Falling and Getting Back Up

Falling is part of snowboarding: it isn’t failure, it’s how you learn. Knowing how to fall properly protects you from the most common injuries (especially to wrists and knees) and gives you the confidence to try new things without fear. Learn to fall first, and everything else gets easier.

How to Do It

1. Protect your wrists: your instinct is to stick your arms out to stop yourself, and that’s the fastest way to get hurt. Instead, make fists and use your forearms to cushion the impact.
2. Falling forward: bend your knees, let yourself drop, and land on your knees and forearms at the same time. Don’t fight it: go with the movement.
3. Falling backward: tuck your chin to your chest (so you don’t hit your head), round your back, and land first on your butt and then on your shoulder blades. Don’t put your hands down behind you.
4. Getting up with the board on: sit up, turn the board across the slope, lean on your hands in front of you, and push yourself up. If you’re on your back, roll onto your side and get up from there.
5. Protection: think about wrist guards, a helmet and, if you ride park, padded shorts that protect your hips. That’s not a beginner thing, it’s a smart thing.

Common Mistakes

• Arms out straight when you fall: the most dangerous mistake. Rehearse the right reaction in your head until it’s automatic.
• Staying put in the middle of the run: after a fall, get up as fast as you can or move to the side of the run so you’re not in the way of people coming down.
• Skipping protection: lots of people hurt a wrist in their first week on snow. Wrist guards are cheap and protect a lot.

Progression

Once you know how to fall without getting hurt, you’ll face the snow with a lot less anxiety. The next step is Basic Position and Stance, and then you start moving with Traversing and Control.