Despite seeming antithetical to figure skating, the first skill taught in beginner skating classes is how to fall. Why, then, is failure not a skill taught to us from young? Instead, most children grow up fearing failure, a trait that is detrimental to their future success. In her talk, Ilika Motani discusses the why and how of learning to fail through her personal experiences with falling and failure in figure skating. Ilika Motani is a Year 5 (JC1) student at NUS High School. She is passionate about math and science and does volunteer fieldwork in intertidal zones with NParks. A figure skater on the Singapore National Team, she represents Singapore in international competitions. She is a local writer and her poetry has been published in multiple literature journals. She was the president of her school’s English Language Interest Group and is an actor in the Drama Club. Behind this list of accolades, however, is the most important thing about Ilika: she is not afraid to fail. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx