Over the years, we’ve had people come into our group from different martial backgrounds (or none at all) and one thing that always stands out to me is how different people ‘receive’ a technique when it’s applied to them, i.e. I observe their ukemi (literally, receiving body). Do they just stand there and passively get locked or thrown? Do they “take ukemi” and move away from the lock or the throw? Or do they ‘receive’ the technique to the edge of their ability and then either tap or get thrown because it is the only option left? Are they training to live or to die?

Ellis Amdur tells a story about when he first entered Araki-ryu, after several years of intense and dedicated aikido practice. During training one day, Amdur’s Araki-ryu teacher applied a technique on him similar to aikido’s nikyo (off of a shoulder grab I believe) and Amdur “took ukemi” in an aikido fashion and dropped to the floor. Puzzled, his teacher asked, “Why are you on the floor?” Amdur responded something like, “I was taking ukemi.” His teacher then asked, “If you knew what I was going to do, why didn’t you counter it?”

As has been stated before here by my training brother Jevin Orcutt, ukemi is not about throwing oneself away from tori (literally, taker). Ukemi is not something one “takes.” Ukemi is a state of being wherein one actively and intentionally receives tori’s technique so that tori can practice, BUT, in true ukemi, uke (literally, receiver) is practicing as well, not practicing falling, but learning how to survive and win. In active and intentional ukemi, uke is feeling out the edge of his own body’s abilities. He is taking stock of what it takes to defeat him, to lock his body up, to throw him, or to cut him down. He is taking notes and feeling, through what I’ll call somatic intelligence, where he could stop, counter, or reverse tori’s attack.

Ukemi is where one invests in losing so that one learns how not to lose and eventually how to win. Ukemi is where one finds his own, but also tori’s, weaknesses and strengths. Ukemi is where one learns how to fight. In other words, ukemi as ‘receiving body’ is a selfless and a selfish act, all at the same time. It is selfless because uke is sacrificing his own body so that tori can learn. It is selfish because uke is learning also. He is learning how to not let someone do violence to him and how to stop and defeat someone who tries.

If ukemi as ‘receiving body’ is both selfless and selfish, “taking ukemi,” is purely selfish. “Taking ukemi” descibes the act of going with, blending with, or moving with the technique, be it a lock or a throw, and often involves acrobatic (and quite aesthetically pleasing) breakfalls which make tori look like he/she has magical powers because the dive or fall is quite a bit more impressive a result than the technique that caused it should produce. The effect is much greater than the cause because uke is adding to tori’s technique. Uke is, in effect, throwing himself and is not simply receiving, passively or actively, the technique, but is doing his own technique that amplifies tori’s. Why is this selfish?

“Taking ukemi” is selfish because it steals from tori and uke alike. If the role of uke is to aid tori in learning the technique he is practicing, by throwing him, uke is stealing tori’s ability to feel where the edge of violence is and how to find it, how to control it, and, therefore, how to choose other than it. Furthermore, uke is stealing from himself. By throwing himself, uke never has to really deal with conflict or violence. He never has to face his own weaknesses (or strengths). He never has to stare down the edge of his own fragility and mortality, accepting the inevitability of his own eventual demise. He never has to challenge himself to suffer and overcome that suffering as a means of turning it around and thriving. By “taking ukemi,” uke is doing instead of receiving.

“Taking ukemi” is the martial equivalent of rudely interrupting with a response before the other person has finished talking. In this, there is no communication. There is no, dare I say, harmony. Furthermore, there is no budo in it. Instead of learning how to receive and counter violence, instead of learning how to fight, taking ukemi is more like ritual suicide. It’s as if uke is saying, “You want me dead? I’ll oblige and I’ll even finish the job for you.” So when I see a new person in my dojo “taking ukemi” instead of receiving the technique, I get annoyed. I don’t get annoyed at that person. It’s not his/her fault. I get annoyed that his/her last teacher allowed or even encouraged this kind of ukemi and it makes me sad to watch people volunteer to die over and over again. I get annoyed because I spent a lot of time “taking ukemi” also, instead of learning how to survive and thrive at the edge of violence.

True ukemi can show us the edge of our weakness and can thereby make us stronger by teaching us to accept the inevitability of our own mortality and then by learning how to overcome it. Falling, leaping, and diving away from violence will never bring us to terms with it. If we are to transcend violence, like aikido promises, first we must face it. The first step toward this end is by learning how to manifest a ‘receiving body’ through ukemi. Ukemi as ‘receiving body’ gives us a choice when we face violence. We can let it overtake us, we can neutralize its effects, or we can turn it on itself. Within this choice is where mercy truly lies. Taking a fall is not merciful. Violence against oneself is not an act of mercy toward the other. It is simply more violence and there is nothing transcendent about it.

Robert Van Valkenburgh, co-founder of Kogen Dojo