Danny Dreyer, Founder
ChiWalking
No. Three: Create Balance
Physical balance is essential for developing healthy, efficient walking form, and finding balance in our lives is an important aspect of healthy living. When you are physically balanced, it takes less work to support your body weight as well as create movement.
When you are out of balance, your muscles have to do more work to compensate, and you become tired more quickly. In ChiWalking, your body weight is always centered over your leading foot, so that movement initiates from your center, and the bulk of the work is done by the core muscles, rather than your feet and legs having to reach out and pull you along. When you are physically balanced, you are not only more efficient in your walking; you are safer too, with much less potential for falling down or getting injured.
No. Four: Make a Choice
Life is full of choices. We make thousands of them every day: what to wear, what to eat, which tasks to tackle first at work, and how we will respond to our co-workers, kids or spouse. Little choices can make a big difference because of their cumulative nature. Take food for example--How we look or whether we carry extra pounds is not determined by one thing we eat, but rather by the accumulation of the dozens of food choices we make each day, compounded by days and weeks and months and years of those choices.
This step falls after we have gotten aligned, engaged our core, and created balance for a good reason. Many of the choices we make each day are so quick and often done unconsciously, that if we are not in an aligned, balanced state, we can end up choosing poorly. In ChiWalking, we choose to move forward in a different way than before, and that means by leading with our upper body, in balance over our stepping foot, rather than leading with our legs. We choose which direction we are going before we start, so that all parts are moving in the same direction.
No. Five: Move Forward
Now that you are aligned, centered in your engaged core, balanced over your feet, and have your destination in mind, you are ready to move forward. This is where the shoe leather meets the road, where you make that commitment to take a walk today and to lay out a plan for a weekly walking program toward good health and fitness.
Te keep moving forward, keep your posture straight, your core engaged, your upper body balanced over your lower body and your destination in mind. Moving forward sounds simple—because it is. Mindfully complete the first four steps so that your forward movement has balance, purpose and direction.
