Firstly, it should be noted that the art of falling is not exclusive to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. In fact, it is an art that is common in almost all of the grappling-based martial arts and some of the striking arts too. With that said, falling is a skill that is also taught in Aikido, Wrestling, Judo, Sambo, MMA and other arts too. This guide will go through how to fall safely to avoid injury. If done wrong, then injuries can and will occur. The annoying thing is that many of these injuries can actually be avoided with the correct technique on how to fall.
With this in mind, this may be an important read in terms of protecting yourself from future injuries. Thankfully, learning breakfalls is relatively easy and will eventually become natural instinct. Most good BJJ gyms will teach breakfalls in your first lesson and they should be taught as the fundamentals. With this said, even most newcomers will understand the theory and practical reasons for breakfalling.
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What is a breakfall?
The term breakfall, or breakfalling is literally as it spells, you are literally breaking the fall. Imagine doing a belly flop into a swimming pool, now imagine diving in with the correct technique. The belly flop can be painful when hitting the water with impact. Not only this but it also generates a large amount of splash back. This differs massively from a dive which is more graceful, painless and doesn’t hurt.
This is effectively what a breakfall is compared to an uncontrolled fall. The main point of breakfalling is to save your limbs from injury by protecting them. Due to this, there are good and bad ways to fall. Sadly, almost all untrained people will fall inefficiently. In fact, it is natural to fall badly which is when you are in danger. Usually, breakfalls are used to lessen the blow of being thrown from takedowns such as Judo hip throws and wrestling double legs.
Statistics show that most of the injuries sustained in BJJ are done from takedowns. This is due to weight distribution as well as lack of knowledge. By learning the breakfall, you are substantially lessening the percentage of getting injured. With this being said, it is very important to learn from as early as possible.
Examples of breakfalling
Breakfalling to protect your arms
Generally, there are two ways to breakfall. The first is to protect your arms and the other is to protect your head and neck. Firstly, we shall assess the breakfall that protects the arms. Imagine being hit with a Judo hip throw or Uchi Mata. Naturally, you may post your arm to the ground to make a connection. This may feel ‘safe’ as your hand touches the floor before your body.
However, this is incorrect. The reason for this is because when you fall, your body weight will go directly into the arm. Imagine weighing 90KG and your 3KG arm has to carry the rest of your weight. Combined with the impact of the floor, you will possibly break your arm as a result. This is somewhat common and sadly happens a lot. In other sports such as football, when landing from heights, football players will often do this and the result can be a bad injury.
So, how do you protect your arms with a breakfall? Well, imagine the above example when you’re thrown to the floor by a Judo move. Instead of posting on your hand, you instead accept the throw, but slap the mat with your arm as you hit the ground. This will safely soak up the impact and is pain-free. By doing this, the entirity of your body weigh won’t flow into your arm.
Further, as your arm hits the floor parallel to it, rather than directly downwards, your arm will be safe from any breaks. For some, learning to accept the throw is a mental thing – but the quicker you can accept the throw and start breakfalling correctly, the less chance of injury you will have. Usually, there are three ways to breakfall on your arms. The first two methods are one-armed breakfalls that land to your left and right side. The second method is falling backward, here you use both arms to slap the mat. This may also protect your head from hitting the mat as it will soak up the pressure of landing.
Breakfalling to protect your neck
Whilst breaking your arms is not fun, breaking your neck is much worse. Thankfully, this is far rarer than harming your arms. An example of breakfalling for your neck is quite different compared to the techniques used on your arms. Firstly, imagine you’re being thrown headfirst into the floor. You could potentially base on your hands, but as mentioned above – this isn’t ideal.
You could also land on your neck…again this is not ideal either. This is where the forwards roll comes into play and can literally be a life saver. We won’t talk about learning forwards rolls as most people already know them. However, there are generally two ways to roll.
The first way is to tuck your chin to your neck. This will protect the head and put the impact on your shoulders. As shoulder bones and muscles are very powerful, you should roll on these to soak up the impact. The second way is if you’re thrown at an angle. For instance, imagine being thrown on your head to your left-hand side. Obviously, you cannot perform a forwards roll with both shoulders.
Instead, you would roll over your left shoulder only. Again, this involves keeping your head tight to avoid it catching on the mat. This way can also be done as a backward roll. Once again, you should roll to one side over your back to avoid your head getting hurt.
With these examples in mind, it is important to practice and drill breakfalling. Whether it be 2 minutes of forwards rolls down the mat to begin with, or falling back and slapping the mat with your arms. Both methods are key to learn. This is BJJ after all where takedowns are common. Even as a guard player, you will get swept at times. With particularly harsh and harsh sweeps, you may need to breakfall on occasion. This is where your training will avoid injury.
Breakfalling outside of BJJ
Even though breakfalling is taught with the purpose of defending takedowns, they are actually practical for life outside of the gym too. For example, there have been internet stories of people using breakfalls to soften the blow when falling off of bikes. This answers the question of ‘does breakfalling work?’ Yes it does and there have been countless examples of this over the years. Because of this, it also has some practical implications for self defense.
Whilst this may not be as glamourous as using it to survive in a street fight or to protect yourself from a fancy Judo throw, it should also something that many cyclists face. Similarly, on an icy or wet street, you could potentially slip and fall over. This is where breakfalling comes in handy and after several months of training, it will become an instinctive reaction.
Closing thoughts
Breakfalling may not be the flashiest thing in the world of BJJ. Oddly enough, it may not be spoken about as much as it should be either. It could be argued that as BJJ has moved away from the fundamentals a little, the art of breakfalling has sadly been lost in time.
However, as mentioned breakfalling is an essential part of any grappling training. The good thing about breakfalls is that they don’t take much practice either. As mentioned, a couple of minutes drilling before class will suffice and once it’s in your muscle memory, you are set for life.
