Falling & Crashing

I surf the net for hours on end when I am not training or working. My hours of surfing are mostly spent looking at skating stuff. Lately, I've been viewing many videos (here, here, here, and here) and pictures with crashes.


Italy falling due to a push from Colombia during the relay heats at the 2005 world championships in China- Italy did not qualify, Colombia was disqualified, Chinese Taipei and Venezuela moved on to the final
Last Wednesday's Scooter's Indoor Speed Club practice had about 20 skaters in attendance. Between the warm up, the track pattern drills, the starts and, the relays, there must have been about 15 or so falls. One of them hapenned when Andrew Hegarty and I were hawking at the end of a 100-meter race. He lost his balance and flipped and rolled few times. Jacky Schu was a skater who was plagued by many falls during the practice- taking down a few skaters a couple of times!

While falls can be exciting, funny, or scary to watch, I find falls are either a symptom of how competitive a group is, or they are an indication of skills that are lacking. Many of the falls at Scooter's happen at a higher speed because the skaters are more competitive and skate close to each other. I've seen very few skaters get hurt though. The falls at Scooter's practices are more of an indication that we are pushing ourselves, skating at a threshold where if one little thing goes wrong, then we go down.


Martine Charbonneau crashing at the CITC after a 300-meter start
Usually when I fall (I fell the other night at Scooter's and all I saw was a whole pack of skaters careening towards me), I don't get hurt. I get up in a hurry and I'm usually excited that I fell- Why? Because I realise that once it's over, falling wasn't that bad and that I usually don't get hurt.

I've seen the best of the best go down- hard. Real hard. And they get back up. I've seen the most of beginner skaters fall- fall as if they were in slow motion- as if I could do a play-by-play and give them suggestions of what to do while they're falling- and they get back up.


Grounded at the finish of the 2005 Long Beach Inline Marathon
It's happened to me where I fell and my first reaction was to look around to make sure that nobody noticed my fall. If someone did see me fall, I would then try to convince them that my fall really looked spectacular and amazing and skillful when in fact, I looked like a dork.

Wether it is indoors out outside, on a track or on a road, crawling up a hill or screaming down a mountain, falling- or the potential of falling- is one of the many things that we as skaters of all countries and abilities have in common.

But really, as much as watching falls can be exciting, falling really sucks.