How to Safely Fall if You Stumble

safety

Mar 15

Unfortunately, I have taken a few stumbles in my life that hurt longer than they should have, and I consider myself relatively young to be struck so hard, and so often, by a concrete sidewalk!

Fifteen years ago, I was just walking in my neighborhood, and I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, and landed so hard on the opposite leg that my upper thigh muscle reverberated against the bone. That pain crept up my leg, and into the front of my hip. I didn’t walk well for about three months after that tripping accident. I did not see a doctor. I just kept pushing onward through the pain.

Then, perhaps 10 years ago, I was in Manhattan, and I was running on the sidewalk, crossed the street, and then tripped over the next curb. I went flying, and fell hard on my stomach — right where my MacBook Pro was located in my carry bag. The entirety of my weight landed on that laptop bag — thank you Tom Bihn! — and my head was thrust forward by the velocity of my own falling body; and I missed, by inches, smashing my left temple against a low brick wall (that was actually a planter sitting area for tourists).

When I sort of woke myself up, counting the stars in the sky above me as my lucky angels that night, a romantic couple looked down at me from the brick bench, and asked if I was okay. I was grateful for their situational awareness that I lacked. I thanked them for helping me stand up, and I sheepishly continued on my way as I tried to clear my head.

I knew both of those tripping, and falling, episodes were stupid, and avoidable — but I couldn’t quite figure out how I could have done something better to protect myself from the rumble after the stumble.

I have always been haunted by the memory of my mentor, Howard Stein, who lovingly referred to himself as “One of Each.” He had one good kidney, one good eye, one good ear, one good shoulder, and “half a brain.” Cancer took one kidney, as well as his eyesight in one eye, and cancer also caused a hearing loss in one ear.

Late in his life, perhaps 20 years ago, Howard was walking with a friend to see a Broadway play, and he tripped, falling on his shoulder, and permanently damaged his rotator cuff. He did physical therapy to try to rehab his shoulder, but his doctor told him he could only regain full range of motion again through surgery. He opted to not have surgery because, he told me, “I’m too old to throw a baseball.”

Ever since those life-defining falls, I have been searching for a way to exactly learn how to correctly fall if you stumble, or if you find yourself inevitably tripping; and that search has been tough for a resolution, because all the solutions I’ve found so far involve some sort of intimacy with the Martial Arts, or a fight training background.

Those advisements just aren’t reasonable, or rational enough, for those of us old enough to worry about falling; and speaking of being haunted by falling, the death of a beloved high school music teacher years ago back in Nebraska is still a lesson for us all. He was in his garage, on a ladder, and he missed a step on the ladder and fell. He landed on the top of his head, broke his neck, and instantly died. What a painful, and horrible, way to depart this sacred ground!

So, I’ve made it a mission of mine to try and find some shareable, universal, truths about falling, tripping and stumbling — and how best to recover! I know it sounds silly, but to know how to fall right, you sort of have to practice it a little bit. You can find some videos online on falling recovery, but as I said, most of them require some familiarity with fighting, and grappling.

I boil it all down to this — and you can practice this in your home on a carpeted floor, or on a mat, or even in your yard if you have soft ground that won’t injure you — if you begin to feel yourself falling, and if you see the ground coming upon you, roll. Don’t use your arm, or your wrist, to break your fall, you will likely only get a shock-absorber-like injury from that action.

Try to roll over, onto your shoulder if you can, and then try to dissipate the momentum by slapping the ground as you meet it — or it meets you! If you want a clear example of how to land on the ground by slapping the ground, just watch some professional wrestling. Those experts are trained how to fall, convincingly, but safely; they land on their back while slapping the ground with their arms.

Find yourself falling? Try to protect your head if you can, and by that I mean, do everything possible not to let your head hit anything hard if you are going to hit the ground. If you have to use your arm, or your hand, to break your fall, or to protect your head, that’s fine. You’re making one hard decision to avoid a harder consequence later.

I know this is hard to know what to do without actually being in the situation. Fear and confusion play a big role in falling injuries as we age, and to alleviate my anxiety, I often find myself repeating the “I’m on fire"!” matra we have been taught since we were young.

“Stop. Drop. Roll.”

That’s actually sort of how you break a fall and stop a stumble. The stumble part is the “Stop.” Gravity and velocity are going to “Drop” you. Then, do your best to find a way to “Roll” away the energy that wants to stay with your body to injure you. Go with the flow. Don’t fight the inevitable end.

This isn’t easy stuff to know, or practice, and yes, the risk of practicing — even just a little bit — is an invitation to an inadvertent injury; but we do need to find a way to be situationally aware enough to know what to do when the time comes for you.

Yes, we both know there will be a time when we are forced to fall against our wisdom, and our will, but it will be our instinct, and our mind, that will kick in, and help us deal with the momentum of gravity pressing us away from upright, and into a safe-landing position.

Of course, a proper Kettlebell workout will help give you the sturdiness not to fall in the first place, as well as providing you greater strength to get up again if you do take a tumble!