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I agree that practicing controlled falls is an excellent way to reduce the risk of a bad falls instead of letting your fear keep you from trying anything new. I also agree with many of the others who say that the worst falls are not from jumps, but from catching an edge, either in the ice or on another blade. Your body keeps going while your foot stops, so there is no way to break your fall. But you can have those falls just doing nothing, like my favorite, where I'm thinking, Hmm. . . What should I practice now? and I absent mindedly catch a toepick in the ice and fall straight forward!
I also think it's extremely important to learn the individual skills that lead up to the new jump (or spin or spiral, etc.) that you are trying to master. Learn the takeoff without the rotation until you feel comfortable with it. Then work on the rotation and landing, either with on-ice exercises or on the harness. Once you are showing control over the individual components, you can put it all together and try the new element without risking a bad fall or being paralyzed by fear (fear increases your chances of freezing halfway into it and having a weird fall). And easy falls on jumps don't even hurt or give you bruises. Relax into the fall and use the momentum to roll with it and get right back up.

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

My falls bother my coach more than they bother me. I've never broken a bone or had a dislocation or a concussion from an on-ice fall (knock wood) but I have had some dillies that necessitated trips to the ER (23 stitches in my chin, groin tear>six weeks on crutches) and a couple of whopper headaches (note to self:take off guards BEFORE stepping on ice). I'd call those bad falls, even if they don't meet the broken/dislocated definition.

But I never cry from the pain. It's not that it doesn't hurt. It's just that usually I'm so surprised by the pain (why?!?) that my first reaction is usually to curse (under my breath) and then I laugh because A) I can picture how silly I looked and B) the horrified expressions on the witnesses are usually funny, especially when seen from upside down.

I make the newbies I teach practice falling and getting up off ice and then the first thing I do on ice is get them to fall down. I think I scared off an adult a couple weeks ago because she didn't come back. But I doubted she would anyway, when upon being asked to sit on the ice, her comment was "No. I'm taking lessons so I don't fall." Fact is, sooner or later, everyone falls and it's a good to know what it feels like before it catches you by surprise.

I'm an adult skater and if I hadn't become really good at falling, I don't think I would have made much progress. Ice is slippery and falling is part of skating. I don't care for big splattering falls but I generally have at least one controlled sitdown each session. Usually I know I'm going down and I just bend my knees and sit! I think adults get hurt more when they are afraid to fall and stay too stiff. They then fall like a tree and crack a head or shoulder. If you get used to falling you develop some reflexes that protect you from most bad falls (bend and sit, chin up and fall like spaghetti on forward falls, bend neck forward on backward falls, shoulder down and roll on sideways forward falls, and just generally getting low and trying to land on a soft parts). The worst falls are the real surprises when you can't prepare for the crash.

Let's see... lately my coaches have been trying to convince me to do "one foot or fall" on those loops. Obviously given the situation, I couldn't do either.

The few times that I've fallen I usually get the loud cheers of my primary coach yelling "YAAAAAY!!! JAZZPANTS FELL!!! JAZZPANTS FELL!!!" (Geez, thanks! No "Are you okay???")

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

It isn't that I'm scared to fall, it is that when I land on my knees I can't walk the next day, and can't skate for a week. If I land on my hip/behind, no problem. But my joints are such that if I manage to land on one, I'm seriously limited in doing anything, let alone skating, for longer than I'd like. My left wrist still hurts from a fall about a month and a half ago, and I didn't even break anything.

Just to clear that up.

Hannah,
Have you tried kneepads? I can't remember if you've participated in the various padding-related threads. Anyway, I always skate wearing the skatingsafe kneepads and I have fallen on my knees while wearing them and felt nothing. I don't wear them for competitions, but just for everyday practice and lessons. I figure, for competitions I'm well-prepared, confident (HAHA!) and strong so I'm willing to forego them.

Anyway, just a suggestion.

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August 22, back on the ice!

Im afraid on falling, if Im beginning a FS session and feel like I would splat all over the place I dont risk it, spins or jumps.

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Tim David's Website

And these ladies and gentlemen are words to live by!!

I just had one of these falls just about two hours ago. I had just done my very first run-through of my new program (mixed bag...some stuff worked and some stuff didn't). I finished and I was just going to skate over to the boards to get my CD. I went right over my right toe-pick and before I knew it I was spread-eagle in the air hurtling towards the ice chest first. Luckily my instincts took over and I pulled my chin up. Otherwise I'd be sitting in the emergency room getting my chin stitched up.

I have tried a couple of different kneepads, but they were both uncomfortable. Then I got lazy about it and didn't look for different ones. When I start jumping in earnest I'll have to find something though.

Glad you are ok!

My instinct on a face-foward is to roll and get an arm up under my head, that's how I cracked a rib in Feb. (Better a cracked rib than a cracked head - I have enough brain damage already - LOL!

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

As a coach, I only have one student I worried about with falling: a fifty-something OB/GYN who's a bit overweight. If he had hurt his hands or wrist, his career was endangered. He's taking a break now, but he was very courageous to start skating again, IMO.

Anyone else falls, I stop and watch without saying anything more than "that's okay." If they don't get up right away, I keep them down and make sure they're okay.

I also tell my students that everyone falls and it's okay. If you're trying something new, like crossovers, you have to expect a few falls along the way. I teach how to fall, and reinforce what they do wrong when they fall. Real beginners, I try to prevent or lessen falls, until they can control their heads.

That said, I took a flop a few weeks ago and banged my head on the ice. I knew it wasn't that bad because I didn't hear the cartoonish-bowling ball hitting the ground sound...Doing nothing more elaborate than demonstrating a forward inside mohawk. I was more embarrassed than injured.

Come to think of it, my last big fall was also on mohawks - straight-line alternating feet ones. That's what I get for showing off the only good footwork move I can do well.

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OK, show of hands now.... How many of you have split your chin on the ice and had it stitched up?

Mine occured when I was tripped by a beginner hockey guy, who fell right at my feet. Even though I held my chin up my whole body was slanted head downward as I fell on his heavily padded body. ( I almost was able to skip over him, but he kicked up a leg when he landed at my feet and tripped me!). It's safer to fall by yourself - dancers beware!

Egads...I am sitting here reading about the chin dives and thinking that would really be bad. I have not hit the chin yet but brings up thoughts such as..... I really like the current placement of my teeth! Eeeek! I am likely to continue to attempt to save myself. Will think chin up if I have warning in the next spill! ahhhhhhhhh!

I have always been taught to curl up in a ball when falling. (keeping the core tight.).

Dallas: I like the placement of my teeth too, that is why I am not in hockey skates. Skate@Delaware has been living proof to tell.

Does cheekbone count? Done that twice on rollerblades but not so badly I needed stitches, just bandaids

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Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

Well it ain't just hockey skates!

Don't know what happened last night but I was stroking around the rink, had a nice gentle gate on backward outsides and POOF! straight down on my backside. Boy did that one rattle my teeth (literally)! Bit the edge of my tongue to (but not badly). No time to react at all.

Did I mention I LOVE my butt pad? No damage, not even sore.

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

My thought as I was going down was, "Darn, no toepicks" Ker-splat! Luckily, I did not have my tongue hanging out of my mouth...and my jaw was closed, AND I did not split my chin (although that would have been a cool scar to talk about). Here it is two days later and I have one heck of a headache but no permanent damage.

At least I stayed on the ice and kept skating...I didn't bail-the psychological trauma would have been harder to undo later on if I had gotten right off the ice (at least for me). When I fell on my flip jump, I had to get up and do it again, at the same speed. It was a fall-off-the-horse-get-back-on type of mentality.

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

I did this right after a lesson several years ago. No one was on the ice... just me and the "ice acne" (yellow dots where the condensation dropped from the ceiling). I was working on forward lunge into back lunge, when yep! I hit one of the ice dots and went straight forward onto my chin. My coach, her then-7-year-old daughter and the manager were the only other people at the rink and they were in the lobby.. so when I saw the blood dripping from my chin, I put my hand over it and walked out into the lobby.

By that time there was enough blood that it was spilling out of my cupped hand.. and my coach's daughter saw me first. She said "You're making a mess on the floor and I'm gonna tell my Mom on you." Fortunately her shreiking was enough to get the manager's and my coach's attention.

We put gauze on my chin and I drove to the nearby doc-in-the-box, who put five stitches in my chin... which wasn't as bad as it sounds.

It healed fairly nicely.. and when the stitches came out my coach -- who used to skate pairs -- celebrated saying "Now you're a REAL skater. Every female pairs skater has one of those little scars. We called them 'skater tattoos'."

So now I wear that little scar (which you can't really see unless you're looking for it.. and if you're looking for it, what are you doing so close?) as a badge of honor.