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It's the sudden stop that hurts ya. Always roll with a fall. Always. It's why I've never been hurt whenever I fall, I know how to roll and distribute the force of impact.
I use to do stage stunts, of "throwing myself through the windshield" moves because having done judo from 10 through 30, I knew my body, my training, my instinct would work out the landing. Around 50 or so, however, I stopped because I figured that may be it wasn't a great idea to be doing that.
One of the things of how we are trained in our life can be counter to other things. The only PE course I ever received a D in was gymnastics. By the time I took that, I had over a decade of judo and the philosophies are quite counter to each other.
Gymnastics says "fight the fall, fight the fall, fight the fall". Judo says "if you are going to fall, fall while you still have some control". One of the things gymnasts noticed of me, way back then, was that I was conditioned to land without my hands.
In some of my falls at home, I've just grounded down on the knees. I don't think I've ever had a fall that has resulted in a forward breakfall http://cmac-judo.com/_Media/ukemi-mae_med_hr.jpeg , however, and then, there is another thing to it.
Supposedly, one of the life saving techniques if you are choking is to throw yourself on the floor, knock the wind out of yourself.
https://cpr-first-aid.wonderhowto.co...floor-0138354/
Myself, I wonder about the effectiveness with myself since I have been trained to the point of instinct to land on the deck and not knock the wind out of myself.
I use to do stage stunts, of "throwing myself through the windshield" moves because having done judo from 10 through 30, I knew my body, my training, my instinct would work out the landing. Around 50 or so, however, I stopped because I figured that may be it wasn't a great idea to be doing that.
One of the things of how we are trained in our life can be counter to other things. The only PE course I ever received a D in was gymnastics. By the time I took that, I had over a decade of judo and the philosophies are quite counter to each other.
Gymnastics says "fight the fall, fight the fall, fight the fall". Judo says "if you are going to fall, fall while you still have some control". One of the things gymnasts noticed of me, way back then, was that I was conditioned to land without my hands.
In some of my falls at home, I've just grounded down on the knees. I don't think I've ever had a fall that has resulted in a forward breakfall http://cmac-judo.com/_Media/ukemi-mae_med_hr.jpeg , however, and then, there is another thing to it.
Supposedly, one of the life saving techniques if you are choking is to throw yourself on the floor, knock the wind out of yourself.
https://cpr-first-aid.wonderhowto.co...floor-0138354/
Myself, I wonder about the effectiveness with myself since I have been trained to the point of instinct to land on the deck and not knock the wind out of myself.
Actually I'm not sure that's accurate. We learned to throw yourself against the back of a chair, to perform the Heimlich on yourself using the back of the chair and get the food out of your windpipe.
Actually I'm not sure that's accurate. We learned to throw yourself against the back of a chair, to perform the Heimlich on yourself using the back of the chair and get the food out of your windpipe.
Well, if you read the article, you would see they are talking when things get really desperate, such as when there isn't a chair or table handy.
One of my senior neighbors, rather overweight, tripped on a paver stone, fell backwards and broke both his wrists. His wife: What a bad time for him to fall, he hadn't been drinking!
I was involved with a couple alcoholics, some time ago, and sometimes they were fall-down drunks, but never injured. One of my partners even rolled his car over 3X and no injuries. You've heard the stories of drunks falling down stairs and? Well, when you're completely relaxed...…..
I took care of a senior couple in a LTC/Rehab facility that were rear-ended by a runaway gravel truck which had lost its brakes. They were sitting at a stoplight, from an exit ramp off the freeway. Their Dr. told them if they had seen it coming, from their rear-view mirrors, they could have endured even more injuries, as they would have tensed up, perhaps propped their arms up against the dashboard, and 2 broken arms?
But at the same time, when you think you're going to fall, how can you get your mind to say Relax! Relax! And given our automatic reflexes!
Maybe not. My son fell asleep and went off the road, waking up as he hit the rougher side of the road and went onto to the embankment. By then it was too late to do anything but brace himself for the roll. Which he did, bracing his arms holding onto the steering wheel and pushing back hard. The car flipped and came to rest right side up, amazingly. He was able to open the car door and walk away without a scratch. No need to go into all the lessons learned here, but we talked about how he managed that brace, quite a bit. He’s a very strong guy so Zi guess he had that in his favor. I’m not sure I would have had the mindset to even think that fast.
One of my senior neighbors, rather overweight, tripped on a paver stone, fell backwards and broke both his wrists. His wife: What a bad time for him to fall, he hadn't been drinking!
I was involved with a couple alcoholics, some time ago, and sometimes they were fall-down drunks, but never injured. One of my partners even rolled his car over 3X and no injuries. You've heard the stories of drunks falling down stairs and? Well, when you're completely relaxed...…..
I took care of a senior couple in a LTC/Rehab facility that were rear-ended by a runaway gravel truck which had lost its brakes. They were sitting at a stoplight, from an exit ramp off the freeway. Their Dr. told them if they had seen it coming, from their rear-view mirrors, they could have endured even more injuries, as they would have tensed up, perhaps propped their arms up against the dashboard, and 2 broken arms?
But at the same time, when you think you're going to fall, how can you get your mind to say Relax! Relax! And given our automatic reflexes!
The doctor or you or someone has got this story badly wrong. If someone is "rear-ended" while in their car, their bodies would violently impact the BACK of their car seats, not the dashboard! Whiplash (neck) and spinal injuries are the most common from rear-ended type accidents. This is addressed by Newton's First Law of Motion which is (paraphrased) "Bodies at rest tend to remain at rest and bodies in motion tend to remain in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force."
If a person finds themselves in the process of falling down, it's too late to "think" about what to do. This is something you either learned at a much earlier age or you didn't. Unfortunately, it seems that most people didn't learn at an early age to roll when they fall. Do NOT try to "catch yourself". Doing so practically guarantees that you'll break something... wrists, arms, neck, jaw, or whatever.
I learned to fall, roll, and tumble in about the 7th or 8th grade. Our gym teacher was a "tumbling" fanatic. He had everyone in the gym class doing forward ground summersaults, backward ground summersaults, and all kinds of rolls and things on the floor mats. I didn't care much for it at the time, but it has proven to be very valuable over the years.
For example, just about 2 months ago, I was standing on one leg while removing my pajama bottom one morning while about half asleep. Suddenly, I lost my balance as I caught my right foot in the pajama leg as I was extracting the right leg from the pajama while standing on my left leg. As I was going toward the floor on my right side, I used the outside of my right leg (even though it was tangled in the PJ) on the floor to help initiate the rolling motion onto my right forearm and tucked shoulder, and then onto my back. There's no way that I had time to "think" what to do in that split second. If I had tried to "break my fall" by sticking out my right hand to hit the floor, I would likely have broken several bones and perhaps cracked my skull since our floors are concrete with (thankfully) some carpet in the bedroom.
I'm not sure if that's such a great idea. Falling face forward and not bracing yourself can result in serious face, eye and head injuries and fractures when you hit the ground. I think I'd rather break a wrist. There's maybe a good reason our instinct is to brace ourselves when falling. A car accident is probably very different with airbags.
Except that four years ago when I managed to get my arms out, I still broke my nose, humerus, and dislocated my shoulder. My nose and arm are OK, but my shoulder is a mess. Some idiot did a poor job.
When working in a psych hospital, a giant patient threw me across a hallway and it was pure reflex to roll rather than to try and stop the momentum. Didn't break anything but twisted my back (again) and needed chiropractic (again). I don't know where the reflex came from, maybe from breathing out when expecting pain like from an injection or something.
Somehow I doubt that at my current age of 66, it might work as well to breath out and roll.
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