When people first take up Jiu-jitsu, they find the idea of willingly letting someone “beat you up” a little odd. They don’t know whether the idea in being an uke is to be a difficult, resisting attacker to make the applications “more realistic” or whether they should be trying to make it easier for their partners by going to the ground actively for them. As with most things, the secret to being a good uke is somewhere in between.

When your training partner is just starting out, you shouldn’t offer much in the way of “active” resistance as an uke. Attacks that you make on your partner should be slower and done with less intensity so your partner can focus more on learning the defensive techniques without being put under too much pressure.

As a student gains more experience, you can increase the speed and intensity. When your partner strikes you as their uke, protect yourself in a way that won’t interfere with the person’s training. Turn your chin away for strikes around the head/neck area. Breathe out and tense your abdominal muscles when receiving a strike around the midsection. When receiving a strike to the groin, trust in your groin protector and in your partner who will do the strike in a controlled fashion.

When someone is taking you to the ground, try to stay relaxed and focused on doing a proper breakfall to protect yourself. Don’t go to the ground prematurely (i.e. before your partner has properly taken your balance). But don’t actively fight being taken to the ground. In our style, Can-ryu Jiu-jitsu, we use strikes to weaken, distract and/or off-balance a person. If the person lands their strike in the proper location, the throw or takedown comes much more easily when done with real power. You must pretend a little, knowing that as long as the strike was on target, your partner should have been theoretically been able to set you up for the takedown. The reason for this is that it is simply not safe to practice on your partners with full power when connecting on target. Only use active resistance against throws when it is the purpose of the exercise.

When someone is practicing applying a lock, don’t use your strength to resist the application. If your partner knows proper technique and they fight through your resistance, your strength may give out quite suddenly and then you have all that extra force being put into your joint, which could easily result in an injury. If you’re free grappling with your partner, resistance is expected because that is the point of the exercise, but then in that case neither of you are playing the role of uke, so it’s a different situation entirely.

Have fun and play safe everyone!

Tags: training partner | uke