Why would you *want* to be thrown?

What people don't understand about aikido

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Every time I share my writing about aikido, the martial art I practice, my scenes are received with confusion. I’m happy when someone comments, “this part made sense, but I didn’t understand this other part at all.”

Hey, at least that one part made sense. Yay!

So maybe, gradually, over time I can compile all the little parts that make sense and create a story about martial arts.

But I was surprised by a recent comment. A writer friend asked me, “Why would you want to be thrown hard by the instructor? I don’t get it. Doesn’t that hurt or cause bruises?”

No, generally, if you’re falling correctly, it doesn’t really hurt and it doesn’t cause bruises. But perhaps more importantly, it feels like it would be very hard to do aikido without being thrown.

Being thrown is about half of everything we do in aikido. For most of an aikido class, we are paired up with different classmates, practicing techniques where one person throws the other, then we switch. So you throw (twice), then you fall (twice), etc, etc.

If we get thrown, I don’t know, at least 100 times in an average class, and we train twice a week on average, and I’ve trained for more than ten years, I’ve personally taken over a hundred thousand falls. My guess is more than this. Maybe two hundred thousand. I haven’t been counting.

I’ve gotten noticeably injured from an aikido fall once, out of those hundred thousand times. I was super stiff from travel and didn’t stretch out my back much during warmup, then the first throw of class made something hurt intensely in my neck and shoulders. Perhaps a pinched nerve. But, I had fallen exactly like that hundreds of times before with no injury. Bad luck and not enough stretching caused the problem, not the throw, really.

I’ve injured myself this same way while sleeping a handful of times. I wake up and my spine is screaming. Did I sleep with my head in an awkward position? I don’t know. What I do know is that sleeping seems to be more dangerous than aikido practice. Stretching every morning before I get out of bed seems to help.

Falling onto a mat after being thrown in aikido, if done reasonably correctly, will not hurt and will not cause bruises. We throw beginners very gently until they figure out how to get down onto the mat safely and slowly, then ramp it up as more advanced students are interested in optimizing their falling technique.

Wrist locks, on the other hand, both hurt and cause bruises sometimes. And injuries. I’ve had more minor wrist sprains than any other kind of aikido injury. But they don’t look as scary to an audience.

Post-viral symptoms could be so much more severe than any aikido injury I’ve ever seen, to put it in perspective. Precautions like wearing a high-filtration mask in supermarkets and doctor offices, avoiding large in-person gatherings, washing my hands after being in a public space, and getting fully vaccinated against Covid and the flu, have helped me protect my body and remain healthy enough to continue practicing aikido regularly.

I tend to think about aikido in a fairly objective way. I know falling in aikido isn’t dangerous for me, so I try to make that case. But I think there’s another layer in how many people think about martial arts, and it has to do with gender. (Like everything we talk about here.)

Many martial arts fight scenes in movies are between men. The vast majority of martial arts books are written by men about men. We are accustomed, as a culture, to seeing men in real and fictional physical altercations.

So many men “can’t hit a woman.” MMA has great women fighters now, but I have yet to see a broadcast match between a man and a woman.

I think all kinds of people are subconsciously a little uncomfortable when they see me, personally, getting “roughed up” even in the consensual, productive, safe environment of aikido practice.

And I think it’s because of the way I look.

Can you imagine a 6-foot tall man who looks like he works out talking about being thrown in martial arts, and then a friend asking, “but why do you want to be thrown by the instructor? Doesn’t that hurt?” It seems more likely to me the friend would simply say, “that’s cool.”

I want to make it clear I’m not trying to call anyone out here. I have received these same comments from a lot of people over the years. I understand the question comes from a place of caring and concern, which I appreciate. And I am taking the question as genuine curiosity, and attempting to answer as best I can.

Many aikido instructors (not mine, thankfully) prioritize throwing young men in their aikido demonstrations. This means everyone else spends more time sitting and watching during parts of the class when the instructor is showing and talking about technique. And I like to be involved.

Being thrown is not merely exercise. You can learn a lot about the technique you are practicing by feeling it from the attacker’s perspective. You realize how you could improve your own throw if your partner does something that knocks you off your feet even more effectively. So being thrown by the instructor is a direct way to investigate and learn from a high quality throw.

If you don’t ever get to be thrown by the instructor because of some gendered bias, you miss out on an important way to learn.

If you don’t like to fall, aikido may not be the right sport for you. That’s okay! Everyone is a little different. But for me, falling is an integral part of aikido practice. Although my legs and back may get sore sometimes from the exercise, I want to be thrown, because it’s important to me to be able to participate and learn, and to show that I am skilled and able to be thrown hard.

Thanks so much for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments.

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