Read JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi for Free Online Page B

about going. His mom was not happy, but after talking with my wife about her two previous expeditions to the same region, and after looking at many photographs of happy indigenous children and towering mountain peaks, even his mom started getting excited for him.
    I gave them a list of the special equipment Christian would need for the journey. Heavy, goose down sleeping bag, expedition-weight goose down parka, top-grade, lightweight hiking boots and at least four pairs of the best socks they could find. These things needed to be purchased here with a long list of other items that could easily total over a couple thousand dollars. The upside of this is that if he took care of these items they could last a lifetime and he could get many years of enjoyment out of them camping in the high Rocky Mountains and hiking almost anywhere.
    I had everything I needed with a few small exceptions. Some logistical juggling was going to be necessary because I intended to bring a much better camera than I did last time. It weighed about three pounds more than my previous one and was quite a bit bigger, but I wanted to take some lifetime photographs on this trip. It might well be the last time I would be able to go to this part of the world and I intended to make the most of it. The juggling was due to the self-imposed weight limit of thirty pounds.
    Thirty pounds of gear is not much when you factor in sleeping bags and three pound cameras. We would wear our hiking boots and carry certain things during the day, but a porter would transport most of our gear for us and I refuse to ask a human being to carry more than thirty kilos. That would be thirty pounds each for Christian and me. We would need certain emergency gear that is absolutely required. We would be as far as five days away by foot from the nearest medical help and a blizzard in the high country could require us to hunker down for several days, so a minimal amount of survival food would be required. We would each carry a light pack with some clothing, foul weather gear, and emergency supplies, but the majority of our gear would be in the hands of our porter and Sirdar.
     
    Break falls require trust. When attacking a powerful combatant we must believe that we will prevail, however if that opponent is strong, centered and has captured our center and energy, it is vital to our survival to escape his intentions. Thus we take ukemi , escape.
    While preparing for this expedition it was necessary to understand the opponent would be the heart of the vast Asian continent near the roof of the world. It would be formidable. Yet there could be no escape. Not from the exposure, the fatigue, the hunger, and especially not from the brigands who are wandering the countryside calling themselves freedom fighters or Maoist revolutionaries. By any other name they are thugs. Still they have been leaving foreigners alone for the most part and if approached money has been sufficient to send them on their way. Call them what you want but they are still thieves. I was far more concerned with problems caused by altitude or a medical emergency.
    We began to implement an exercise program that included ‘hiking’ in full pack up and down the towers at our local football stadium. These towers were about a six percent grade that switch-backed up and ended at the upper deck. From there we would go up the final forty steps that took us to the highest row of seats and then turn around and start down. It took about fifteen minutes to go from the bottom to the top and then back down again. We would do this three, four or five times and we tried to go over to the stadium and do it three times a week. It wouldn’t help to acclimatize us for altitude, but it would help develop stamina and strength needed for the long road. At this point every ounce of preparation is worth many pounds of grief later on. We needed to prepare as completely as we could.
    When learning to take ukemi a person begins by doing simple roll