How do you fall better?
It’s not a question I ever expected to ask. Falling feels like something you avoid, not something you train for. And yet, last week, after a completely ordinary misstep on a quiet street, I found myself asking it honestly.
I’m okay. Nothing dramatic happened. But what surprised me wasn’t the fall itself. It was how my body and my nervous system responded afterward.
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The fall itself
I was crossing a small street when my foot caught on something. One second I was walking, the next I was going forward, almost like a ruler tipping over. I landed on my hands and knees.
There were cars, but they were far away. A kind man in one of those cars pulled over, got out of his car and checked that I was okay. It was heart warming. Physically, the biggest damage was scraped knees that are still healing. No head impact. No wrist injury. No dramatic aftermath.
It was anticlimactic in the way that real life often is.
And yet, emotionally, it brought up a lot.
Why this one felt different
I’ve had a serious fall before. In November 2019, right before we moved from China to Germany. I fell sideways in a restaurant, hit my head on a concrete planter, and spent more than a year dealing with vertigo and lingering fear. That experience left a mark. EMDR therapy has helped but it was one of those life changing events that changes a person forever.
So when I fell this time, I expected panic. I expected my Body to freeze or my mind to spiral. That’s not what happened.
Instead, I noticed myself assessing. I hobbled over to a bench nearby and gave myself time to catch up. I checked what hurt and what didn’t. I waited for the adrenaline to pass before deciding what to do next.
That alone felt new.
Strength shows up after impact
Here’s the part that surprised me most.
I landed on my wrists and knees, two areas I don’t think of as particularly strong. My wrists have been weak for years. I injured them while biking funky when I was an undgrad in San Luis Obispo. I used my wrists more than my legs to chug up those hills and I paid the price in discomfort. As for my knees…they are often the first thing to complain when I move the wrong way.
And yet, my wrists were fine after this fall. My shoulders were sore for a day or two, but nothing alarming. I didn’t need weeks of recovery. I mean, it’s only been a week so far but I'm already healing so I don’t think any new pain is going to emerge at this point.
My balance exercises didn’t prevent the fall. But my Body handled the landing.
That’s when it clicked that strength isn’t just about what you can lift or how deep you can squat. Sometimes strength shows up as damage control. As absorption. As knowing how to meet the ground without everything falling apart.
Movement as recovery, not punishment
I didn’t stop moving completely like when I got injured in the past.
I adjusted. I skipped deep squats while my knee healed. I used lighter bands. I kept my arm work gentle. I added fascia-focused movement to every workout instead of just a few times a week to keep things from stiffening up.
I didn’t wait for everything to be perfect before I started again.
In the past, I would have rested until I felt “fully healed,” which often meant getting stiffer, weaker, and more hesitant. This time, I listened instead. And my Body responded well.
That felt like a quiet win.
Falling as information, not failure
Evan so, it took a few hours to get past the embarrassment. There’s something humbling about falling in public, especially when nothing obvious caused it.
But once that passed, I realized something important.
This fall didn’t mean I’m someone who “falls a lot.” It meant I’m someone who lives in a body, in the world, where things sometimes happen.
And the fact that I recovered more quickly, physically and mentally, told me that the way I’ve been moving, at this pace, with this level of care, is working for me.
A shift in how I think about strength
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about strength lately. Not just physical strength, but emotional and nervous system strength too.
This experience reframed it for me.
Strength isn’t only about progress. It’s also about resilience. About what happens when something interrupts your plans. About whether you collapse inward or stay connected to yourself long enough to respond.
I didn’t train for falling. But apparently, being ready for it is a benefit that came out of it anyway.
Moving into the new year
As I head into a new year of this movement journey, I’m holding onto that perspective.
I’m less interested in pushing limits for their own sake. Instead, I’m more interested in building capacity. Capacity to adapt. Capacity to recover. Capacity to trust my body even when something goes wrong.
If you’ve dealt with injury, illness, or unexpected setbacks, I hope this offers a slightly different lens.
Not everything needs to be optimized.
Sometimes it just needs to be supported.
This month is supported by five reader sponsors.
Thank you for helping keep this work open and unhurried.
I hope you’re staying as well as you can this time of year.
Wishing you steadiness, warmth, and a gentle start to the year ahead.
Happy New Year 💛
See ya next week,
Steph
AI disclaimer:
I use ChatGPT to co-write many of my online texts. Having said that, for these Substack posts we start with the podcast transcript. A transcript that comes from a recording that I create alone, with zero AI assistance. I also prompt chain and edit like hell during and after the cowriting process, so I have to admit that I have no idea where my writing begins and Chatty (my affectionate name for ChatGPT) ends. So take with this as you wish. I just wanted you to know that some of the eloquence here is in fact from me but not me exactly.
