How to train UPDs?

[feel the light]

We are not talking UPD here. What is there to be proud of ? A story of surviving doing really stupid things. This is a thread about crashing face first into the crap that is in front of you. WTF ?

I am not claiming to be a champion of landing on my face, but as an experienced brown belt in Judo (in 1973), and having used the roll trick to save my ass in motorcycle crash after motorcycle crash , the advantage of the snap roll is to skid forward in a way that you hit stuff with your feet rather then your head.

Riding my 36, , I find that my knowledge of Judo motorcycle speed snap rolls is unhelpful. I seem to do sudden face plants, when I am looking around (I love touring) The ground rushs to my face. I wear these Harbinger plastic skid sticks strapped around my wrist. A hard piece of plastic that allows me to protect my body with my hands. I also wear Converse high top sneakers. I splay my toes outward and keep my unprotected knees off the asphalt with my ability as a weight lifter to totally dominate the situation with brute strength applied into the wrist wraps. Seriously, don't practice crashing, lift weights, which strengthens your bones as well as your power.

I could see how in some situations (fast downhills) a bail into a roll is the only way to go.

In my personal experiance, I have tended to slam into the pavement in a sudden way, where rolling out wasn't the answer.

I can't recommend the Harbinger wrist wraps enough, except maybe they aren't available anymore.

If you have brutal palm protection, tough high top sneakers, and strong arms, you can just skid down the road palms first. I have gone down suddenly a few times, with no leg protection, sometimes at night. Hit a rock and bam it's concrete to the face. I have only been mildly scratched so far. I land in a sort of push up position, with my sneakers pointed outwards and dragging. I cannot recommend serious (not gloves) wrist wraps, with the hard core plastic slider, enough. If you are strong enough, you can keep your knees off the pavement in a 10 MPH face plant, if you have brutal hard core wrist plastic sliders (not gloves). It helps a lot it you can bench press your own weight. The face plant (can't roll out) is the most common crash IMHO.