How do you teach someone to fall?

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skewbaldpony

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Following on from the Body Protector thread, where several people said, it's better to teach children how to fall, but no one volunteered an explanation .......
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How do you teach someone how to fall?
 
i was taught to fall at riding school from 5-10 yrs old, on wet saturdays when they didn't want the ponies and tack getting wet!
they'd stick an old oil barrel on its side in the middle of a big stable with a deep straw bed, sit us on it, and then twist it to tip us off. we were told to tuck and roll, and not allowed to stick an arm out to save ourselves. we thought it was great fun, and never got bored of it.
i think we had hats on, but this was 15 years before back protectors!
i know this is absolutely asking for it, but i've had loads of falls over the years and never broken my collar bone once.
*goes out today and breaks collar bone*
fwiw, i've never had a break from hitting the deck in a normal fall. the only breaks i've had have been an arm, broken when another rider ran into me (broken before i hit the ground. owwww.) and a knee, broken when i landed upright on my feet after trying to cling on to a horse i was mounting, who thought his nose had just touched the electric fence... eek. (it hadn't, we were miles from it, but he's a spooky mentalist WB.)
The riding school where i was taught this was Top Farm Riding School, Great Doddington, Northants, May Thompson owned it. she was brilliant.
 
yeh, I vaguely remember that was what our 'falling lessons' were to do with, but my problem is, as someone said on another thread, had Christopher Reeve stuck his arm out, OK, he'd have a broken arm ......
Is it *really* wise to risk your neck (after all, in the nano second of a fall, who can choose to get their head position right) instead of stick out your arm and allow the collar bone, a bone which God seems to have placed there specifically to go ping, like a safety stirrup, to break under stress, and possibly save your life our your mobility?
Anyone?
 
Tricky one that, I posted about Christopher Reeve, I remember when I read that in his autobiography I thought the same as you skewbald. To be honest I was taught to fall as a kid, but sometimes you just don't have time to do anything. I fell off once whilst jumping and landed on the jump pole and broke ribs in my back and cracked my pelvis - not sure that learning to fall would have helped me, but a body protector would have.
 
umm, the only time i've ever fallen off literally on my head, i stuck my arms out, like a handspring. too flipping right! tuck and roll won't work then, basic survival takes over!
if you have seen the footage of CR's fall, you'll know that he was a very very stiff and top-heavy rider. whoever his instructor was, wants shooting.... i would NEVER have allowed someone i teach, who rode like that, to jump, let alone go xc. i would have reasoned with them and persuaded them that they weren't ready yet.
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riding like that, a fall like that was always on the cards imho.
 
I want to know too, coz I'm soooooooooooooooo scared of falling off even though I wear a body protector!!!! I just land in a heap on the ground!!!!!!!!!

I think you're supposed to sort of curl yourself up so that your roll. Watch the jockeys on the racing!!!!
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ah but jockeys have very specific kinds of falls, and their chief aim is not being landed on by the field. Also, that's their job LOL.
I'm still thinking that by and large, the broken collar bone is the better option.
Is the footage of CRs fall available on video - I'd be very interested - I only ever saw a little bit of kind of library footage, and I have to say I thought he didn't look a good enough rider to be jumping x-c.
 
i saw the library footage too, but watched it quite a few times. no idea where it came from tho. it might be on youtube i guess... it's a bit ghoulish tho.
he rode like a robot, very stiff upright back, very heavy torso, it looked as if he had no weight in his heels at all. he looked as if he'd topple off at any moment, and lo and behold, the horse put in a very dirty stop at a pathetic fence, and he did. i had huge sympathy for him, what happened to him was awful, but i maintain that his instructor was massively at fault. maybe it's hard teaching someone from Hollywood, maybe he had a big ego and couldn't be told, who knows, but he was absolutely not ready for jumping imho.
 
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i know this is absolutely asking for it, but i've had loads of falls over the years and never broken my collar bone once.
*goes out today and breaks collar bone*


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Are you inferring that people break collar bones by sticking their arms out or not falling correctly?
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i'm implying that people often break collar bones by sticking their arms out instead of tucking and rolling, yes.
it's not always possible to fall "correctly"... as someone said, if you get thrown hard against a jump, only luck or a body protector will help, not technique. but if you stick your arm out, on a normal fall as you hit the ground, you might break your collar bone.
i'm also saying that after saying what i said, chances are i'll now go out and do it, cos that's sod's law!
i know of riders who have broken theirs many many times.
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All my falls have ended up with me landing on my back and smacking my head on the floor then seeing funny squiggly things like in cartoons!!!!!!!!!! It hurts!!!!!! So what am I doing wrong when I fall??????????
 
Oh, ok. I didn't realise you could break it like that - I've broken mine twice and both times were due to horse falls - the first put his knee through my shoulder and the second went over headfirst and tipped me out the side door, landing straight on my shoulder! I never stick my arms out but from doing that I've learnt to really curl my shoulders and head up so I land on my a*se or my side and kind of roll a bit. Pain is a pretty good incentive!
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generally when they are coming off I either shout SIT UP SIT UP or just watch in a helpless fashion until it is all over
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My BF keeps asking how to fall off. He is obsessed with it because he thinks he's going to fracture his spine like I did mine. I threatened to teach him to fall off by pushing him if he doesn't chill out
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SWW - maybe tell your BF to take up judo? i've been told that they're very hot on the "tuck and roll" thing, so presumably it can be taught to adults. or stick him on an oil barrel in the middle of a straw bedded stable...
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i teach adults to grab hold of the mane if things start going wrong. it can keep them on, and sometimes they just sort-of swing off, get their legs down, let go, fall over, but are basically okay... hope that makes sense!
jumpthemoon - gosh, you had two horrible falls, very nasty. very atypical for collar bone breaks too, i think. kids break their collar bones all the time falling off pushbikes too... they stick their arm out, the force travels up their straight arm to the first weak spot... hey presto, broken collar bone. that's how it was explained to me.
thank god horses don't have collar bones!
 
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kids break their collar bones all the time falling off pushbikes too... they stick their arm out, the force travels up their straight arm to the first weak spot... hey presto, broken collar bone. that's how it was explained to me.
thank god horses don't have collar bones!

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Ouch!!!
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Even more incentive for me to keep my arms tucked in!
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Hmm, I would have thought EVERYONE here would have learned how to fall. We're always told in Canada that things like that are basic knowledge here due to your more "seat of the pants" style of learning and we in the colonies are an overly sheltered lot. Apparently not.
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Learning to fall was a core competancy in my (admittedly very British) Pony Club education. We had to fall off - a running dismount as it was termed - at a halt, then in the walk, trot, and canter. The trick was to either land running (NOT standing - I know at least two MAJOR, pemanent injuries from people trying to stay on their feet) or, if that was not possible, to curl and roll. We practiced often, usually as a drill or a game, which did go a long way to lessening the tension factor and making it a habitual skill, but I'm not sure if you could get that done with grown-ups. I'm actually very grateful to the safety concious people who taught me as a kid - they were all about teaching "survival" skills (dismounts, emergency brakes, hysterical horse management etc.) in controlled circumstances, preferably before we needed them. The idea was that no one should be riding outside of very controlled circumstances until they mastered such skills - very sensible if you ask me but apparently less common that I thought.

Re: Christopher Reeve (much as I hate discussing it) there were a couple of variables those of you that read his book might remember. One was that as he fell he got his hands tangled in the bridle (we all know people who have pulled the bridle off the horse as they came off) and could not put his hands forward quickly. The other was that he was riding a new horse he had bought as an "upgrade", at a higher level than he had previously done, and competing against his coache's advice. His previous horse, on which he had done what I guess would be Intro here, with perhaps one easy Pre-Novice, was a "lonely without a plough" type novice schoolmaster - safe but limited. The new horse was a much racier model, bought to take him up to Novice at least but under a strict coaching regime. Events intervened and he didn't ride as much as planned, missed the easier event his coach had picked as a first outing, then decided to go to a more difficult event without his barn. Not good choices for which he always took full responsibility.

Maybe his coach *should* have stopped him but how exactly do you stop an adult? The best I've ever been able to to is suggest and hope to heck the person I fear for listens. How many people (I'm sorry, there are examples on this board at any given time) have taken risks against the express advice of people more knowledgable than themselves? Usually nothing horrible happens but sometimes the big number comes up. Something to think about.

It's always comforting to think people who get hurt are either victims of fate or just too dumb to live. The reality is we all get away with things everyday. And make no mistake, we ARE just getting away with it. In my own experience most of the times I've been hurt my own lack of care/planning/knowledge contributed considerably. I've worked with lots of people and horses trying to come back from such "mistakes" and usually the solution to preventing a reoccurance is education and management. Unfortunately Christopher Reeve never got a chance to put his hard lesson into practice.
 
i haven't fallen off for 2 years and in the last 2 months ive fallen off
Bear- my own horse, it was my 1st fall off him, he spun and i flipped in the air and landed on my hands and knees on a stony lane and didnt even get grazes!!

Dreamy- my 12.2 pony i bought to sell, 1st trot in the field she sat down then reared then bucked, i landed on my feet behind her!! but scraped my arm on the saddle!

Buster- my friends just broken 13hh welsh B, riding him on the flat lode (his 3rd time out) we were trotting on a ''green''
and he spooked at something and spun round i flew off the side and landed on my feet!! and still holding my reins!! i hurt my baby finger though!!
 
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