In Defense of Falling Down

If you were to attend a training session with me, you’d probably notice a couple of things almost immediately.

1. My socks don’t match.

2. I try to do a lot of stupid shit – jumping really high, jam skating, backward plows at high speed. That kind of thing.

3. I fall down a lot.

Here’s my take on the matter.

Falling down doesn’t mean that you’re bad at roller skating, or bad at derby. What it means is that you’re trying to do something you’re not capable of yet. Which is, of course, how we learn new things – we try, we suck. We try again, we suck a little less. We keep trying and incrementally suck less and less, until BAM! 360 degree jump!

I love Bonnie D Stroir’s take on skaters falling down. When I ate shit at one of her bootcamps, she said, “Yes, Blockie! I love your commitment!” I think the word commitment is important here – it’s the difference between vaguely half-assing an attempt at something (because we’re too scared or don’t trust ourselves enough) and actually having a good crack at it. Here’s the thing. Yes, sort-of-half-trying-but-not-really is lower risk, but it also has a lower reward. Basically, if you don’t legitimately try, you’ll never have the opportunity to actually master Skill X. Even though we probably won’t get it right at first, only by actually committing, by really putting everything on the line, do we give ourselves a chance of pulling off something great.

That skater didn’t fall down because she sucks. She fell down because she hasn’t mastered that particular skill yet. She committed to a maneuver she can’t really do yet, so yeah, she ate shit. But do you know what happens if you don’t actually try in earnest to do something new?

You never learn to do it.

What you should take away is this: If you don’t push yourself to do things that are outside of your current skill set – and probably fail miserably in the process – you will never be capable of anything outside of your current skill set.

So sure, you can always remain upright, doing your thing and never falling down. But you need to be prepared to accept the fact that if you never try, you’ll never master anything bigger and better than what you can already do.

For what it’s worth, I think falling down a few times (or falling down a million times) is worth it, once you get there.

That’s a pretty apt analogy for life, I’d say.

For more wisdom from Blockodile Dundee, visit her site.