Mae ukemi and ushiro ukemi study

I thought I embed here an old video study of mine where I compare mae ukemi with ushiro ukemi.

I took a mae ukemi recording and reversed it so it became ushiro ukemi (with one slight difference, I wonder if anyone finds it ;) ). Then I took the ushiro ukemi recording and made mae ukemi out of it.

The two rolls are very similar, really. One of them is the roll forward, the other is the roll backward. If you consider the principles of rolls you need to do exactly the same thing, only in reverse. So "shoulder to bum" roll becomes "bum to shoulder" if you switch from forward roll to backward roll. You need to form a small ball or circle both when rolling forward and backward, that will make the roll safe, and the energy used efficiently. So it's almost the same thing yet you may need different exercises to build up the ukemi knowledge because of the different direction of the rolls. I had found ushiro ukemi much harder for a long time, although my mae ukemi was at least as "undeveloped", causing some bruised elbows and shoulders, sometimes knees as well. Then I realised that they are just the other side of the same coin, but I had to have some more knowledge about them to realise this. I don't think I would have understood that the two aikido rolls are the same even if Sensei had told us 5 times every training. Nevertheless, I have recently started to teach rolls in the kids' aikido class in a way that they have to roll forward and, immediately after that, backwards. This way the body has the memory of rolling one way and if you don't know how to roll back (or forth) but know the other roll, you will still be able to improve.

Have a look at the video, maybe it helps your ukemi studies (in case you need any help at all). If not so much, let me promote our Mae ukemi and Ushiro ukemi instructional videos here. Connor is much more thorough than me when it comes to explaining bits and details of techniques and movements. Enjoy.