Recently I attended the Professional Karate Commissions International Championships, in
On the last day of the event, they hold the grand championship rounds, that they call the “Big Dog Finals”. My family and I were sitting in the audience watching the kata, kobudo and kumite rounds. The competition was held on a platform that was probably four feet off of the ground. During one of the kumite rounds, the opponents were in a clash and were close to the edge of the platform and moving fast, the corner judge, got up out of his seat and stood in the way, blocking them from falling off the platform. Of course they ran into him and they were spared from falling off and being hurt. They were called back to the center and the judge went to sit back into his chair, however when he did so, the back legs of his chair fell off of the platform, causing him to fall over backwards. As you can imagine several people jumped up to help, several people yelled and as I got up and headed to lend my assistance, I thought for sure he would be hurt severely.
Instead to my amazement and to that of everyone else in the room, the judge who had went to sit in a chair and had fallen off of a four foot platform backwards, performed a flawless ushiro kaiten ukemi (rear rotary break fall) and came up onto his feet, grabbed his chair sat it back on the platform and climbed back into it. The room was completely silent and all he said was “Oh I’m ok, let’s continue.”
Now believe it or not it is not the first time in the last 38 years that I have seen this same man perform some amazing feasts, some times I thought for sure that he would be dead after the events, and each time he has done some amazing stunt maneuver and survived.
After the match was over I asked him , “Dad are you ok” and his reply was “Yes, son, haven’t I told you 100 times or more why it is important to practice break falls”.
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