In my view, the Uechi kata are replete with throws and takedowns, and they present myriad opportunities to fight from the ground up. But you won't ever learn that if you don't first learn how to survive a trip to the ground and back. Because of that, ukemi is a requirement in every test I give in my dojos.
That being said, I often tell people in my classes that learning how to fall may be one of the most useful things they take away from a class in martial arts. Even if they never learn to be a warrior (of doom), all eventually fall in their lives. Falls in fact are a major cause of death in the elderly, leading to hip fractures. At a certain point in life, a hip fracture is the beginning of the end.
Coco Crisp of the Boston Red Sox is the master of acrobatics when running for an outfield fly ball. In case you haven't seen his Superman antics, here's a classic.
That leaping catch ended an inning and saved a game. But Coco is human like the rest of us, once he's left the ground. What goes up must come down. And Coco engages in these acrobatics because he knows how to fall once having achieved his objective. The goal is to do a Superman-like slide with arms forward and elbows slightly bent, and AVOID THE FACE PLANT. When first teaching this, I used to call it a Pete Rose slide in honor of the man who made the face-forward slide into a base his Charlie Hustle trademark move.
In the second game of a Tigers vs. Red Sox double header last Wednesday (May 17), Erik Hinske showed the Fenway faithful how painful life can be without such skills. I heard about the catch when listening to the game on XM radio. The announcer said that Hinske dove for the ball, caught it, and then proceeded to plant his face into the dirt of the warning track. It was about half a minute before he got back up again, amazingly with the ball still in his glove. Naturally the fans loved it. He did however have quite a bit of dirt to extract from his mouth.
Hinske showed just how tough he was by hitting a key home run later on in the 7th inning. In his own words, the second hit felt better ''because it didn't hurt.'' I'd say that's a big Duh!
Well the local NBC affiliate has a Red Sox fan as sportscaster. Last Sunday night he played a few videos of the week, and Hinske's catch was one of them. We got to see it 3 times - in painful slow motion. The body hits/slides, and then an unprotected head/face bounces off the warning track a few times. Ouch!
There is a right and a wrong way to do this, and you can learn such skills in a martial arts class. Maybe if I have my way before I meet my maker, ukemi will be a Uechi Ryu standard and requirement.
Sure it's cool to get a standing ovation later on for your heroics. But it's a lot more fun getting those ovations when you are the hitter and not the hittee.
- Bill
......When I did aiki the Ukemi where a a lot harder to do.......I learned all the flying stuff, the Shihonage flip over etc....but eventually some folks started to show me better ways to land.the arm is never used to Whack the floor.it's more of a conduit...or a link to the floor so that energy can kind of dissipate.and as you say muscles must be tensed.I used to bend my left leg at the knee for a hip throw.so that I knew that my left foot would land first.usually no harder than stamping your foot on the ground ...in sport aiki they are masters of the back breakfall and let their legs straighten up to almost a shoulder stand postion.Where as in traditional you would roll backwards 
(There were also those foot stomps that left people with broken toes.) That's all fine and good if you stick with the program. However, he would sometimes "goof." Those impromptu "goofs" really brought my yakusoku kumite up to another level as I taught him. I now "goof" myself a lot with students who try to block something before I've thrown it.
