Breakfalls

I had another thought here: for non-sport/combat use, I think being able to roll without using your arms is much more beneficial. The most extreme (in terms of how important it is to not drop/damage what you are carrying) example that I can think of would be if you are out somewhere with a child in your care and have to pick up the child & run from the area for whatever reason. If you trip while running with the child, being able to turn that into a forward roll that doesn't smoosh the child would be much better than trying to quickly free up an arm to do the arm contact forward roll.
This would also apply to situations where you are carrying a child normally (not running/sprinting away), and happen to trip.

A less extreme example would be if you are carrying groceries/etc and trip--being able to roll out without damaging whatever you are carrying would be nice.

I think if you have both hands full and try to quickly shift to hold whatever it is with just one hand to do the arm-contact roll, you would be much more likely to drop the thing/mess up the timing of the roll (I assume most people don't practice quickly shifting something they are holding in both hands into just one hand while mid-trip and then doing the roll correctly).

 

Did something similar that at an apple orchard about 15 years ago, with my arms full of apples. A bee came straight at my face, I ducked, stepped in and depression in the ground, fell over, did a shoulder roll and stood up. did not drop a single apple. Also did something similar falling down the stairs onto a concrete floor, but I dropped everything I had. I would have been ok if it were not for the metal support beam I ran into. Just got a few bruises there.

 

Its kind of crazy to me how much difference there is in damage taken by someone who falls poorly vs breakfalling/rolling, and how little training it actually takes to get to a point where you can breakfall/roll off an accidental fall. At least, you can do it well enough to noticeably reduce your chances of injury. I've slipped a few times since starting to train falls/rolls. The first time, if I remember right, was just a few months after I started training. I had practiced maybe 5-10 minutes at a time for ~10 classes; less than 2 hours total. And it was just automatic; I didn't think about it or anything, just slipped and did a proper breakfall off it. It was surprising to me how automatic it was.

I wonder why they don't teach falling properly in any physical education curriculums in school, at least as far as I'm aware? Seems like it would be a useful thing to teach.

 

It was automatic when I fell, and I had been out of Jiujutsu for over 30 years.

 

This just popped up on Facebook, and it's a good point about ukemi.

Ukemi is partially about helping people learn how to throw harder/better, poor ukemi means poor throwing skills.