Advanced ukemi (break fall) exercises...

[Darkslide632]

The hand slap is VERY useful for preventing elbow and wrist injuries caused by people trying to catch themselves and thereby spiking their elbow or whatnot. This is especially true on concrete.

This is really the key here. The slap doesn't do much other than help prevent people from reaching, as long as everything hits the mat at once and the impact is spread out over a wide surface.

I am going to put together the rest of the video, which consists of basic ukemi, and you will notice that slapping the mat plays a HUGE part when learning to do front break falls. You need to consciously make an effort to slap the mat when doing front falls, otherwise you end up screwing it all up.

I should be able to post the basic ukemi video a little later on.