learning to fly – and fall: Even if you are a grappler who generally avoids standing position in favor of ground work, at some point you are going to get picked up and thrown hard into the mat – there is no getting around this. Learning to take the impact of a hard throw and get back into grappling with minimum fuss and interruption is very important. Failure to absorb the impact well will at best leave you discombobulated and easy to attack in the immediate aftermath of the throw and ; at worst, get you some time in hospital. Beginners are usually taught some simple solo drills that do a good job of showing how to distribute the impact on to a big surface area of the body and direct that impact onto parts of the body well suited for hard impact – that is what will protect you from harm. At some point however, you have to go beyond the solo drills and actually get thrown if you are to be able to apply your knowledge under the pressure and stress of hard competitive sparring. I know many people who look great doling their solo break fall drills but who fall badly in actual match conditions. The best way for beginners to bridge the gap between the basic solo drills and real world hard throws is to start with one or both knees on the floor and have a standing partner throw you repeatedly so that you get the feel of being thrown fairly hard by real throws but fall only half the distance of a real throw and thus take less than half the impact (because you never fully leave the ground). This is a good way for beginner athletes to get to the next level of confidence in taking standing throws that can help people who started the game later in life and simply aren't used to getting thrown in a competitive match. Once this becomes easy for you it will be a lot easier to move on to being thrown from full standing position and your overall safety in hard training will be improved.
