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A Curriculum for Teaching Falling Skills, Part 1 by The Mirror
This month's "The Mirror" column was written by Janet
Rosen 2014, all rights reserved.

usefulness wouldn't become apparent until after the first

class.

When I started leading a Low Impact Aikido class over three

years ago, there was another curriculum bubbling around in
my mind as well. If Low Impact is Aikido without the falls
and rolls, this would be the flipside: falling, for people not
interested in martial arts.

By the time this column is published, the six week course

will be over. Here, for the benefit of others who may be
interested in leading similar courses, is a very detailed look at
class number one. I look forward to sharing more in my next
column, including outcomes and student feedback.

Many aikidoka say that learning to survive falls in real life is

one of the most valuable skills they gained from their
training. As a longtime RN who's worked exclusively with
frail seniors for over six years now, I've banished "falls
prevention" from my lexicon and encourage other
professionals to do the same. We can mitigate risk but, at any
age, we cannot "prevent" falls. Why not take some of the
lessons from Aikido and apply them to develop a curriculum
oriented to older, cautious adults who don't really want to
learn unbendable arm or big flying rolls but would like some
practical skills?

Seven students enrolled, including a Physical Therapist, an

Occupational Therapist, and a riding instructor. All were
middle-aged, and I'd guess the majority were 60-65. As the
PT noted to me, "this is not a class for our frail elderly - it's
too late for them." I concur. The activity level to learn falling,
even on a soft mat, requires a certain level of fitness even if
one does have bum knees, weak ankles, tight shoulders or
any of the other assorted "dings" we accumulate with the
decades. My approach to the class is pretty well summed up
in how I introduced it at the start of the session:

"There are three main points I want to make before we start

moving around. Number one is, we're all adults here. I have
certain knowledge of how bodies work in general, but I have
no idea how your individual bodies work. So if there's an
exercise or even a particular movement that causes pain or is
a problem for you, STOP. Don't do it. You can find an
alternate that works for you, you can ask me to help you find
an alternate that works for you, or you can quietly sit out that
specific thing.

A few months ago I finally felt ready to proceed, and set up a

six week course, meeting one hour a week. Since it was
being advertised in the last days of winter for starting in midApril, it was titled "Spring Up!: Learning to Survive Falls."

My curriculum was loose in the sense that I had a starting

point, an ending goal, and a long list of potential exercises to
include.

It seemed to me that the root issue for many middle aged

people is not even fear of falling but just plain being
uncomfortable on the ground. At the suggestion of a senior
student, a couple of years ago I had gotten over part of
"favoring" or trying to protect my bum knee by learning to
put my mind at my hip/groin (kua), soften and open there,
simply sink into a relaxed crouch with my butt inches off the
ground and...like a toddler...just sitting down. So the starting
point for the course would be this: having students reconnect
with that childhood feeling of being comfortable enough to
have fun on the ground - a very different model from
standard Aikido or Judo, where people work on falls or rolls
from day one. We would explore movement, coordinated
with breathing, from a variety of positions (front, side, back)
but never move on to the next step until folks were
comfortable with what they had just done.

"Related to that is my second point: you'll hear me talk a lot

today and through the coming weeks about natural
movement and relaxation. So I also want you to stop if
something is creating fear or tension. There are good reasons
for this. If you try to force your way past a lot of fear or
tension, you're more likely to get injured. Also, it's very true
that how we learn is how we end up doing things, so if you
learn to fall or roll with fear or tension, you'll never be really
comfortable falling or rolling. So if buttons are being pushed
by something, don't tough it out. Let me know. We'll work
through it together or give you a break.

"Third, despite the title of the class, you're not really going to
walk out of here after six classes being able to roll and fall
like experts. You'll have some basic skills in your body that
are a good foundation you can build on. To help that, at the
end of each class I'll be suggesting one or two simple
exercises you can do at home, on any soft carpet or mat,
because it's the repetition that makes a difference.

My goal was for students to walk out after six weeks being
able to get into the proper position to fall (whether it was
going forward or backward) and being comfortable doing
simple falls and rolls; that is, a basic foundation for survival.
How each class would go and which exercises to include was
completely up in the air at the start because so much would
depend on the capabilities and attitudes of the people who
enrolled. There were pieces of equipment in the dojo, left
over from when we also offered gymnastics, whose

"There are three types of falls we'll be working on in the

coming weeks: forward, back, and side. Forward is probably
the scariest, so we're not even talking about that yet. Tonight
after a little warming up we'll just practice movements while
sitting on the mat: rolling back and forth on the mat, rolling
side to side in circles on the mat, and finding the best
position for landing on your side."

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Everybody sat on chairs and I watched them stand up and

walk around the mat. I talked them through a guided
visualization as they walked: feeling their feet on the ground,
connecting to hips and tummy (center), aiming their hearts at
the horizon, feeling a string pulling the hair atop their heads
to the ceiling, then looking at all four upper corners of the
dojo. Then we did a warm up, putting large muscles through
their range of motion and sat down. I showed how putting the
mind at the kua and softening/opening would let them sink to
the ground like toddlers, and we began practice.

Watching how they entrusted me with their well-being and

had the courage to try what I asked of them, then seeing their
smiles and getting high-fived by the PT...I felt deeply grateful
to all the people from whom I have "stolen" tips and
techniques and incredibly happy to be part of a chain of
transmission of body knowledge. It's not Aikido but it's
something this nurse was meant to do.

The Mirror" is a collaborative column written by a

group of women who describe themselves as:

Koho Tento - calling it "basic back and forth rolling" - was

my entree to the world of being comfortable on the ground.
But since we would neither be going into backrolls nor
learning the Aikido way to stand straight up from this
position, it served purely as an introductory exercise in being
relaxed down there and in starting to coordinate breathing
with movement.

We comprise mothers, spouses, scientists, artists,

teachers, healers, and yes, of course, writers. We
range in age from 30s through 50s, we are kyu ranked
and yudansha and from various parts of the United
States and styles of aikido. What we have in common
is a love for budo that keeps it an integral part of our
busy lives, both curiosity about and a commonsense
approach to life and aikido, and an inveterate
tendency to write about these explorations.

Circular Side-to-Side Rolling is the on-the-ground version of

how I have done back ukemi since my knee injury over a
dozen years ago. As an exercise, it builds on the work we
started with koho tento, and it prepares them for progressing
to doing it from standing-to-sitting and then from standing,
as well as learning how to use the rolling energy to stand up.
We just did it slowly on the ground in class one, each person
in time to his or her own breathing. I didn't even show them
where it would lead until a demo in Class Two.

Breakfall Position Practice is getting into the correct landing

position, checking key points, then exhaling and slowly
rolling to the other side, rechecking proper positioning, and
repeating several times back and forth. Again, in the first
class we did it as gentle rolling with no impact.

At the end of class, folks were relaxed and grinning - some

had physical trouble with a couple of moves but expressed
pleasure at how well they had done; one had a shoulder
problem that prevented her from going into the ideal
breakfall position but I reassured her we would find a
workable alternative for her.

I was surprised when they clamored for videos in order to be

able to practice at home. One student shot some video but
couldn't figure out how to extract it from her phone, so Stu
and I went to the dojo a few days later and made videos. I
posted them as unlisted (non-searchable) YouTube videos
and am adding to them each week to keep guiding the
students who wanted to work on something in between
classes. They are getting added to each week and you can see
t h e m a t h t t p s : / / w w w. y o u t u b e . c o m / p l a y l i s t ?
list=PLvDyI_M38AerHf5dEOljVVAgi6a5zq9Jz

I had been uncharacteristically nervous waking up the

morning of class one, even had a belly ache. I knew that the
PT who had enrolled had, along with the woman who runs
our local non-profit yoga studio, been teaching falls
prevention to seniors, and that really raised the bar for me.
"Who am I kidding? What can I actually offer these people?"

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A Curriculum for Teaching Falling Skills, Part 2 by The Mirror

This month's "The Mirror" column was written by Janet

Rosen 2014, all rights reserved.

in Aikido. My goal was for there to be a lot of rounded

surface in contact with the ground at each moment rather
than for them to come up to shikko or to stand up quickly.

As I noted in Part 1, while I had a starting point and an

ending goal for my six week course, "Spring Up!: Learning
to Survive Falls," my exact path was unclear at the start.
This was partly because I didn't know who the students
would be, but mostly because my own mind wasn't totally
clear on which exercises would be most helpful at which
point in the process.

One technique we never addressed to our satisfaction in class

was how to train for the sudden forward fall that is too fast
to permit a successful roll (in Aikido, think of a hard, fast
ikkyo takedown; on street, slipping on ice falling forward). I
did have folks practice from sitting and then from slightly
higher positions, as shown in videos 6 and 7 (https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNsE2Sx1qrk), the proper use
of hand-and-forearm as a unit, and of looking out at the
horizon to project forward rather than staring down at the
ground. But we all agreed that the fright factor and actual
risk of injury was too great for students in this course to
routinely practice this technique from a standing position.

I ended up going into the dojo sometimes in the afternoon to

play with gymnastics equipment and get a sense of how to
present the material while striking a good balance between
relaxation and challenge for that evening. The students were
aware that they were essentially guinea pigs for developing a
curriculum. They were game for it and were incredibly open
in their questions and feedback right from the go.

A related question that arose was best practice when falling

while going up stairs. Between myself teaching and the
Physical Therapist and Occupational Therapist participating
as students, we probably had 100 years of professional
experience in the room, so the conversation on the topic was
informed and lively. My take is that the series of hard, right
angles defies a good solution other than throw your forearms
out and keep your head up. Everybody left the course
committed to using banisters each and every time they are
on the stairs.

As it happened, by the middle of the third class I realized I

would opt for a simpler repertoire than expected. I had
taught proper breakfall landing position, thinking this would
be invaluable later on. As it happened, folks had plenty of
opportunities to practice good positions appropriate to the
rolls we were actually doing, and when offering the course
in the future I wouldn't bother to teach this. I would instead
do more rolling off of the elevated mat onto the soft pillow
as seen in video number 10 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=oHZVBVjgMtQ) because the students really found that a
fun confidence-builder.

Midway through the course, it was necessary to me to make a

decision about how to best approach the last piece, falling
from standing up. Going into class four, everybody could
easily go from standing to either squatting or kneeling, then
back into a side roll, and in fact were practicing doing so
while walking around the dojo in order to emphasize my
point that rolling is "just another way of traveling across the
Earth." But there needed to be an interim step short of
simply letting one's legs fly out as if clotheslined.

I realized over the course of the first three classes that while
for the sake of teaching, I had differentiated between siderolling and forward-rolling, in practice, they ended up being
the same soft, round roll across the back.
For falling backwards, the roll was taught as the circular
rolling shown in video number 2 (http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=t21vguEmFlw)
and when seated involved a
sequence of hip - back - across the back - other hip, with the
palm-and-forearm unit used as outriggers from the start so
that when we started doing them from squatting and then
from standing they were already using their arms properly.
For falling forwards, the log or barrel style roll was taught
first hugging a cylindrical piece of equipment as shown in
videos 11, 12 and 13 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=b2Fu1ndvwHc). It made no difference to me if they ended
up rolling out or stopping in a breakfall position, so long as
each person was safe and comfortable.
They were
encouraged to try it both as a very soft "ooze" with relaxed
legs and as a controlled push with the legs raising up
vertically as they went over. The initial transition to rolling
on their own, which we did in class number four, was
challenging but once they tried it they did very well. I had
them tucking their chins and looking back, aiming the back
of the shoulder at the ground and rolling less diagonally than

I spent considerable time alone one afternoon, walking

around the dojo, turning things around in my mind. I thought
about what precedes a backward fall in the world, picturing
it over and over and trying to feel it. Something makes a foot
slide forward or otherwise disrupts your balance...there is a
startle response, a sharp inhale, the shoulders go out, the
body stiffens and the arms fly out as the back begins to arch
until the shoulders and head are too far behind the center of
gravity to stay upright.

So, how to get from that to a nice round fall? Our focus all
along had been consistent: coordinate breath and movement,
stay rounded with forward energy, get low to the ground. I
practiced solo to my
satisfaction and that evening I
demonstrated faking a startle response,
then said
"exhale...sink." It let me immediately override reflex, giving
my body something else, something familiar to do, and it
made it possible to go into the side roll from a lower
position.

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My students looked askance at my demo, but soon got into
doing very dramatic, diva-like startles, and were able to go
into rolls that would
have otherwise been too scary
(injecting humorous drama helps a lot in getting people to
smile or laugh, which relaxes them).

justify what, how and why I do certain things in my own

Aikido training.
Courses like this are increasingly valuable as the large cohort
of Baby Boomers ages with expectations of fitness and
activity that were often lacking a couple of generations ago.
I'm looking forward to offering it again and exploring a
collaboration with the Physical Therapist to do an integrated
risk-reduction/how to fall curriculum.

My husband, Stu, unwittingly gave me a follow up exercise

for the following week, when he asked, "What's that nursery
rhyme with all fall down'?" The following Tuesday evening,
I had everybody stand in a circle. We touched palms, not
grasping, so that one person's fall would not affect another's.
We started circling, singing "Ring-Around-A-Rosie." On
"ashes, ashes," we went up and back, stretching away from
each other, and on "all fall down!" we did our "exhale and
sink" and, yep, everybody fell down into a side roll. It
sounds silly, but again, that's part of why it was effective.

The complete playlist of videos made for the use of the

students is
at
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?
list=PLvDyI_M38AerHf5dEOljVVAgi6a5zq9Jz

The Mirror" is a collaborative column written by a

group of women who describe themselves as:

For our final session I set up an obstacle course in the dojo. It

started with a wedge-shaped mat to lie down across, then
"lazily ooze" up and off of, about a six inch drop to the mat,
to be done as a continuation of the slow-motion relaxed ooze
rather than a hard fall. Next there was a folded up mat, about
four inches high, on which to stand facing backwards with
the heels just hanging off. It added another bit of instability
to pretending to be taken off balance backwards and go into
a side roll. One student, with unstable ankles, opted to do her
fall without the prop.

We comprise mothers, spouses, scientists, artists,

teachers, healers, and yes, of course, writers. We
range in age from 30s through 50s, we are kyu ranked
and yudansha and from various parts of the United
States and styles of aikido. What we have in common
is a love for budo that keeps it an integral part of our
busy lives, both curiosity about and a commonsense
approach to life and aikido, and an inveterate
tendency to write about these explorations.

The small cylinder was there for practicing a forward roll. To

pose more of a challenge it was followed by a very large
cylinder that, no matter how slowly one started, gained
momentum as it turned. Finally I had a long, soft padded
"hockey stick" that I slowly swung, either as a foot sweep or
at the side of the head, making each student react and fall in
his or her own way. I demonstrated the course twice and then
everybody went through it twice, to lots of applause.
Six people completed the course. A seventh had to withdraw
after the first class because of family obligations on top of a
flare up of a chronic health condition. All six completed
feedback forms, which were very helpful in analyzing the
course.
All six felt the quantity of material was "just right;" five also
felt the pace was "just right" while a sixth considered it "a
little slow." Five or six found the course practical, engaging,
and fun, and considered the instructor caring and engaged.
Four found it not at all overly repetitive; two said "not very
much." It was rated as challenging but mostly not scary. It
was most gratifying that five of the six agreed that they
learned basics they can work with on their own and were
interested in coming in periodically for a refresher class to
build on the skills they had learned.
Leading this course is one of the most fun teaching
experiences I've ever had. It called up innumerable hints,
tricks and techniques I've picked up over the years from
disparate sources, required both hard thought and off-thecuff creativity, and put me on the spot to consider and truly

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