Practicing the Forward Fall in a Static State

In Chi Running you create the forward fall by aligning your posture so you can draw a straight line through the center of your shoulders, hips and ankles. Then you lean your whole posture forward in front of the ankles with completely relaxed lower legs.

The ankles form a hinge between your aligned posture and your feet. If the muscles in the lower legs and feet are not completely relaxed they tighten this hinge and resist the forward fall. The forward fall is facilitated by moving all your body weight in front of your ankles. The most efficient way to achieve this is with an aligned posture and very slight angle of lean.

The concept can be demonstrated using a broomstick. The straight shape of the broomstick represents your aligned posture. The hinge point between the base of the broomstick and the ground represents your ankle. If you can balance the broomstick perfectly vertical it will not move. However, if you lean it even slightly off center it will begin to move by falling.

It is more difficult to isolate and sense individual parts of your body while running, so it is far easier to first learn the forward fall in a static (non-running) state. The exercise described below is designed to help you better understand and learn the forward fall. Practice it until you are adept at falling forward with a minimal angle of lean.

Step 1: Stand against wall
Stand against a wall and ensure your heels, tailbone, back of the shoulder blades and back of your head are in contact with the wall. Keep your feet parallel with each other and your knees soft.

Step 2: Align your posture
Lengthen your spine and straighten your neck by pushing up the sky with the crown of your head. Now level your pelvis by using your lower abdominal muscles to pull you belly button inwards towards your spine. Leveling your pelvis moves the arch in your lower back closer to the wall.

Step 3: Lean forward by moving your center in front of your ankles
Put a finger on your lower abdominal muscles to better sense the location of your center and move it forward just slightly in front of your ankles so that your whole body (except for your heals) is no longer in contact with the wall. Leaning forward by focusing on moving your center in front of your ankles prevents you from bending at the hips when leaning, one of the most common mistakes made by beginner Chi Runners. Engaging your lower abdominals by pulling your belly button into your spine prevents you from bending at the waist when leaning forward.

Step 4: Relax the lower legs to unlock the ankles and fall forward
While leaning forward with your center in front of your ankles, relax your lower legs to unlock the ankles until you start to fall forward. Sense what your lower legs and ankles feel like when relaxed. As you get better and better at this, repeat the exercise with smaller and smaller angles of lean. The better you are at relaxing your lower legs and to unlock your ankles, the less angle of lean required to fall forward.

When performing the exercise above, convince yourself of the importance of the relationship between relaxed lower legs and ability to fall forward. Also try to get a sense of what it feels like when your lower legs are relaxed. When actually running, it is important to maintain this same very same level of relaxation in the lower legs.

If the muscles in your lower legs and muscles are relaxed you cannot push off on the balls of your feet. So here is a simple trick you can use to test whether or not the muscles in your lower legs and feet are relaxed. While standing, completely relax the muscles in your lower legs and feet. Now while keeping your lower legs and feet completely relaxed, try to lift your heels off the ground and you won’t be able. You need to use lower leg and feet muscles to push the balls of the feet into the ground in order to lift the heels off the ground.