The Most Valuable Technique I Know

I tell my students that ukemi, aka breakfall,—the art of falling safely— is the most valuable martial arts technique I know.

That probably sounds strange when you consider that I've spent most of my life training in wrestling, judo, BJJ and MMA. We spend an enormous amount of time learning how to do things to another person: punch them, kick them, throw them, take them down, pass their guard, submit them. We spend years developing increasingly sophisticated ways to control another human being. So saying that the most valuable technique I know is how to fall can sound a little strange.

But I mean it.

The Bathroom

Years ago, I lived in a tiny bungalow with an equally tiny bathroom. It was a classic galley-style bathroom, just long enough for a sink, bathtub and toilet, with a narrow aisle running between them. Across from the bathtub, underneath the window, was an old-school cast-iron radiant heater.

One morning I had gone to an early open mat session. When I got home, I was getting ready to take a shower and noticed that the bathroom was unusually clean. I immediately suspected that my wife had just cleaned it, and I was right. She had cleaned the bathtub and removed the rubber traction mat that normally sat on the bottom. When she put it back, she hadn't pressed the suction cups down firmly enough to create a good grip.

I turned on the water and stepped into the tub. As soon as both feet were in, I took a step forward and the mat slipped underneath me. The edge of the bathtub caught me across the back of my calves and sent me backward.

Unfortunately, I wasn't falling into an open bathroom. I was going straight toward the window and the cast-iron radiator underneath it.

There wasn't time to think about what to do. I didn't have time to reach for something or consciously work through a technique. I just fell, and my training took over. I tucked my chin and performed a back breakfall.

I still hit the radiator. Even with my chin tucked, the back of my head scraped across the radiator fins and opened up a pretty nasty cut. But I didn't land directly on the back of my skull. I distributed the impact across my body, ended up on the bathroom floor, and was still conscious and able to get up.

I was soaking wet, bleeding and scared out of my mind. My heart was racing, and I remember lying there thinking about what had just happened.

I knew I had just escaped something potentially catastrophic.

Now, I can't prove that ukemi saved my life. Obviously, I can't prove what would have happened if I hadn't performed the breakfall. Maybe I would have hit the radiator differently. Maybe I would have suffered a serious injury and survived. Maybe I would have gotten lucky. I don't know.

What I do know is that I was falling backward toward a cast-iron radiator with no ability to control where I was going, and the response that came out of my body was one I had practiced thousands of times.

At the time, it felt like one of those cheesy Final Destination movies where you suddenly realize how close you came to something terrible. Except this wasn't a movie. I was lying there on the bathroom floor, dripping wet and bleeding, thinking about what might have happened if I had simply thrown my head backward.

That experience made me think about where that response came from in the first place.

Judo Taught Me How to Fall

When I first started judo, I had to wait about three months before I was allowed to participate in randori - live sparring.

That may seem like a long time to someone coming from a different martial arts background, but looking back, I think it was one of the best things that could have happened to me.

For those first three months, I practiced ukemi constantly. I did solo breakfalls, and I spent a lot of time being thrown by senior black belts. I wasn't just learning how to perform a throw. I was learning how to receive one.

And I got thrown a lot.

In fact, I had been tossed around so much by the time I was finally allowed to do randori that being thrown didn't really bother me anymore. I had already experienced it hundreds of times. I knew what it felt like to lose my balance, leave my feet and hit the mat. More importantly, I had learned that I could relax and let the technique work rather than instinctively fighting the fall.

That's a much bigger lesson than it sounds.

When people suddenly lose their balance, their first instinct isn't necessarily a good one. The instinct is often to tense up, reach out with the hands or try desperately to stop the fall. Unfortunately, those reactions can sometimes turn a manageable fall into a much worse one.

Ukemi teaches you another response.

Relax. Protect the head. Control the body. Distribute the impact.

That response has to become something you can do without thinking because when you're actually falling, you don't have time to intellectually work through the mechanics.

It Changed How I Approached Randori

There was another unexpected consequence of those three months.

By the time I was finally allowed to participate in judo randori, I had absolutely zero ego about being thrown.

That was very different from my background in wrestling.

I had spent years wrestling and competing tooth and nail every time I stepped on the mat. Getting taken down meant something. You fought like hell to prevent it, and if somebody put you on your back, you immediately tried to reverse the situation.

That competitive mindset served me well in wrestling.

But I entered my first judo randori with a completely different attitude.

I was relaxed. I was playful. And I wasn't particularly concerned about getting thrown.

I'd already been thrown by senior black belts for three months. What were they going to do to me that I hadn't already experienced?

That gave me an unusual freedom as a beginner. I could experiment. I could attack. I could try something, get thrown, get back up and try something else. Getting thrown wasn't a failure that needed to be avoided at all costs. It was part of the learning process.

I think that was one of the first times I experienced the difference between training to win and training to learn.

And ironically, learning how to fall gave me the freedom to become much better at throwing.

We Spend a Lot of Time Learning How to Hurt People

Martial arts naturally focus our attention on offensive skills. We want to learn how to punch harder, kick better, throw someone, take them down, pass their guard or finish a submission. Those things are exciting, and they are obviously important if you're training for combat.

But falling is part of the deal.

If you train judo, you're going to get thrown. If you wrestle, you're going to get taken down. If you train BJJ, you're going to get swept. If you train MMA, you're going to hit the ground in ways you didn't necessarily plan on.

So one of the first things I want a martial artist to learn is what to do when they lose control.

That's really what ukemi is. It isn't just learning how to fall onto a mat without looking awkward. It's learning how to respond when gravity wins. You learn to protect your head, manage your body position and distribute the impact rather than allowing one vulnerable part of your body to absorb everything.

And that has value far beyond martial arts.

Falling Is Not Just a Martial Arts Problem

I recently came across an article in the Wall Street Journal about programs in Europe that use judo-based fall training with older adults. The programs teach people how to fall backward, sideways and forward, how to protect the head, and how to avoid instinctively reaching out with the hands during a fall. The article describes ukemi as spreading the impact over as large an area as possible while keeping the body relaxed.

That makes perfect sense to me.

We spend a lot of time trying to prevent people from falling, and obviously strength and balance are important parts of that. But eventually, almost everybody is going to fall. The question then becomes what happens when you do.

That's a surprisingly important question as we get older. The article points out that balance begins to decline around middle age and that falls become a major source of injury, particularly among older adults. Judo organizations in the Netherlands and Sweden have even developed programs specifically designed to teach fall skills to people who aren't martial artists.

One of the ideas in the article really stuck with me: we teach people to swim because we recognize the value of knowing what to do in the water, so why wouldn't we teach people how to fall?

I think that's a pretty good question.

The Best Technique Is Sometimes the One You Hope You Never Need

There's something interesting about ukemi compared with most of the techniques we teach. If I teach you a takedown, I want you to eventually use it successfully. If I teach you an armbar, I want you to recognize the opportunity and finish it. If I teach you a punch, I want you to know how to deliver it effectively.

Ukemi is different. The ideal outcome is that you never need it outside of training. It's a little like wearing a seatbelt. You don't put it on because you expect to crash. You put it on because you recognize that if something unexpected happens, you want to have prepared for it beforehand.

You don't practice falling because you expect to fall down your stairs tomorrow. You practice because falls happen. People fall off ladders, trip over curbs, fall off bicycles, lose their balance, get knocked down playing sports and occasionally do something as stupid as step onto a wet rubber mat in a bathtub. And when the unexpected happens, you don't want to be learning how to respond for the first time.

That morning in my bathroom, I didn't consciously decide to perform a technically correct back breakfall. There wasn't enough time. I fell, and years of training produced a response.

That's the real purpose of practice.

We don't practice something thousands of times because we expect to consciously think through every step when we eventually need it. We practice until the skill becomes available when we don't have time to think.

I've Taken Thousands of Falls

I've been thrown in judo, taken down wrestling, swept in BJJ and hit the ground in MMA more times than I could possibly count. Most of those falls were completely unremarkable. That's what good training does. You fall, you get up and you keep training.

That bathroom fall is the one I remember. It reminded me that the skills we practice in a martial arts gym don't necessarily stay in the gym.

I've spent most of my life learning techniques that can hurt people. I've learned how to put people on the ground and how to keep them there. I've learned how to strike, submit and control another person. Those are a huge part of why I love martial arts.

But the older I get, the more I appreciate the skills that keep us safe. I still can't say with certainty that ukemi saved my life that morning. I don't know what would have happened without it, and nobody ever will. But I know what happened because I had it. I hit the radiator, cut my head, scared the hell out of myself and then got up off the bathroom floor.

And I think there's something else that experience taught me. Learning how to fall didn't just teach me how to survive a fall. It taught me not to be afraid of falling in the first place.

That lesson started in judo, when I spent three months getting thrown by people much better than me until being thrown stopped feeling like failure. It followed me into randori, where I discovered that I could be relaxed and playful instead of treating every exchange like a wrestling match. And years later, when I unexpectedly went flying across my bathroom, that same training was there when I needed it.

That's why I still tell my students that ukemi is the most valuable martial arts technique I know.

Not because it's the most impressive technique. Not because it wins fights. Not even because it necessarily looks like much. It's valuable because eventually, you're going to fall.

And when you do, you want your first instinct to be the right one.