Fall seven times, get up eight…

Someone walks down the street and then he stumbles and falls… and most of the reactions he will get for that is grinning and laughing… Sadly, with very few exceptions this has become the rule. One might say “oh, come on, it’s no big deal” and they might have a point… until they stumble and fall themselves! Then, it’s not a joke anymore. When a recognizable figure (politician, celebrity etc.) slips, trips, or whatever will bring him down, he will find himself as “news to share and laugh at”. His/her fall will spread on the internet at the speed of light… Even if he has managed to regain control of his balance in midair, he has ensured to be the joke of the day.

You’re reading this now, but sooner or later, someone will… go down, and will be “all over the place” and all over the news. But when it happens this time, please take a moment to notice the “happiness” and “joy” of those who announce it through the media… who are supposed to encourage us in “sharing” that stupid moment… Laughing while others fall is not done on purpose by everybody. There are people that even feel uncomfortable about themselves for reacting like that… But why is it that people behave like this in the first place?

Well there is a series of reasons, but if I pull it my way, the answer is quite simple… Those who laugh-it-up, do not know how to fall. Meaning, like in Martial Arts controlled fall…

To learn how to fall in Martial Arts is lesson number one… This has nothing to do because of me practicing Aikido, which is well known for its acrobatic falls. Thus, concluding “what else was he gonna say?!” does not apply. How to fall should be a must in any Martial Art, regardless of origin and school. More than this, and away from the gates of Martial Arts, controlled falling should be taught just like anything else that is worth learning in life… swimming, climbing, singing, drawing etc.

Falling, once learned, is like bicycle… you never forget it and it will be there for you when it’s time to go down.

In many “so called Martial Arts” (that are usually martial sports) learning how to fall is avoided all together. In this manner they are supposed to cut down the number of students which abandon their practice. Especially in Aikido advanced “evading falls” are extremely demanding, and take a long time of practice in order to put under control. Only the sight of this (and especially the thud against a traditional Japanese tatami) can make the “heaviest” macho-man run off at… high speeds.

You see, the problem is not falling itself… it’s the fear you face, which can be only overcome by relentless practice. In Aikido most of the falling business includes a kind of consent between the thrower and the thrown, simply because Aikido techniques are designed to neutralize you, long before you hit the ground. So, in most cases you “lock” a technique to an attack, and the only way to evade its effect is to fall or break-fall… Thus, some people look at Aikido, and think that the falls are not for real. They think that of course from the safety of being a viewer… But the view of life is totally different when facing the floor head down while driven from a hip, which is not even advanced according to the full “menu” of throws. If one is good in his Aikido performance, he can practically flick a person in the air like a coin (by using the aggressors’ own power) and ever reach to save his head from landing first, if need be…

Nevertheless, a mistake which one can see in a number of Dojos, is when people are driven hard to the floor but only after a poorly technique has preceded this, when it should be the other way round. Technique at its top, should be effective and fast as lightning, only to be followed by a fall which is left up to nature’s gravity. The Art is putting a person into his own “orbit”… forcing someone to the ground is not much of an Art.

What goes up must come down
Living on the floor is one of Japan’s characteristics even to this day… This was also a Chinese characteristic far back in history, but it was later on neglected. On the contrary, for most Westerners the floor is a… very far away place, a place where human feet are mistreated and highly neglected. Even in Western athletics, when you go down, this is synonymous to defeat and shame… While in the East going down is where you get your strength from, and only an ideal place from which you rise again. In the West the remark “On your knees” is synonymous to embarrassment and forced obedience. In Japan the kneeling position only means deadly Swari Waza (techniques performed from the floor). The Samurai did so, and in extent of that, so do Aikidoka.

One of the best examples on this may be the following: Imagine any ancient warrior or modern soldier you would like, and take your pick among all kinds of armies you can think of. Come on, pick one, let’s do this as some kind of a test… Got one?! Now, give to the soldier or warrior of your choice a place to guard. How does he do that? How do all of them do that, even to this day? They stand! But this does not apply in classic Japan… From the Japanese imperial guard, to the unknown Samurai in a remote mountain village, there was the choice of guarding from a seated to the floor position! He was able to fight from there, springing to action without the fatigue which constant standing brings with it…

Crash landing
Some even go as far and say: “I will never fall, I have a solid base”. There is no such thing as never falling. We are creatures that balance ourselves all the time and the right thing to do is to live to the title of this text (which by the way is a Japanese saying) More than this, why is it that I don’t hear this magnificent statement within the four walls of my Dojo?
Not long ago I was fully packed with handbags heading for my basement garage… It was snowing and the ground was full of ice. At the beginning of my decent I slipped on the ice and oops… started going down and I mean all the way down into the basement. When I finally stopped I found myself in a position that is… hard to describe, one foot extended forward and the other… somewhere in the back. No “normal” person would have survived this without some kind of injury. Everything that was in the bugs has become a line of debris and my pants and jacket were torn. I didn’t have a single scratch myself, but I could not get up… I was on the floor in that funny position, surrounded by my broken stuff, laughing my heart out. Does this mean that maybe we should laugh when someone falls?! Of course not… It simply means that I was comfortable with the cement floor and familiar with falls, since I was only hours away from conducting my last class. You don’t train for nothing after all…

Whenever I have assisted someone from his fall in public places, I have observed the following (beside the grinning business). The person who fell is in shock, as if something terrible has happened to him/her and they turn pale white. Then, they try to spring-up much faster then they went down, as if staying down is the worst place on earth, and they turn red. And soon after that they try to speed-off, as fast as they can, as if trying to flee the scene. And while they do, they don’t even look back, like if they lost anything by the fall… “Hey mister… You dropped your cell-phone…” and the color gets yellow…

So if “losing face” is what we feel by going down, then the smile-reaction, grin-reaction or whatever joke-reaction, is really there to offend the other isn’t it? Meaning only, now that you are down and I am up, I am better than you. Yes, until your time comes to fall…

In the Samurai Arts one of the most effective ways of killing, was to drive one’s opponent to the floor, while crashing his skull. And since gravity stayed the same through times, we train this just like back then: You “overextend” your “partner in practice” and you land him on his back, instead, in order to protect him. Now think of this: Gravity is one and the same, but heavier things go faster and harder down. Physically stronger people are heavier and look magnificent while standing… But once your technique is effective, a stronger adversary will have a harder time landing… Martial Artists with experience take falling very seriously and also take great care in not injuring their “brothers in arms” on their way down. Trained warriors find nothing funny or humorous when they see someone going down…

So, here you have it…

For Martial Artists, once falling has become as second nature, and learning it has become a thing of the past, when they see an untrained person fall the first thing that pops into their minds, is not laughter, but the question: “How can these people not fall?!” and then rush in to help the person. And then comes the other thought: “How can these people, who obviously cannot fall themselves, laugh when someone falls accidently?!”

March 17, 2010