12:04 p.m. - 2006-10-13
Horrible, Horrible Ukemi
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All,
I had a HORRIBLE session of ninjutsu training last Wednesday, even if I was told I aquitted myself fairly well (LIES!) The previous two sessions were pretty bad as I had to sit half of them out thanks to feeling like death on both occasions (yes, it would turn out not to be tiredness or jet-lag, but a nasty cold developing fully twenty-four hours later that made me have to go crawl into a corner, BAH!). Anyway, the last session was being held by Lway, and was more or less the same as the seminar he held some time ago. All of us that went to said seminar had at least a finger-hold on what we were up to in training, but everyone else was left completely...er...not so much in the dark, as blindfold at the bottom of a mineshaft. I was looking forward to it. Right up until we started.
*siiigh*
I am good with swords and throws. I'm good with my "annoying people" techniques, something that essentially involves confusion and distraction (part of the whole ninja disappearing technique). I am at least reasonable in pressure points. I can run up walls. What I can not do to save my life (and I mean that quite literally) is fall properly. Ukemi, as it's termed correctly, is a fall where you roll on impact without hurting yourself, making any noise, or having your head hit the ground, leaving you free at the end to either bounce up and run off smartly, or possibly go back into a different kamae (stance/posture/attitude); this means you can fling yourself from heights without fear of smashing your face. A glorious THEORY. The first time I tried this I nearly killed my shoulder and worried the hell out of TSensei for the better part of a month.
So back to the point, Wednesday was, surprise, all about ukemi. I'm actually going to put the blame for this full on The Boys shoulders, because he has been pestering TSensei for MONTHS to do a training session that involved it, and as TSensei has been non-too-well either of late (flu) he let LWay take over. I'm REASONABLE in hurling myself at the ground forwards without immediate death, but we didn't just do forwards, oh no. We did backwards, sideways, cartwheels, handstands, backflips, frontflips, jumping from a height, and the only thing I flatly refused to try on grounds of valuing my unfractured neck - hurling myself almost two metres into the air from a standing start, curling over in mid-air and landing with utter silence, ALL involving ukemi. Bah. The only saving grace (and reason I'm still capable of writing this) was that we had two different sets of mats to protect from incompetence on the wooden floor. One was a long thin mat used for the quick ukemi, and the other was a heavy crash mat for the falling from heights. Also, The Boy and TSensei stuck by me for almost 90% of the lesson as they know I'm terrible with this particular area, so I only really trained with them.
As I write this I'm covered in bruises and have various aching muscles, but that's nothing unusual, and at least I'm alive enough to go on the assignment TSensei set us for this Sunday.
Ah well, it's a ninja life,
Me
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