Ukemi Rebuild Plan

Mat Manual companion guide to "Breakfalls That Still Hurt." Print it. This is the six-week rebuild for falls that were learned once and never landed soft.

SAFETY, BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE ☐ The roll never crosses the neck line. Diagonal across the back of the shoulder, head never touching the mat. Any roll that goes over the top of the head stops the session's rolling until the diagonal is rebuilt at kneeling height. ☐ Never post an arm to catch a fall. The slap replaces the post. A post that keeps happening at a given stage means the stage is too high. Drop a stage, do not push through. ☐ Being thrown happens only in class, only with a partner your instructor assigns, and onto the crash mat until the ladder says otherwise. There is no home version of receiving a throw. ☐ Sharp pain, joint pain, dizziness, or pain that is still present at the next class ends the rebuild conversation and starts a medical one. Stop, tell your instructor, get it checked. This plan fixes faults, not injuries. ☐ The thrower controls the landing: sleeve held to the end, pull up on the finish, no added power, ever. If your thrower will not do this, ask your instructor for a different one.

How This Rebuild Works

Your first month taught you the four falls in four stages each: low, lower-middle, higher, standing. This plan assumes those stages are familiar and goes past them. Its stages start at the refresher you need and end where the First Month plan never went: receiving real throws, at full standing height, first onto the crash mat and then onto the standard mat, in motion.

Three rules govern the whole rebuild.

One fault at a time. The diagnostic tables below will probably name more than one fault in your falls. Work them in this order: the neck line in the roll first, the chin second, then whichever fault hurts. A body under speed can hold one correction. Stack three and it keeps none.

Boring is the pass mark. A stage is finished when it is boring: clean reps, no sting, no flinch, no thinking. Not when it has been done once. Not when the week ended.

Comfort is a number, not a mood. Rate every fall after every session on the scale the First Month plan used: 1 is frightening, 3 is controlled, 5 is automatic. The tracker at the back of this plan holds the numbers. Memory will tell you the rebuild is going worse than it is, or better. The log knows.