For home practise

Hey all,
I am just startig out in jujutsu. I have one lesson of one hour per week. I don't think this is really enough, so I will try to train at home. I have a lot of trouble with breakfalls, so I don't know what to do about that at home. Would a bunch of pillows do the job of protecting me? Is there a special mat that will break my fall, one I could use at home?

Thanks in advance!
RogierH

I found my mats on ebay. Check it out or any martial arts sites.

If you're new that I'd be weary of practice breakfalls at home. It just takes one bad fall to injure you pretty severely. I was teaching some throws with a 2nd dan once, he didn't do the fall correctly and was out for two weeks with an injured knee.

Pillows would be a bad idea, they are too soft and will slide around, as well as not being uniform. Try finding an old mattress or something.

Be very certain that what you practice is what your instructor is teaching!
I hate it when a new student goes home, full of idealism, spends the next few days practicing what they think I taught them, then when they come back i have to spend time getting rid of the faults they've praciticed to perfection.
It's the same when I get black belts from other styles, the time it takes to get rid of the rubbish, sometimes it would be quicker to put them back to white belts and make them start again.

Thanks for the replies!

It's more that need to overcome the fear of falling than proper technique. (At least that's what my teacher says.)

By the way, Prof. Akers, when someone comes in from another style, isn't it mandatory that they start with a clean slate with you?

I'll field that one. It depends on how traditional the teacher is. If it's very traditional class then the instructor will make someone from another style start over. (I was a Soo Bahk Do white belt with a 3rd dan in Karate.) Non-traditional teachers don't do that, I'm actually assistant teaching Tae Kwon Do right now and have no official rank in it.

Sport clubs also wouldn't do that. It wouldn't be fair or fun to either party to go to a tournament and fight as a low rank when you've got a black belt in another style.

Webmaster (Robsco, I think,) do you have the ability to ban IP addresses on your forum. The previous poster has never posted a single credible sentence. Spam makes forums annoying.

Hey Ninja,

No doubt it's not a static IP being used, don't worry tho, we'll soon see less of them when I get a bit of time to develop something.

Well that's his/her posts gone, just need to spend a bit of time neatening things up now. :o)

:-) Now we can have real martial arts discussions.

Aah Robsco, you kick my azz! :(

you really need mats to use.. you could use a matress as has been mentioned but then that will be too soft and your not going to get the feel of a real fall so it wont really help all that much. A good mat is about as close as your going to get to practicing a real fall without having to worry about doing too much damage.

RogerH, if someone comes from another style and they have a valid grading book (providing they have say a 4th kyu or above) why should I discount all that time and money they spent getting there.
I was invited to a shotokan school to see what they did (3rd dan at that time) I lined up and the instructor came over and ery embarrassed asked me quietly if I would go down the bottom with the white belts as I wasn't graded in their style!
I did.
I stumbled through their katas and marched like a little fat robot up and down the room, then we got to kumite.
End of.