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Feet and Walking - Leaning Backwards

Writer's picture: sofmassofmas

In my last article we looked particularly at the impact of footwear on foot health and gait. As I mentioned in that article, the overall posture and organization in walking is a major factor, not only in foot dysfunction, but in a whole range of muscular skeletal issues. In future posts I will look at several ways in which we create problems for ourselves. In this article the very common pattern I will look at is leaning backwards.


Have a look at this picture of a child walking, (Fig 1) and then compare that to the picture of an adult walking. (Fig 2) This picture of the adult walking seems quite ordinary but it is neither efficient nor healthy. If you look more closely and compare his walking with that of the child you will see that his overall orientation is back, rather than forward, in the direction of travel. What you will see with the picture of the child is that the orientation is forward and up. Rather than using the force of gravity, to move forward the adult is working against gravity. This may not be obvious because to the untrained eye it is so common and because it is something that most people have never considered.


Have a look now at this picture from an advertisement which I photographed in Taiwan. (Fig 3) Here the backwards lean is obvious. It is easy to see how contact with the foot on the ground is led by a very strong heel strike and also to see the extra work that needs to be done to take the leg forward. Anyone who walks this way will make a very loud sound on a wooden floor and put a lot of stress through all the joints of the body, And people with plantar fasciitis (pain in the sole of the foot) do of course, put an unhealthy amount of pressure through their feet.


Of course we get a whole range of different ways of walking, Our individual manner of walking is completely unique, and even when we begin to apply the Alexander technique to change an inefficient walking pattern to a more functional one, it will still be unique. But the overall orientation will be in tune with gravity and with our individual underlying body structure.


F.M Alexander, the founder of the Alexander technique, referred to "the universal constant in living" which is the name of one of his books. That universal constant is the force of habit and in terms of posture and movement it is acting on us from moment to moment, either for good or for ill. If you forget about walking for a moment notice how you are sitting as you’re reading this. Are you tight and putting pressure through your body or can you observe openness, freedom and expansion? Hours, months, years and decades of particular habits of mind and body in all our daily activities create our present reality.


If leaning back when in walking is inefficient not to say deleterious why do people do it? The problem is that people can’t sense that they are doing it. In fact, in an Alexander lesson when, as a teacher, I guide people into a more upright orientation they almost always feel that they are leaning forward! And when most people try to “stand up straight” they end up pulling their shoulders back and leaning even further backwards! In this sense the technique is profoundly non-intuitive, because it is asking for something that in the beginning feels wrong – even though in some cases it may immediately relieve painful symptoms.


The technique provides a method of bringing more accuracy to our proprioceptive sense (our sense of where we are in space). Initially this needs to be attended to very consciously and gradually as it becomes more accurate, we can guide ourselves in walking and in all the other activities of life in an effective and more easeful way. And we become much more attuned as to when we are discoordinating ourselves which gives the opportunity to make an easy conscious change.


It is interesting that currently the predominant mode of walking involves leaning backwards which was apparently not evident at the start of last century, which can be seen in the street scene from San Francisco in 1906.(Start 1 minute into the video)


While the issue of leaning back when walking is perhaps that most common issue in our discoordination when walking, I’ll look in future articles at other common issues which impede our gait and how to address them.


Figure One.
Figure One.

Figure 2
Figure 2

Figure 3
Figure 3

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS WITH DAVID MOORE





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