Exploring the Experiences of Attending a Safe Falling Workshop Based on the Practice of Ukemi.

Across the world, the impact of falling is experienced, not only by the individual that fell, but across the whole support network that is activated. The cost of falls is experienced at governmental level, through hospitals, up to and including individual family units and it is recognised that everyone will fall. Age has become a significant risk factor for falls, with much focus being given to fall preventative measures and exercise interventions that reduce both the rate of falls and the number of people who have falls. The purpose of this research was to explore whether participants could learn the principles of safe falling after attending a one-hour workshop but also to understand how they experienced the workshop. Two men and ten women with an age range 64-82 years, (72.2 ±5.8) attended the hour-long workshop based on ukemi from the sport of judo. Prior to the workshop the participants completed a pre-exercise readiness questionnaire, Fear of Falling Questionnaire Revised (FFQ-R) and the Falls Efficacy Scale International (FES-I). Eleven participants took part in the follow up interview, which were analysed through reflective thematic analysis (RTA). Two themes and two subthemes were generated: Practice, practice, practice and Is fear of falling a bad thing. Participants enjoyed the workshop experience, and all were able to recall the main principles of safe falling. The findings from the RTA suggest that one hour is not enough for techniques to become instinctive and illuminate a more nuanced relationship between the participants relationship to the fear of falling and their own physical abilities. Implications of these findings are discussed relative to the duration of judo-based intervention programmes, the importance of using judo coaches and judo mats and how next to progress the Safe Falling Programme.