First, let’s go back and review the first five steps:
Step One – shift your weight back.
Step Two – pivot on your front foot’s heel 45 degrees outward.
Step Three – shift your weight forward on the now turned front foot.
Step Four – bring in your back foot, next to the front foot, touch the ball of the foot to ground.
Step Five – step out with the foot you just brought in forward and out on the heel.
And now, onto Step Six. We are going to shift the weight into our forward leg. Now, there’s a few key details to be viscerally aware of when you do this:
1. Open up your hip flexors, very very subtly bowing your legs outward. It’s very subtle, should be invisible, but you can feel it.
2. Sink your tailbone, and push your pelvis ever so slightly, upwards.
1 & 2 need to be simultaneous. Make sure to look forward, keep your neck and spine very straight.
So that’s it! Now do all the steps on one side, and that will put the other leg forward, and do it on the other side. Since you are constantly alternating, that makes it a “walk”.
Commonly, the attention is put on what leg receives the weight, and what part of the foot touches the ground. And this is not wrong, it is indeed important to know this.
But it doesn’t stop there. There are several more factors that you need to be keenly aware of as you do this exercise:
1. The opening of the hip flexors (bowing the legs out slightly).
2. The sinking and lifting of your pelvis.
3. The turning of your torso – waist & shoulders.
4. The alignment of your spine and neck – as though it were suspended from floor to ceiling.
When we attach arm motions to the walk, we add in the connection of the shoulder-elbow-arm.