Do you fall?

Welp?

Yes

And it hurts

Yes. Yes I do. Although a lot less than last year. Maybe twice this year.

I hate to fall - too old for that stuff!

If I fall, I crash spectacularly, yet try to get up immediately as if it never happened.  Happens once in a while

About once a year.  It is almost always when I get lazy, leaning back, and bad things happen.  Overconfidence and releasing the front pressure turns ugly real quick.  

Always have, always will I suppose.  I used to crash really wildly when I was a teenager.  Sometimes I think about some of them and wonder how I never got hurt.

A lot of falling these days isn't actual falling, I believe it's called flailing

I think it's what happens when you are climbing and slip backwards or are going downhill, but not fast enough to have a big crash and lose balance because you are skiing in soft boots.  Sometimes a few wild pole stabs will revive you, or throwing one hand wildly in the air to counterbalance.

Then there is flopping.  I suppose that's different.  To me I think of what happens when I get thrown forward, again with free heels and soft boots.  Usually you weight wrong or hit a puff of deeper or stiffer snow and you feel like you are going OTB.  Telemark helps with this, but you still aren't immune to flopping in a different direction or not weighting your skis right so they actually do what you want them to do.

And lastly, there is what we call dumping.  This just when you are so out of control there is no chance of composure so you just lay 'em down.  I think sometimes one needs to know when to dump them and call it quits.

I may be way off on these terms, but it's how I interpret my own skiing

On bikes, things hurt more when you crash, due to dirt and rocks being harder than snow.  I tend to use the bail technique there if I can.  GTFO the bike and let it crash over a ravine.  Live to ride another day.

Definitely flailing occurs much more often than falling, yes, the wild arm wave to counterbalance saves the day!

I hucked a boulder a few weeks ago at la reserve, landed a bit too forward, tips went in the snow and I released from my toes. Epic faceplant into a pile of fresh. Hard to find my skis, harder to put them on. It was nice.

As they say.......if you don't fall your aren't trying!

Or you aren't hucking big enough shit.

I'm always trying to improve my technique, stick an agressive line, strive for a pure carve on steeper terrain.....and if you push yourself you are bound to fall.  At least I am.

when racing i'm usually good for a face plant dnf or two, haven't drawn blood for few years

falling less on the tele setup, otb'd a few times..

xcd usually leave a sitzmark or two

otherwise most falls consist of just laying em over and sitting down, haven't yard saled in awhile - knock on wood!

Oh i had a few spectacular airborne shots and threw up great roostertails at speed , BUT next yr when i come back after total hip replacement i damn well better NOT fall at speed anymore .

One of my doc friends says The NEXT  time thay put your hip back together it wiill be with bailing wire and that will get UGLY ...sooo gonna have to change my style

Yup.

Ripped a knee tendon last yr after fighting to prevent a fall while venturing from corduroy groom at high speed into ungroomed crud in my toothpick racing skis.  Had I just fallen, I likely would've been fine.  Should've listened to my inner Kenny Rogers and just folded and took the fall.

warp daddy wrote

Oh i had a few spectacular airborne shots and threw up great roostertails at speed , BUT next yr when i come back after total hip replacement i damn well better NOT fall at speed anymore .

One of my doc friends says The NEXT  time thay put your hip back together it wiill be with bailing wire and that will get UGLY ...sooo gonna have to change my style

a hockey bud still plays mens league after his thr and when he asked his ortho about falling he responded not to worry  - said he can't break it, stronger than his own!

got me some nice poc hip pads for skiing and skating... just in case

A few years back learning to 'carve' on modern shaped boards I was bouncing back and forth quickly trying to get a feel for the 'energy' in my skis on a pretty flat section.  Somehow I got them to kick really good and they shot me right out of my bindings.  Flopped right on my face.  On the flattest of the flats.  If anyone saw me I would have been mad if they didn't laugh.

When I was in high school I was pretty bouncy on my skis.  I used to like to hit jumps.  This was before terrain parks were everywhere.  People used to build jumps on the sides of trails and in the trees coming back onto them.  I just so happened to be trying to launch myself off of one coming out of the trees, literally built right between two closely spaced trees.  Gotta use your poles to give you that extra 'punch' off the jump.  Man did I get it on that one.  Drove one of my poles right into the base of the tree and it popped back right into my jaw.  Sent me flying doing a backwards somersault off that little kicker.  Landed flat on my back.  I don't know what was worse, the white flash from being clocked by my own pole or having the wind knocked out of me on the landing... Skied to the lodge, made sure I had all my teeth, straightened my pole and skied the rest of the night with a swollen-ass face.

Still fall once in a while but usually cause I landed hard or over-torqued  my bindings some other way. I thought I had it licked this year by overestimating my weight by twenty pounds on the ski-shop questionaire, but no. On Friday, at Plattekill, I got off the double and bumped into one of Harvey's buds at the top of Plunge. I introduced myself again, told him we'd met in January. We exchanged a few words and hit the road. I skied off the groomed section to check out what looked like fresh natural snow under the lift. It was a little cruddy so I curved back towards the groomer and when I hit the transition, kinda hard, one of my bindings pre-released and did a little slide-into-home controlled ditch, right in front of my new friend. It was kind of funny. I got up quick enough to jump on my ski that was trying to keep going without me. I guess it really is time for new gear. Later on, I got distracted by something and went down on Blockbuster but I got back up without stopping or ejecting so not sure if that one counts. I think that's about my average when I ski by myself or with other aggressive guts. With my kids or my friends who are more casual, I don't really fall much anymore. When I was younger, I fell a lot, some times spectacularly,  lots of yard sales. If you never fall you're  probably not improving.

I push myself, so yes I fall. The trick is to fall in the right place at the right time if there's such a time and place for me. I ski the tree line most often.

Yup. Every couple of days, some more than others.

I tell my kids this.....if you don't have a wipeout, you weren't skiing hard enough. I want them to learn to push their comfort zone a bit and learn to fall/fail. Metaphor for life, I suppose.....

Of course given all that dad-philosophical BS, my heart still skips a beat when I watch them go over the tops of the LS jumps...Guess I've got some stuff to learn too.

all the time. we have a rule that if you eject out of both skis you are buying. bottoms up