Learn to Fall

Learn it

Stand everyone in a circle on the mats and demonstrate one perfect fall. Hop rather than climb: they need to see the shape, not the height.

• Land on your feet, knees bent.
• Cross your arms over your chest.
• Roll onto your backside, then onto your back.

Then say the thing that matters most: never put your arms back to catch yourself. That is how wrists and forearms get broken, and that instinct is what you are training out of them today.

Apply it

One demonstration to the whole group, then two circles of five, a coach in each.

Every athlete demonstrates a fall on the ground, and you keep going round until you have seen a good one from everyone rather than from most. That only works at five. A circle of ten is nine children waiting their turn inside a ten minute block, and half of them go unwatched.

Then move to the wall, still in halves, and have them fall from progressively higher, finishing above head height.

Enforce it for the rest of the session and the rest of the term: discourage downclimbing, ask for high falls, so the landing is automatic before it is ever needed.

Demonstrate understanding

• Arms cross without being told.
• Knees bend on contact rather than landing stiff.
• They will let go above head height by the end of the class.

If the concept isn't sticking

Arms still go back. Return to the ground and slow it down. Start them with arms already crossed before they hop.

They will not fall from height. Do not push it. Lower the height until they will and build back up. A child talked into a fall they were not ready for takes a month to get back.