Quick: what is the most important physical self-defense skill taught in martial arts?
Kicking?
Punching?
Blocking?
Is it takedown defense, now that all the wannabe tough guys watch too much UFC?
Nope.
In case the title didn’t give it away, it’s breakfalls. I’m here today to make the case for why that’s so.
1.Let’s Be Honest For a Second
A lot of martial arts experts like to talk about how many fights they’ve been in, but really even the people telling the 100% truth about that don’t get in many. How many have you been in over the past five years? Ten? If we’re smart, and really listening to our teachers and the ethics of our study, the answer should be “none” or very close to it.
Now…being really honest…how many times have you fallen down in the past year? I’ve taken three potentially nasty headers since January, one of them while halfway through a ten-mile training run.
It’s a simple matter of risk and reward. You probably won’t get into another real fight. You will definitely fall down. Learning breakfalls protects you better and more often than every kick, punch, block, or takedown you spend time on.
- By the Numbers
It goes beyond my anecdotal experience and yours. According to the CDC, each year in the United States sees about 36 million falls serious enough to warrant medical attention. That includes 800,000 hospitalizations and 32,000 deaths.
Compare that to just under 20,000 deaths by homicide, and you see another reason to focus on breakfalls in our training. I’m not saying we’ll never, ever use our self-defense skills. I’m just pointing out what the numbers tell us is most likely for people who live in the developed world, and can afford martial arts lessons.
- Looking Forward
For most of us, longevity is one of the most important goals of our martial arts training. That begins with surviving a violent encounter that might happen today, but goes much further.
As we get older, martial arts helps us to maintain flexibility, mobility, strength, and balance to keep our bodies fit and active well into our senior years. The cardiovascular exercise we get from a good training session can protect us from the most common killers of adults like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some forms of cancer.
But also consider this: the average lifespan of an elder who suffers a bone-breaking fall is less than two-years. If we keep practicing our forms and basics into old age, we’re less likely to fall…and if we keep our breakfalls sharp, we’re less likely to get hurt when we do fall down.
- On the Mat
All of what I’ve said above applies to long-term longevity outside of the dojo, but learning breakfalls help us on the mat as well.
For those of us in a grappling art, we’re going to fall down in training. We’ll do it on purpose, and when a training partner pulls of an attack we weren’t prepared for. Either way, knowing how to land safely is important if we want to come back and train again the next day.
Those of us studying a stand-up art might never fall down on purpose, but we’re kidding ourselves if we think our butts will never make the close acquaintance of our dojo floor. From failblog-worthy kick attempts, to techniques with a sweep or a takedown, to simply tripping over nothing but air, we’re going to hit the ground in our training and breakfalls minimize the chances and severity of getting injured from it.
Final Thought
By now, I hope you’re on Team Breakfall right along with me. The remaining question is what to do about that. The answer depends on your current situation:
- You train at a school that teaches breakfalls, in which case good on you. Keep it up, and maybe get some extra reps at home.
- You train at a school that doesn’t teach breakfalls, in which case I recommend asking them to. Whether they make it part of their training rotation, bring in a local expert for a seminar, or just insert it into mobility and conditioning, see if they’ll add it from time to time.
- You train at a school that won’t teach breakfalls, in which case seriously consider how appropriate the school is for your needs. Being unwilling to teach breakfalls doesn’t automatically indicate a problematic program, but it might be a red flag.
- You don’t train, ask potential programs if they teach falling skills as part of your vetting for potential places to train. If you’re not interested in martial arts training, you can get the same benefit from gymnastics and parkour.
Whichever applies most to you, I hope you’ll create a plan and work it. The most important physical self-defense skill depends on it.
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Yes! I love breakfalls! I take a grappling class for black belts at my dojang, and our warm-ups usually start with breakfalls. I learned how to fall as a color belt doing self-defense takedowns, but they’re especially important now…and I’m over 40 so falls can hurt a lot more!