a given technique appropriate, responding correctly to nage’s movements, and taking whatever fall concludes the technique. In short, uke is responsible for creating the conditions that allow nage to learn. If uke has sense of the effects of a technique, no resilience, or no responsiveness to nage’s movements or if he is fearful or awkward at falling, nage will not be able to study the technique effectively.
In practicing any technique, partners will alternate taking the roles of nage and uke. You must not regard the time that you spend in the role of uke as merely marking time between your turns at being nage but as a learning opportunity of importance equal to or greater than the time you spend in the role of nage. In fact, those who excel at taking ukemi they will most likely exvel in technique also, for they will be able to absorb knowledge through their bodies of how a properly executed technique feels, as well as absorbing knowledge through their minds. Developing good ukemi is the shortest path to acquiring skill in Aikido.
Many elements make up good ukemi. The first is musubi. You must have good communication with your nage, both physical and intuitive. If you are insensitive to the movements or intentions of your partner, you will hamper your partner’s practice and risk injuring yourself. A good uke does not anticipate the partner’s moves but hones his perception to the point where reactions are instinctive and intuitive, rather than solely dependent upon physical manipulation.
Learning ukemi is learning to protect your body from injury; you must be constantly flexible and alert. You should be able to take a fall from any angle at any unexpected moment. Such skill leads to the mastery of advanced techniques. You should also learn to take ukemi when holding bokken and jo. The weapons training in Aikido includes some techniques in which one partner disarms the other. Many of these include throws and the uke should be prepared for this. Learning to protect yourself through ukemi is also your responsibility to your fellow students. While nage should be aware of uke’s limitations and refrain from unnecessary roughness, your partners have a right to expect a degree of proficiency in your ukemi commensurate with your level of advancement. If your ukemi ability falls behind your ability in techniques as you advance, you will hinder your partners’ practice. You may also be placing too much of the burden of your own safety on your partners, especially as you befin to practice the more demanding techniques. Your own training, too, will suffer, for you will never be to practice the mỏe difficult techniques with full intensity.
Taking ukemi does not mean that you are playing the role of the loser. It is a study in communication and perception and in self-protection. Further still, it is a means of retaining control over yourself and over your circumstances. This aspect of ukemi becomes apparent in advanced training, when practice goes beyong techniques involving a single attack followed by a throw to those involving mutiple attacks and reversals. The sensitivity and awareness to nage that allow you to be a good uke also give you the ability to see the weakness in nage’s technique and to recognize the points where nage is open. If you are a good uke, you take advantage of these and makea good recovery or reversal. If you have not learned good ukemi, you will not be able to retain enough balance or control to do either.
Learning good ukemi, of course, takes time and a lot of practice. As a beginner, you will be introduced to the concept of ukemi slowly. After you have been introduced to irimi and tenkan movement, you will start to practice rolling and falling. This should happen before you begin practicing basic technique. When you begin to practice basic technique, your study will be based on kata. The kata give students a framework in which to study and explore the workings of different movements and perfect their execution. You must master the kata before you can make more creative use of Aikido movement and become more elastic in your ukemi. Jiuwaza, in which you are expected to respond spontaneously to different attacks and throws, should be reserved for more advanced students. As training progresses, always remember that the key to gaining the ability for sponstaneous and creative techniques lies in good ukemi.
During my time as an uchi deshi, I was reprimanded for taking inferior ukemi. O Sensei’s comments, as I remember them, may be summarized as follows:
1. Do not try to anticipate what is to come. An overcalculating mind will obscure the body’s responses, cause it to lag. This will force you to take unnatural ukemi, which in turn will be reflected in technique training, hindering your improvement.
2. Observe your partner’s movement and catch his intention. This is part of ukemi training.
3. Do not forget the relevance of ukemi training to everyday life. All prominent people who achieve something of value in everyday life have absorbed the principles of ukemi. The journey through life is beset by many hardships. Success comes to those who resolve their difficulties with the flexibility and openmindedness of ukemi. Those who force their ukemi in an unnatural manner in practice wil lsee no positive results from their training in their life.
4. It is simple wisdom to avoid injury and strive for the goal of your choice, whether in the dojo or in everyday life.
5. An open and supple mind, a flexibal body, modesty, and sincerity – these are the necesry elements in the art of ukemi. Without them, ukeim training fails. Without ukemi, waza training wil never come to fruition.
Observe O Sensei’s words regarding the relevance of ukemi to everyday life. Ukemi nurtures your ability to sense what is coming, to analyze a circumstance and to respond quickly. Just as those who anticipate too much in their ukemi in practice often fail to see the direction of a technique, those who are too calculating in life often fail to observe what is happening around them. They have no flexibility in responding to difficulties in life because they cannot see them until they are within their grip. Good ukemi training wil alllow you to see the future truly because your vision wil be based on observation and intuition, rather than an arbitrary decision made in advance of the evidence. Good ukemi represents the same wisdom as that of the fisherman who through long experience can sense what the coming weather will be.
Ukemi training has great physical merit; it strengthens the body and increases its flexibility. Also, the more comfortable you become with your ukemi, the more fun your practice becomes. I remember O Sensei’s joy in practice, his warmth and his humor. To have pleasure in your practice need not spoil your concentration; you can relax and yet be serious. One can hardly overstate the importance of ukemin training and of its contribution to your practice and your life.
Extracted from Principles of Aikido
