Walk softly, tread lightly

Next week is week seven of our current ten week Alexander Technique course and we are going to be thinking about our feet, and about how we walk – and about walking softly, lightly on the earth. The converse is fairly obviously something we don’t want to do – we don’t want to walk heavily, stiffly, we don’t want our legs or feet to feel hard or immobile. We don’t want to strut, to stamp, to stalk – well, most of us don’t. We DO want to walk easily, gently, with enjoyment, with grace and beauty, even.

And one of the activities we will try is exactly that, thinking first of how we DON’T want to walk and then looking at the opposites, to find positive ideas, positive images to think of while we walk. In the Alexander technique, this kind of thinking is called direction.

We might also work at waking up the foot, walking over different surfaces, rubbing and flexing our feet gently, with kindness. And we will look at the wonderful image of the foot in Albinus on Anatomy by Hale and Coyle.

We may work on standing in a lunge, exploring rocking and shifting our weight back and forward, observing pictures of people in the lunge position, and playing a game I call, ‘Make like a stork’! You will have to come along to find out more!

And we will read some of Bruce Fertman’s post on  Walking.

And then we will softly, lightly, with joy, walk out into the week ahead…….