Where's the grace?

For the past few weeks, students, and sometimes the Sensei, have been practicing jiyuwaza (freestyle techniques) after class. Last Friday I took uke (attacker) for Roland Sensei, and had a terrible time of it. It was ryotemochi (grabbing both hands), and after just a few throws, I was getting confused, grabbing the wrong hand and doing sloppy flips.

Today was a bit different. I'm not saying my uke today was stellar, but it was a marked improvement over last Friday. The attack was yokomen, and my uke was much cleaner and my flips better. Perhaps I wasn't so worried about taking uke this time, or maybe I wanted to make up for embarrassing myself last time.

However directly after I took uke for Sensei, he had me take uke for David, a brown belt. I hung in there and David threw me seven or eight times. But after that, Sensei called out "Shite uke kotae!" ("Shite and uke switch!"). At this point I was dead tired and couldn't think of any techniques. But I ran on instinct and just tried to let my body remember some of the jiyuwaza techniques I've practiced before. I went through four or five throws before I had to start repeating the same techniques. I think I made some up along the way as well.

Roland Sensei gave me some good advice about doing ukemi in such a way as to be able to get to my feet earlier. If I keep my legs straight and slow down the flip, I can then use my arm to both cushion my fall and push myself back up again. Right now I turn quickly in the air and just kind of crash into the mat and it takes a lot of time and energy to get back up. I basically need to introduce grace to my ukemi because right now, there's a severe shortage.