When I was 12 years old, I took a 3 month Martial Arts class which was a mixture of everything from kick boxing to tai chi.
One of the first things we learned and something we had to practice everyday for at least 30 minutes was - how to fall.
People literally carried us and threw us on the ground (well, mat).
Initially, it was painful. I was always so afraid. I mean how could I just stand there knowing that the person in front of me was going to pick me up and throw me! And then stand up again so the person behind them could do the same. And then stand up yet again for another person to do that.
Of course I knew it was because we had to learn how to fall. It wasn’t just about the other people knowing how to throw people. It was more about us learning how we must fall. Or rather, how we must break our fall. It’s there I learned that there’s a ‘correct’ way to fall.
It seemed so absurd to me! It seemed so unfair!
Why did we need to learn how to fall? Why couldn’t we just learn how to not fall instead?
But soon in life I realized, we don’t often get a say in whether we fall or not. Whether life picks us up only to brutally bring us down harder. However, that summer I did learn that we can choose to fall in a way that minimises the damage and the pain, because falling is inevitable and most times out of our control but how we fall and get back up is always up to us.
