Thanks, Dragonking. I hope I can keep it up!
I'd like to ask other aikidoka here their opinion about something.
I had an accident in class today, a pretty serious one, although so far I've declined going to the hospital, as the symptoms haven't got any worse.
We were doing a line and it was my turn to be uke. I came in with what I thought was a committed attack; I suddenly found myself in a position from which there was no safe way for me to fall, and I went down on the mat, and hit the back of my head, hard.
I got a headache that lasted about ten minutes, went away, but now, 12 hours after the fact, it's come back.
I talked to the guy who threw me after class, and the outcome of the conversation was that the hard fall was my fault; what I thought was a committed attack was a "push/pull" attack that caused him to react aggressively. His leg was hooked behind me so I couldn't do a backward roll, and since I can't do either ushiro toshi or ushiro my yoko kaiten, I went straight down into the mat, on my tailbone (which I always try to avoid doing) and because my head had snapped back from the kokyo ho, my head, of course, hit the mat.
A couple of the other students also said the hard fall was my own fault.
I've practiced with all these people before and they know that I have limited ukemi skills.
I wasn't aware I was doing "push/pull" so obviously that's something I need to work on, but my question is, was nage right in throwing me so hard I got hurt just because I made a mistake? Other students watching also said that if I was in a position from which I couldn't roll out or fall safely, that it was my own energy that put me in that position, and so it was still my fault I fell so hard.
Right now I'm scared to death to take any ukemi at all, which means I won't be making any committed attacks. In fact, I'm so scared I'm not sure I even want to go back on the mat.
What do you think?