The fall#

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 00:45:38 +0000

This is a placeholder page about the fall, which is not a real fall.

Basically, we call it a fall because it feels a bit like you're falling (and if you weren't extending your leg to push, you would be falling), but the goal for good technique is that your upper body height doesn't change - because that would be a waste of energy, not to mention more wearing on the back. So if it works for you to claim there's a fall even when there's no change in vertical height, go ahead, but don't be surprised when more literally-minded people object.

And actually, I don't object so much to this one in itself as to the sloppy (in my eyes) analogies it sometimes seems to pave the way for: "unlock the power of gravity" and so on. Whether you call the non-falling fall a fall or not (and even I do from time to time, on the strict understanding that I am using the word in that narrowly defined technical sense), you can't possibly claim that you're getting free energy from gravity if there's no change in your gravitational potential energy.

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