on falling

[edenfalling]

I remember virtually nothing from my two half-hearted attempts to learn karate -- just enough to fake sounding competent when writing action scenes, apparently -- but the one thing I managed to ingrain into muscle memory is how to fall.

That comes in handy every now and then, like this evening at work. I had climbed onto a desk to open the timer that controls our window lights (it's broken and must be triggered manually, but fire codes don't allow us to keep it open, so we have to reopen it every day) but when climbing down, my foot hit the edge of the stool rather than the center, and I'd mopped the floor not fifteen minutes before that. The stool skidded forward, my foot went back, and I slammed to the floor.

I was actually surprised, when I sat up, to realized I'd tucked and rolled more or less instinctively. Which is a nice change from the dangerous flailing I used to do. :-)

I'm going to ache like anything in the morning, though; I can feel it already.

Comments

[tjalorak.livejournal.com]

Yup. Possibly the most useful thing to learn from any martial arts. I know one guy who tripped into a ditch with lots of equipment in it. Instinctively did a break fall. Still hurt like heck since something banged into his face and he had to have some cosmetic surgery but he didn't have broken bones, didn't hurt any of his major areas...

Glad to hear you're okay (if sore).