Intentional Walking
This exercise, which we might call a form of “mindful walking” if we were into that sort of thing, is a mobile practice centered around—you guessed it—walking. However, we’re going to walk with intention. The use of intention is what takes this exercise beyond mindfulness. Yes, we will be paying close attention to what we are doing and listening to our body in a “mindful” way, grounded in the present moment. However! We will be actively creating something to pay attention to, and this is as much the point of the exercise as the listening component.
We should first take a moment to discuss how odd human locomotion in general actually is: bipedalism isn’t that uncommon in nature, but human bipedalism is very interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, as we’ll notice during this exercise, your breath is entirely uncoupled from walking and running. This may seem extremely unremarkable, but consider that most other mammals are quadrupeds (at least that live on land). When a four-legged animal runs, their body has to bunch up and then stretch out; this means that their breathing MUST be perfectly in time with their stride, typically 1:1. In contrast, a well conditioned human has much more flexibility in their breathing in relation to their running gait, with different phases available (4:1, 3:1, 2:1, 1:1, 5:2, and 3:2). This is handy! When simply walking, this flexibility is even greater. This means that we won’t do much work with the breath in this exercise, beyond using it to establish a base of awareness on which to build.
Instead, we will spend our time focusing our attention and intention to make various changes in how we walk, and then observing the repercussions of these changes to the extent that we are able. This is a relatively simple exercise, but quite deep (as many seemingly simple exercises are). You may already have realized that many people have a characteristic gait, or that you can read someone’s mood as they walk past you. Walking is one of the most fundamental human movement patterns, and it involves the entirety of the body and interacts with posture; as such it carries huge amounts of information about mood, intent, and social standing. How someone walks towards you may strongly influence your feelings about them approaching you, as you unconsciously digest all this information. This is especially true if you are someone who has to be aware of the intentions of the people around you for the sake of your own safety.
With this in mind, we will set about taking a walk. Dress comfortably for the weather, and wear a pair of good walking shoes. Preferably these should not restrict the foot, and ideally they give you some good ground feel (the ability to get information about the surface you’re walking on). However, this exercise can be performed even while wearing combat boots (this was the footwear worn when the author first developed the exercise)! So just go with your preferred walking shoes.
There are two ways to prepare for this exercise. For the first, do a body scan or breathing exercise prior to going for your walk. When you’ve finished, try to hang onto the heightened awareness of your body that the exercise will (hopefully) have produced. You can do it in your walking clothes, and in your shoes to help this along.
For the second, you’ll perform a basic breathing and awareness exercise while mobile and out and about in the world. This has the advantage of allowing one to seamlessly transition to the rest of the exercise. However, it may be more challenging to tune in to your body when in a more distracting environment and while navigating things like intersections. As your practice deepens, this approach will be easier to use, though both types of “warm up” have merit and are worth doing.
The Mobile Warm Up
For this warm up exercise, we’ll be paying attention to three things: our breath, our gait, and the environment at large. The goal here is to not to become caught up in the marvel of one’s breath, the feel of the ground underfoot, and then step into oncoming traffic and have the deeply mindful experience of being hit by a bus. With that in mind, as you leave home, consider your route. Is it traffic heavy? Will you be accosted by someone trying to get you to sign petitions? Will there be many cute dogs being walked by handsome and charming individuals? All of these carry some risk of capturing your attention and pulling you out of the exercise. So, the first act of intention in this exercise is to choose a route that will be as conducive as possible to safely maintaining a largely internal focus most of the time.
As you get underway, focus first on your environment. What sort of day is it? What is the quality of light? How does the air smell? Is it the sort of day you like? The time of you day you prefer to be outside? Is their a breath of wind to be felt on your face as you move forward? Take some time to just pay attention to the quality of the day and the space in which you are walking, whatever it might happen to be.
After you’ve spent a while absorbing the character of the day, turn most of your attention to your breath. Don’t attempt to shut out the rest of the world; instead, add your breath to the way you’ve been experiencing the world so far. This is both very simple, and also not at all, so don’t worry if it seems like a slippery concept. On your next inhale, bring part of your attention down with your breath, beginning with the air just in front of your face as you pass through it, down into your belly. Reverse this on the exhale, following the breath up from the belly and out into the world. In the space between inhale and exhale, check in with the world around you, before turning the majority of your attention to your breath again.
Breathe as you would while doing a body scan: slowly, evenly, and without forcing anything. If you happen to be walking up a steep incline when you move to this part of the warm up, do your best to bring your attention to your breath as it currently is, which will be more forceful. If you find your breath is quickened compared to resting due to your pace, slow your pace until you can breathe easily and smoothly. You’ll want a slower walking pace once we begin to work with the feet and ground.
After you’ve taken some thirty breaths, start to think about your gait. Nothing specific at first, merely bring your attention to the fact that you are walking. As before leave some attention on the outside world, and on your breath, but begin to pay attention to the pendulum-like nature of walking. The swing of the arms, the lifting of the foot, reaching forward, planting the foot. Allowing the body to drift out over the forward foot, and then swinging the other leg forward and repeating the process over again. You may note a particular feel or tone to your gait, perhaps a subtle urgency, or a relaxedness, something cheery or despondent. There’s no need to make any attempt to alter whatever you encounter, but if something presents itself, make note of it.
You may also notice that there is not a strong connection between the pattern of your breath and your gait. The advantages of being bipedal! Let your attention move back and forth between your breath and your gait, noting if and when they align, and when they do not.
Now that we have properly warmed up our faculties, let the breath go from your attention. From here on out, you will be focused on the act of walking and not dying in traffic (or falling down a cliff, trampled by cattle, kidnapped by faeries, whatever your local hazards might be).
Walking Strangely, Proper
The exercise proper focuses on three different aspects of walking: the leading and following leg, how the foot strikes the ground, and how we stand when waiting. Either of these three things can be the primary focus of the exercise, but it’s worthwhile to experiment with all of them, and they intertwine nicely.
Follow the Leader
The first thing we can bring our attention to is that we most likely have a preference in which leg and foot “leads” and which “follows”. This means that one foot will tend to have more energy put into it, will be accompanied with a sensation of reaching out and forward, and the other will be more passive. While the leading foot reaches out, the following foot catches up and closes the gap, making us stable in our new position and providing the opportunity for the leading leg and foot to reach out again. The simplest way to determine which side of your body you tend to lead with is by noticing which foot goes forward when you begin to walk from simply standing still. This might correspond to your dominant hand (an interesting thing to check, once underway).
However, you will find that you can become aware of this feeling while already in motion, and this is a more interesting experience. So, while keeping enough of your attention on your environment as is needed to proceed safely, listen to each leg in turn, without attempting to change anything.
How does it feel when each leg and foot leave the ground and begin to move forward? Does one leg feel more like stepping forward? You may find that there is not a strong preference evident. And this is fine!
Regardless of which leg feels more like the leader, you can select which foot to lead with. Again, this is most simply accomplished by choosing which leg you step out with first from a standing stop, but you can also do this by shifting your intention while in motion. Simply think of the right leg and foot reaching forward to cover ground, and let the left leg catch up. Do this for perhaps a block. Then, switch sides. Lead with the left leg and foot, allowing the right leg to catch up. Note that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do this, it’s simply a matter of using your attention and intention to direct your motion and observe how it feels.
After you’ve walked a block leading with the left foot, you can now do the somewhat odd thing of leading with both feet. When each foot leaves the ground and your leg begins to come forward, switch your attention to it, and think of it as reaching forward. I find this way of walking often can have a sort of strident or martial feel to it, a certain forcefulness and urgency. It can also take a fair bit of attention to maintain, as it’s not how most people tend to walk.
Walk in this manner for perhaps a block or two (a tenth to a quarter of a mile if on a trail or other non-urban environment) and then experiment with any piece of the exercise so far that felt particularly interesting.
Where the Rubber Hits the Road
The next area of interest is in our footstrike, how the foot interacts with the ground when planted. There is a lot of debate in the world of running and walking and movement generally about how the foot ‘should’ meet the ground. While there may be some energy use and performance optimization issues here, much of the rest of this debate is very likely bullshit (like most debate about the ‘right way to move’). In this exercise, we will observe our feets without judgement.
Generally speaking, there are three possible footstrikes to be had: heel, midfoot, and forefoot. Your choice of footwear will influence this somewhat, but again, it’s possible to consciously choose how the foot lands and a forefoot strike is possible even in a heeled boot. Obviously, very tall heels can complicate this somewhat, but presumably you didn’t head out to do a walking exercise in stilettos.
For this portion of the exercise, we will repeat the pattern used above: first we will observe what our default mode of movement is, and then we will consciously manipulate our movement and observe the effects.
Most of us grew up wearing shoes with substantial soles; in theory this leads us to tend to take a slightly longer stride, and for our heel to be the first part of the foot that strikes the ground. The barefoot enthusiasts out there may view this as a terrible tragedy; and the loss of strength and sensitivity in the foot are indeed something to be lamented. However, the extent to which heel striking is bad is, to my knowledge, rather debatable. Similarly, the extent to which shoes may contribute to something like the flattening of the foot is not well established, and likely to be subject to a lot of individual variation. Regardless, as you walk, unless you have cultivated another method, you are likely striking the ground with your heel. If not, try it out for a bit.
What is this like? As your heel touches the ground, what happens? Is there a shock in the foot and lower leg? How does it feel as your foot rolls forward to meet the ground? What happens in the ankle as this process unfolds? Does the ankle move from side to side as the weight moves across the foot? What happens in your foot as your weight moves onto it, and eventually the weight shift onto your toes as your next step begins?
Simply observe these various facets of the motion of the foot and ankle for perhaps a block or so. The lower leg is a remarkably complex apparatus, with many degrees of freedom, and a huge volume of nerves designed to provide you with information about your relationship with the ground. Most of this information never rises to the level of conscious experience, but much of it is readily available and can be listened to.
Now that we’ve listened to this information for a while, we can begin to play with it. Aside from the heel, where else can the foot strike the ground? Generally you can perform a “midfoot” or “forefoot” footstrike. Experiment with moving the place where your foot strikes the ground forward to the midfoot. What does this require? How does it feel?
You will almost certainly find that when you move the initial contact patch of the foot forward towards the toes, you’ll need to adjust your stride as well. If you have the ankles of a ballet dancer, you can perhaps continue to take very long steps and put the foot down with the toes pointed. However, for the rest of us, generally we’ll have to shorten the length of our step a bit, and have the foot strike the ground closer to (or more under, if you prefer) the body. You may find that this shortened stride alters your pace somewhat, and that it carries it’s own particular mood or feel.
Another factor to investigate is that as the location of foot strike moves forward towards the toes, we can begin to play with how much weight the heel experiences. Experienced runners may know how different the experience of running with a forefoot strike and little heel strike can be; the foot and ankle can act much more like a spring when moving this way, and it produces a distinct feeling. Note, however, that if you’re not used to this kind of walking it can tire the ankle and foot very quickly. A lot of heel height also makes this somewhat more difficult to do. That said, experimenting with a forefoot strike and very little contact at the heel makes can be quite informative and is perhaps the strongest contrast from most people’s experience of their “normal” gait as it’s possible to get.
Stop.
Of course, walking around in most environments involve a fair bit of stopping and standing. As we are paying attention to how the lower body interacts with the ground and our internal experience as we walk, we should also continue to pay attention when we come to a stop. How do we stop and wait? Do we place our weight on our heels? On the midfoot? The forefoot? What is happening with our knees? Are they slightly bent, straight? How is our weight distributed across the feet as we stand waiting? Is it static, or moving? Distributed evenly between both feet, or concentrated on one foot?
For the sake of brevity, we won’t explore every possible combination here, I think at this point you likely have some sense of how to investigate these questions on your own. The important part is simply to listen; both to the physical experience of your feet and ankles interacting with the ground and your internal lived experience as it responds to how your body is moving through the world.
The End
After you have explored all these different aspects of walking and returned home safely, take a few moments to give your feet a little rub, and see if the rest of your day feels any different. You may find that after having performed this exercise, you find yourself spontaneously noticing how you are standing, what you are doing with your feet, and how your weight is distributed at other times in the day. You can also use checking in with your feet, weight distribution, gait, and so forth as a means of self observation. How do these things relate to other elements of your experience? How do they change with your emotional state? With the type of errand you’re running? With the company you have at the moment? You may find a surprising amount of information about yourself is available in something as seemingly simple as how you put your feet on the ground.