How do you feel when you walk? Think back to the last time you took a walk – were you rushing to go somewhere? Were you taking a slow stroll through the woods or on the beach? Getting up from the couch to grab a snack from the kitchen? Can you give your walk an adjective – like smooth, heavy, light, clunky? Walking upright and on two feet is a quintessential human movement, but sometimes the more experience we have in the world we start to feel like walking is not enjoyable or as easy as it could be.

When we first learn to walk as babies, we fall down, we get back up, then fall again. Learning to walk takes some trial and error to get just right. What happens to our perfect human walk when “life” happens? Our hips can get achy, our knees and ankles can start to creak, maybe our low back aches too when we’re upright at all. Why? Muscle habits and adaptation can make it seem like we’ve “forgotten” how to walk, making it uncomfortable and even painful.

A few days ago, I was walking at the park, and decided to put on different “walks”. I tip-toed, skipped, strutted, did a “runway walk”. With each one, I felt a little different inside – almost like a different person. I started to wonder “what if I tried walking like that person over there?”, like walking in someone else’s shoes, but walking in someone else’s WALK? What would happen if you saw someone who you thought had a great walk, and you tried to walk just like them? I’m really curious if you try that, and then go back to your own walk, does it change anything for you?

Walking with Ease, 4 week lessons start this Thursday:

For the month of October, we’re going to focus on walking, the most essential human movement. As babies, we figure out how to walk by falling down & getting back up over & over again. Somewhere along the line, we get stuck in habits that can cause us to “forget” what we learned as kids. In these weeks, we’ll break down how we walk, and work to smooth out any kinks & bumps that may be holding us back from free & easy walking. 
 
Here is the link for this week’s class: Walking with Ease, Lesson 1 – tomorrow, Thursday at 12pm noon eastern time. Register here for class.
 
Classes run 35-45 minutes. Make sure you have a yoga mat sized space for the practice. Your video and audio will be off when you first get in the “room”, you have the option to turn both on. I’d love to *see* you, but feel free to remain off if you’re more comfortable that way 🙂