In proverbs 23:16 it reads, \u201cThe righteous may fall seven times, but still get up, but the wicked will stumble into trouble.\u201d And in Jeremiah 8:4 it reads, \u201cYou know if a man falls down, he gets up again. And if a man goes the wrong way, he turns around and comes back.\u201d According to the World Health Organization falls are the second leading cause of accidental deaths worldwide. And that\u2019s only the stats on death, can you imagine how many people are injured or even paralyzed from falls.
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In order to learn Aikido, you have to learn how to fall. In aikido terms we call this ukemi, the art of receiving the technique.
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It\u2019s important in order to prevent injury. Interesting isn\u2019t it. You\u2019re going to attack your partner, but, you need to learn to fall in order to protect yourself from injury because you are gonna be defeated and thrown to the ground. So in other words, you\u2019re setting yourself up for failure. You have to learn to fall, or in a sense, fail.
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Humm, I don\u2019t know about you, but I think that\u2019s just downright weird and counter intuitive. You don\u2019t want to learn to fail, you want to learn to succeed, in this case, attack and \u201cbeat\u201d your partner…
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Learning to fall is closely tied to learning to fail. Something that is very rarely taught.
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According to Forbes, 43% off all college students have not completed a degree after 6 years, and out of those 43%, 31% of those have dropped out completely.
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That\u2019s a staggering number of what I would consider, a failure to complete a goal that was initially started. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How many times in your life have you started something, then quit for some reason. For example, you decided that you wanted to take up some martial arts classes, took one lesson, then for some reason or other, you didn\u2019t like falling, or you didn\u2019t like feeling sore the next day, or you just didn\u2019t like having to sit in seiza and then decided it wasn\u2019t for you…in other words you quit.
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According to the dictionary success is defined as : the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. And, failure is defined as a lack of success.
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So, when you set out to do something, and you complete that task, you have become successful. In class you set out to punch your partner, and if your partner performs the technique correctly, you will not succeed, or fail and be thrown to the ground.
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If you don\u2019t know how to fall, then most likely you will get injured from the fall, but isn\u2019t that the same as when we set out to make a million dollars by your 30th birthday, fail miserably, then because you don\u2019t know how to take it, get deeply depressed. In other words you\u2019re psychologically injured.
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Ukemi is the art of accepting the failure, getting right back up and trying again, without the injury.
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If at first you don\u2019t succeed, try, try and try again, right?
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You attack your partner, you get thrown, fall, get back up again, and attack again. You just keep on doing this over and over again without ever giving up, (this will definitely get you into shape). We learn to fail so that our partner can learn the techniques of Aikido to protect him or herself.
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It\u2019s amazing, isn\u2019t it. You learn to fall to protect yourself from injury, as well as learning to execute a technique to protect yourself from injury.
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I heard that it took Thomas Edison 1,000 trials to make the light bulb, in other words, he failed 999 times before he succeeded.
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If you\u2019re interested in learning to fall, and benefit from the application of learning to fail, why not come out and try a class. Visit my website for more information. And, don\u2019t forget to like subscribe, and share! If you\u2019d like to hear more about how you can apply lessons learned in Aikido to daily life, please comment, and let me know what you\u2019d like to hear about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something
<\/p>-Morihei Ueshiba<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n