The Little Book of Falling (and Getting Up)

Falls are the leading cause of death due to injury among the elderly. And one of the biggest causes of falling is fear of falling. The ability to "fall well" and get up again is a skill every child has that becomes more elusive as we age. Recent studies measured the morbidity rate of people who cannot get up from the floor. The greater the difficulty, the shorter the life. There is a way to improve one's chances. While many studies point to the importance of maintaining mobility, there are very few programs that actually teach people how to fall, and more importantly, how to recover. Falling is an inevitable part of life. This book teaches people how to use the intelligence of the nervous system to train the body to fall more softly and offers strategies for learning how to get up off the floor with less effort. The Little Book of Falling offers exercises and lessons based on the Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education. Moshe Feldenkrais was a physicist and a martial artist. A Feldenkrais training includes extensive study on "the art of falling". These lessons are designed to be safe for anyone. The book offers illustrations as well as links where readers can watch short demonstration videos of the various movement strategies offered in the book. Lavinia Plonka is a master teacher of the Feldenkrais Method with over 25 years of experience teaching internationally. She has offered "Falling" Workshops to many retirement communities and is an active member of the Western North Carolina Falls Prevention Coalition.