Walking is the Best Exercise
Walking is the Best Exercise
It's not even a contest....
Good morning from Paraguay. It’s been a pleasure to catch up with my friend Euan Richard and see the work he’s done to set up the JazzCube in Asunción. As I looked at the space, I thought it would be a good idea to have the attendees explore walking as means of tuning up and re-educating coordination. It is something that we did a lot of in my training in Amsterdam and I think it’s worth explaining to new students of the technique.
In order to really understand this post, I ask that you take the time to read my post on Poise and Prevention.
If you have watched the videos of the baby deer walking and Sammy Davis Jr dancing, that all of their movements are governed by a single principle; the head leads and the body follows. This principle is true regardless of your physical ability and you can test this idea out for yourself by simply looking at something and seeing what happens with your head, neck, and back (you don’t need to walk for this).
If you take your time with this most basic of actions, you will notice the following:
Light arrives at your eyes to bring the image to you. No physical effort is required to make one of your senses work.
The eyes have a wide range of motion inside the eye socket.
The movement of the skull is bound by the range of motion in the neck. Keep asking for quiet in the whole neck!
As the neck begins to move, something happens along the full length of the spine.
You may notice a bunch of other stuff changing as well. That’s great and important, but these are the critical components in tuning up to the idea that the head leads and the body follows. We can always add more observations into the mix as we explore later.
It takes a bit of time and quiet to really observe what I’ve written above. Don’t rush to get through this article!
Now it’s time to go for a gentle walk. As you walk through the room or outside, I want you to gently steer yourself left or right by turning the head left or right. Treat this like a game. The objective is to observe how the action of turning the head gently to the left or right will guide the rest of your body into a turn. This may all sound a bit pedantic so I’ll give you a metaphor to aid the understanding.
You can think of yourself as a sailing ship. The sails are full of air and are giving you a steady source of propulsion without any effort on your part. Your thoughts are the captain of the ship. Your head is the helm (steering wheel), your neck is the spindle on which the helm turns, and your spine is the rudder.
With this image in mind, your turning of the helm is going to be based on how well-oiled the spindle of the neck is. As you walk and turn, pay attention to the range of gentle motion in the neck and never push past what is comfortable in the turning. Remember, you have a spine which can turn the whole back and hips and that action alone can steer the feet - allow the arms to find a natural sway in accordance with your tempo.
As you explore and stay within the gentle zone of comfort in your range of motion, more and more of you will soften up and become lively. Walking engages the entirety of your being when done with a healthy coordination; no part of you should be stiff or asleep. It is why I - and many other Alexander Technique teachers - consider it to be the best thing you can do for traditional exercise. But remember, this steering game is an invitation for movement and growth and if you do not work along the principles outlined above, you will dump sand into the spindle and the whole ship will have trouble getting about.
Play with this idea and don’t rush for a result! As you gently go through this exploration, you may feel things un-clogging and you’ll feel that you can walk for longer stretches of time with greater ease. It’s an excellent and foundational warm up for the demands of the day and can serve you well for your entire life. If you like other more strenuous activities, remember that you probably are going to walk to get to the gym or put on your shoes first. You have an opportunity right in that moment to wake up the captain and get him to oil the spindle.
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