Secrets from Martial Arts to Fall and Get Up Again with a Smile!
I believe everyone should learn how to fall so they can get up again with a smile.
I see fall prevention classes. This is a good thing. Except, they often teach as if we have time to make a plan on how to fall. But that is not how falling works. Our reflexes react before we even recognize we are falling.
Falling is a Physical Literacy
Learning to fall is a physical literacy that should include the following:
How to get up off the floor (especially when parts of you are stiff or sore).
How to manage your environment to reduce the risk of falling.
Learn movement habits that reduce the risk of falling
Build better reflexes so your first reaction is a good one.
In martial arts like aikido and judo, we learn reality-based movement strategies to fall safer. One of the first things you learn in these arts, is to develop better reflexes and to use yourself better so falls are more controlled and protect you better.
Secrets from Martial Arts to Fall Safer
One of the secrets from aikido that is a gamechanger to falling well is how you manage the relationship of your pelvis to the ground. First, your pelvis is closer to the ground than your head. Learning to reflexively lower your pelvis changes the heigh of your fall and reduces the speed of your body meeting the ground. Second, learning to direct movement from your pelvis creates a more dynamic sphere of balance that can absorb slips and stumbles. Brittle balance is created by treating your body like a broomstick, where small wobbles can break your balance, sending your head towards the ground.
Resistance is Futile and Hard on Your Body
Fall Prevention classes focus on avoiding the fall. It can set up a mindset to resist falling. One of our earliest reflexes when falling as a baby is to throw out our hands, arch our back and neck and extend our feet. While this reflex disappears around 6 months, I see it in clients who throw out their hands to brace themselves during a fall. Resisting a fall sets you up to get hurt.
Another secret from aikido is when you fall – go with the fall. You could call this agreeing with gravity. But there are skills to learn to fall safer when you go with the fall. After practicing falling for over 12 years and teaching falling for 6 years, I have learned some things I would like to see practiced more broadly.
I recently watched a great video showing students practicing a crumple roll – the falling strategy is to crumple like links in a chain to fall safely. As I watched, I also saw that each student bounced their head off the crashmat as they fell. Great activity but bad reflex to develop. The next time they fall on a sidewalk, they may try a crumple roll and bounce their head off the concrete.
Bad outcome for a fall.
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