Charlie Pendejo said:I bet you could really accelerate this learning process, not to mention
remove much of the pain and scarring, by practicing on a nice soft
lawn. But is anyone who's not, say, an aspiring stuntman gonna really
do such a thing?
when you're skating you can get up to bicycling speeds, but it's a lot
easier to crash cause those little wheels don't roll over debris and
bumps so smoothly. eddy matzger wrote an article on avoiding road rash
where he advocates practicing falling on a grassy surface. i pasted part
of the article below. anyways, i agree that sometimes one can't roll, it
depends on the fall, but after skating for several years, i managed to
condition myself so that when i suddenly was pitching forward thru the
air, my brain would scream "ROLL" at me automatically- but i never
actually practiced it myself either 🙂
http://www.skatecentral.com/public/custom/citysports/fallsafe.html
Fallsafe
(CITY SPORTS Magazine - May 1996}
by Eddy Matzger
[talking about racing at sea otter]
In 1992 someone sprawled headlong onto the pavement in the corkscrew
turn and shaved off a nipple. Amazingly enough, it eventually grew back.
The racer rebuilt his confidence back up so that he skates the Sea Otter
again -- a major victory in and of itself-- but he can still be seen
T-stopping down the steepest sections of the course. Mental scars don't
grow back so easily.
This year another competitor couldn't hold the turn at the bottom of the
corkscrew and plowed through the dirt on the shoulder, ripping a crimson
patch of flesh on his buttocks and hips. For another 45 minutes he
braved the course and finished without further mishap. After the race he
stoically conceded that he'll approach the downhill more conservatively
next time.
Falling may be inevitable, but the consequences need not be so adverse.
I've had plenty of high speed crashes, one of them into a German
Shepherd who thought he'd zipper out in the road like a squirrel, but
I've never even managed so much as to scrape myself up badly. The
reason? I needed a half a unit to graduate from college, so I took a
gymnastics class. It taught me how to tumble.
I loved flip-flops and flips most, but dive rolls are what saved my
skin. at the end of class sometimes, we'd line people up face-down on
the mats, then get a running start and launch ourselves clear over the
pile, making sure not to clip the last person as we entered our last
minute tuck into a forward roll. That forward roll prevented a sure
face-plant every time. It also helped dissipate the kinetic energy of
our hurtling bodies.
Similarly, if you fall on skates, by rolling to a stop you distribute
the impact more evenly over your whole body. Whereas you may get a few
minor nicks from rolling to rest, skidding abruptly to a stop
unnecessarily abrades one primary patch of skin. That's why rolling to a
stop, while appearing much more dramatic than a simple scrub, is
infinitely preferable because the consequences are less dire.
The key to falling is to keep your head. By that I don't mean wear a
helmet, which is a given. I mean don't lose your head by freaking out
and freezing like a deer in headlights. Stay relaxed and keep your cool.
That way, when making a crash landing, you'll remember those dive rolls.
Stiffening up in anticipation of impact only makes things worse.
Granted, it's okay for cartoon characters to skid to a stop, but we're
human and don't bounce back quite so fast.
By practicing some rolling maneuvers, you're programming your body to
cope with the eventuality of a fall. Once you do fall and survive it
with a smile, you'll be much less apt to curtail your skating activities
as a result. Mastering the art of falling is a tremendous confidence
booster. Here are a few tips on falling without breaking skin:
1. When falling on skates, pretend like you've just jumped off a
speeding train. Look at old movies to see how the stunt men did it. With
lots of practice it's possible to roll and come up skating, but rolling
to a stop is the goal of this exercise. Initiate your roll by tucking a
shoulder, then rotate sideways and keep going until after you've come to
a stop. By increasing your roll time, you decrease your potential for
injury. When you get up and brush the dust off of yourself, you'll feel
like a bandit who has just escaped with his life.
2. As you enter your roll, try thrusting your arms up over your head and
roll lengthwise like a hot dog. With fewer protuberances like wrists and
elbows sticking out, you run less risk of giving your bones bad bonks.
An alternative to this is to draw the arms into the chest while rolling,
but this leaves the face more exposed. By holding your arms up over your
head you shield your ears and create a little roll-cage for your face.
3. Practice these rolls on a grassy surface first before taking your new
trick out onto the street. You can start tucking and rolling on the
grass without skates, and later find a place where there's a nice
transition between pavement and turf so you can skate into your fall.
Once you've got this down smoothly you're ready to graduate to some low
speed tumbles on the hard stuff. Then with all the pads on just in case,
you can bump it up to a higher speed. Please be careful since I don't
make house calls
