Originally Posted by
3alarmer
...the practice (and it does take a lot of repeat practice,) encourages the bracing of your arm and the shoulder tuck until it becomes your natural reaction to being thrown forward head first. And you practice it on mats, which are not foolproof, but hurt less than on hard floors or pavement. We probably did fifty or sixty right and left side rollouts as a warmup in every class I took. Alternating sides, down the length of the room, then back. I don't understand people who say you can't train muscle memory, because IME, you can.
Falling the right way is why more people don't come away from Judo with more serious injuries. Which is not to say you can't still hurt yourself. Dislocations of fingers and toes is not uncommon. You see a lot of people taped for this reason.
I've told this to others for many years. I took several years of judo in my youth. Part of the warmups includes practicing rolls, left and right. I probably did several thousand of these through the years. From my good number of cycling spills, somehow my instincts made me roll with it. This led to some a few abrasions on my backside, but never a faceplant or any broken bones. Cyclists break collar bones from putting an arm out or slamming down on a shoulder. And, gosh, who wants to hit any part of their head on the pavement? ouch! Not me.