I'm working to make sure I lose weight, build up my upper body muscle strength and increase my flexibility before I go riding outside. All those can keep accidents from happening in the first place, and lessen the injuries when accidents happen.
“You can’t always do it, but better to learn to put the arms around the head and roll than put out the hand in a futile attempt to cushion the blow.”
LOL. A few months ago, I was outside on a steep driveway and didn’t tie my boot laces. Sure enough, they got tangled together and I was going down, whether I wanted to or not. But I’ve watched enough action movies to do EXACTLY as you said, so I pull in my arm, collapsed my knees, and landed on my shoulder. I then rolled a couple of revs down the driveway, but wound up with only a tiny bruise on my back and a minor scrape on my hand, that was it. My sister-in-law looked at me when I was rolling and was like, WTF are doing. I was just thrilled to get up, shake myself off a bit, and get back to work on her car...and laugh about it!