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Yes, breakfalls/ukemi and rolls. Most often identified with Aikido, Judo, Jujitsu, Hapkido, and a bunch of other styles that have grappling and throws in its 'syllabus'.

We all know why knowing how to breakfall is useful:
*. lets one land safely when being thrown
*. minimizes 'downtime' when thrown/knocked down
*. useful evasion technique in general
*. useful even in daily life to lessen damage from accidents

So...do you think that ALL martial arts styles should teach it, even though they don't have it in its syllabus? We all know it's bloody useful--are there any reasons not to teach it? ninja

It's one of the first things we learn after we learn the basic defences 3nodding It's really important.

That's like saying their style works in ALLLLL situations... xp

I believe breakfalls are very important for me as a trainer and as a student. I actually changed my curriculum in teaching in my dojo. Most of our instructors teach the basic stick strikes as well as unarmed techniques of arnis. But I beg to differ. In my curriculum I teach students first the basics of evasions and breakfalls. 2 most important techniques you need in order to survive a violent street encounter are breakfalls as well as evasion. smile

ha ... ukemi ... without ... I would suffering pains all over my body after being slammed on the ground ... It reminds of the fact that at times, when someone is about to throw me, I usually try to hug them ... if I can't ... ukemi and red plams would work ... sweatdrop

in the adult classes i have yet to do break falls(i do know how to do it thought but i learned it like most things i learn ,the hard way, i think i finally figured out how to breakfall about the 12th time i had fallen of my bike for one reason or another[not when i first learned how to ride a bike but the 12th time i had been doing something stupid on my bike that resulted in a fall]) but my instructor teaches break falls to the childrens classes (mabey i just miss the days he teaches it to the adults which would be my luck)

I can't speak for all arts, but I've noticed how no one has discussed how important breakfalls are as a courtesy to the person you are practicing with. If you do not "go with the technique" as the term is often used in Aikido, the other person cannot learn to feel what the technique is supposed to feel like. This is where breakfalls come in. If you can do a good breakfall, your partner can go more full out on you and be able to practice better, knowing that you can take the technique.

I'm not sure if it should be taught in all arts, though I think breakfall itself is a very important part of fighting.

The first thing we teach our students is breakfalling, small ukemi first, nice, easy and simple. This is however, not simple at all. It took me 6 months to be able to do a backwards ukemi properly. The big ones come after.

Also something interesting my sensei once said is that the better ukei you are, the better you will be at the technique. If you learn to relax and take the technique, it gives you an opportunity to truly feel out what the technique feels like and in return, you will learn faster. So it goes both ways.

If you guys want to see some ukemi's, go to www.isshinkan.com. I've put in a video on the front page that can be watched with Windows Media.

I know what you mean and to a certain extent, we do that in Aikido too, except the larger throw with the joint lock happens in regular practice and not as much in demos. What you see in the video is basically what's called a randori, a free flowing demostration of techniques consecutively. That's why there were no joint locks in this particular video.