The theme song of the martial art Aikido might as well be the chorus from Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping.”

I get knocked down, but I get up again

You are never gonna keep me down

I get knocked down, but I get up again

You are never gonna keep me down

In Japanese martial, arts, uke is the person who receives a technique and ukemi is what uke does to safely receive this technique. Unless you are a master instructor with your own dojo and plenty of students, for every four times you are nage (the person doing the throw or pin,) you will be uke (the person thrown or pinned.) When you start learning to fall, there is a similarity to a cardboard box being blown down the road. It doesn’t roll, it bangs along, the corners and edges striking the asphalt hard. Compare this to a ball rolling down the same street. You want to be the ball,  able to do move along without injuring yourself, but also without exhausting yourself. You can’t practice when you’re too tired to stand or you have injure joints or broken bones, especially as one ages.

I’ve been practicing Aikido since April 4th, 1995–21 years, 7 months, 25 days–and I’ve gotten fair at it–falling down, that is.  Here’s some video that was taken mumbledy months ago on the occasion of my sixtieth birthday.

While some translate ukemi as falling or rolling, in aikido it is much more than that. First of all there are some three basic purposes: absorbing the technique without injury, creating distance from nage, and recovering your balance and posture.

In addition, uke has the difficult task of performing a sincere attack while trying to completely forget that he knows the technique that is coming. With a few exceptions, before standing up to practice, both partners have just seen their sensei demonstrate the technique.

Then there is a whole level of deep study involving uke’s connection to nage, a connection that starts while they are still several feet apart and, if done right, continues throughout the technique, and after. When possible, uke does his best to keep his center turned toward nage. This not only makes his ability to absorb the technique easier, it allows him watch for any blows or changes in the technique. Aikido is called a “gentle” art, probably because there is the choice of neutralizing an attacker without inflicting injury, but this is misleading. At a several points through most aikido techniques there are moments where a lethal or crippling blow can be struck, or the nature of the technique can be modified to result in serious injury.  Uke need to be able to see these moments and to be able to respond.

At the other end of the spectrum, there can be moments in techniques, if nage is being sloppy in his execution, where the technique doesn’t work . Uke shouldn’t just fall down when the technique has not taken his balance, and he should also be aware of those moments where he could reverse roles, where the ineffective execution would let him become nage, mid technique.

Last, while one can watch a technique and one can try to replicate it, until one has actually “received” the technique, felt its affects upon their own body and balance, that is where you really begin to learn the technique.

For the last several years, my practice/study of aikido has been about ukemi. Even when learning new versions to techniques, I approach them through the lens of ukemi.

Ukemi is also where most of my physical exercise happens. Done right, aikido is efficient, minimizing the energy required to take a person’s balance, using your entire body against parts of theirs, moving on lines that maximize your effort while disrupting their ability to respond.  If your struggling, muscle to muscle, you’ re not doing it right. And their are efficiencies in ukemi as well. An energetic throw not only sends you away from nage, it may provide the momentum to roll easily back to a standing position. But, this lets me practice harder, coming back to attack nage immediately.

I will admit that one of my guilty pleasures is coming back at nage so quickly that I end up exhausting them from throwing me, a form of “is that all you got?” I’m in good shape, but more importantly, my ukemi is without corners, efficient, active, and aware.

And this is the benefit of aikido practice I see in my life outside of the dojo. The phrase “rolling with the punches” comes to mind. When life throws a left hook at you, it helps if your paying attention, it helps if you get out of the way, and, if you fall down, it really helps if you get up again as quickly as possible.