Guest Blogger – My Hubby
Ray taught karate for almost 30 years and knows a thing or two about both getting and avoiding injury.
Ray, Take it over:
The cat has it right.
I’ve seen lots of adults be petrified of falling. I ask you, when was the last time you really fell … to the ground? Generally, it’s been quite a while since most adults have fallen. It is really scary if you have not done it in a long time, and, it all happens really fast.
The problem of course is not the fall it’s the injury caused by it.
In general, the principle of falling is to fall onto your body as a whole and not reach out a limb to stop your fall. When most people fall, their impulse is to project their arms and catch themselves. You want to avoid that and instead land partly on the forearms in conjunction with the rest of your body. Think absorb rather than avoid.
It’s simple physics, there is a fixed amount of energy in your falling and you need to spread it over as much area as possible so one part of your body does not absorb most or all of that energy.
If you are falling forward, fall onto your arms and body . To do this, keep your arms back in line with the front of your body and make sure both hit the ground at the same time.
If you are falling backward, plan on falling onto your back and don’t try to twist and project an arm to stop you from falling.
All bets are off if you are going to fall onto something or hit your head. then you probably need to make the trade-off to break your arm to save your head. If you are going to fall on something that will impale you, ditto.
Cats can easily fall ten feet or more without injury. They land on their legs and body and walk away from the fall.
Learn from them.