This isn’t advice on overcoming adversity or tragedy, it’s just what it says. You can learn how to go from upright to flat on the ground while minimizing the chance that you’ll damage or break yourself in the process. If you can find anywhere that offers introductory Judo classes, that’s one of the first things you’ll learn – and if you pick up just that, you’ll have really gained a skill that can save you. A patch of ice in the dark that you don’t see is a very real threat. Everybody falls down, almost everybody makes some attempt to stop the fall. You’ll put your arm out or grab at something. What this does is concentrate the force of your body moving into the one point that will stop the fall (like your hand, for example). Wrists are not the best at stopping 100+ pounds. Once you realize you’re falling, throw your legs out and up so that your entire body is moving down. That way, you’re not pivoting to the side while your feet are anchored. Once you’re in the air and horizontal, spread out the impact over the greatest portion of your body that you can (except your head, of course) – and use your entire arm or leg to strike the ground as the rest of your body reaches the ground. That strike, which does not need to be incredibly forceful, will help to counteract the initial force of you landing on the ground.

This all takes practice. It’s unnatural. It sounds impossible. It is not. If you don’t have access to padded mats to try this out, somewhere with thick grass will be better than a carpeted floor. A mattress will even work to get you started. At first, just fall down and do not try to catch yourself. Go slowly, make sure your head isn’t going to impact something, notice what parts of your body hit first. Again, you want the most surface area hitting the most surface area. Once you get used to that, then work on moving your legs up as you move down. You’ll find that in a short time, you can pivot yourself in the air and come down on your leg, hip, back and shoulder. That gives you an entire arm to direct force down to lessen the impact. It also puts you in a position facing up rather than on your face. It’s much easier to then move, remain aware of your surroundings and at least get some kind of weapon running if needed.

Please don’t dismiss this as just dumb. At some point, you’ll trip and fall. If you’ve practiced this, you’ll hit the ground and realize you’re now covered with dirt. That’s a lot better than an ambulance ride. And, since you have worked out how to throw your feet upward, you can literally fall out of the way of something coming at you. I would never, ever recommend doing the following in an actual encounter, but it’s something to keep in mind: it is possible if someone has a firearm pointed at you, you can fall out of the way of their shot and return fire before they can fire again. This was attempted with non-lethal ammunition and since it would leave you on the ground in front of an attacker, that would be an extremely poor place to be. My point in mentioning this is that just falling out of the way is extremely fast, faster than an average person’s reflexes. Work with this “falling” concept and you can throw yourself out of the way of all kinds of objects, like an inattentive driver who is about to back his or her car over you.