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Learn to fall — and avoid injury

AARP offers strategies for minimizing risk

Christine Bedell,

AARP

Published May 01, 2026

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For older adults, knowing what to do when starting to fall can prevent serious injuries.

That’s the focus of presentations to take place across Hawai‘i from late spring to early fall by AARP and Kupuna Aikido, a Honolulu-based nonprofit that began eight years ago when members of a martial arts club asked, “What if we teach them how to fall?”

Presentations combine traditional tips like reviewing medications and removing loose rugs with demonstrations of “safe fall” principles to help reduce head injuries and broken bones.

Falls are the leading cause of traumatic injury among people 65 and older in Hawai‘i, according to the Hawai‘i State Department of Health.

“People want to live at home as long as possible, and one way to do that is avoid injury due to falling,” says Jackie Boland, community outreach director for AARP Hawai‘i.

Kupuna means respected elder and aikido is a martial art centered on harmony and control. In aikido training, Kupana Aikido co-founder William Doi says students learn to recognize the moment they can no longer recover their balance and should initiate the fall and control what happens next.

Lead instructor Dennis Jinnohara incorporates these tips:

Don’t lock your arms to “break” the fall. That can end up injuring wrists or elbows.
Bring your arm across the center of your body so your head falls on your bicep, not the ground.
Instead of falling flat forward or backward, rotate your body and try to land on padded areas like your calf, thigh and buttock.

“You fall, are you going to get hurt? Probably. That’s the nature of a fall,” Jinnohara, 77, says. “But nobody should die from a fall.”

For information, go to aarp.org/hi.