How to Walk Properly-Moving Meditation Mantras

Walking can be a powerful form of moving meditation. When done with true consciousness of the movements performed, it can be as beneficial as yoga, tai chi, or other mindfulness meditations. In mindfulness meditation, we create an intense sense of awareness of our senses and our feelings in the moment. The focus can be placed commonly on things like breathing or specific imagery When applied to moving meditation, this intense awareness is of the movements we are performing. Most people walk mindlessly, with little to know awareness of the details of what they are doing. This is why so many people develop bad walking habits that lead to physical problems such as back pain, knee pain, arthritis, plantar fasciitis, and a host of other conditions related to poor walking technique. In this video, I begin a series of Mindfulness Walking Mantras. The mantras are verbal cues to the specific movements of the core we use during walking. I have developed these mantras to help you increase your awareness of your center and how all of your movement flows from this area in specific patterns with specific timing.

There are two mantras shown in this video, one for walking forward on level ground and one for walking uphill.

Forward Ground:
Mantra-Turn, Tuck Lift

Turn represents rotation of the upper part of the waist. We turn forward on the right to place the right heel and turn forward on the left to place the left heel

Tuck represents rotation of the lower waist, or lower abs. These muscles function to tuck the pelvis and rotate the pelvis toward the activated side. As soon as the heel touches the ground, we tuck on the same side to begin shifting the weight and spine over that leg while shifting the body forward. The tuck is completed when the forefoot finishes lowering to the ground.

Lift represents the movement that initiates the swing through, separating the rear foot from the ground and beginning the process where it swings forward. Lift uses a pulling action from the front of the hip, or hip flexors, to pull the body forward. This motion ends when forward foot reaches its maximal amplitude of forward swing, before the heel comes down.

Turn-At the end of Lift, we engage the turn on the next side to bring that heel down and the process starts over.

Walking Uphill
Mantra-Turn, Tuck, Lift, Push

Walking uphill requires a slightly different pattern of movement.

Turn-The turn is the same as for forward walking, and brings the heel down. The difference when going uphill is that the rear hip will be extending from the glutes right before the turn. On level ground, the rear hip is pulling from the hip flexors, not pushing from the hip extensors.

Tuck-The tuck is also the same, helping to shift the body weight over the forward standing leg. Again, the rear hip needs to be in extension for this to work. Without hip extension, the body cannot rise up the hill. On level ground, where we are not working against gravity, we do not need hip extension.

Lift-The motion of Lift is performed the same way on level ground as going uphill, but the lift will end in a standing position, not ready to complete the step. The lift uses flexion of the standing leg hip, just as it did when initiating the swing through on level ground.

Push-Represents the very distinctive movement when going uphill. Push will move the body forward from the stand position by extending the hip from the glutes. This completes the swing through portion of the step. Then the turn is started on the other side to bring the heel down, but the rear hip is now in extension, not flexion. This allows the body to move up against gravity.

00:00 Introduction
01:36 Level Ground, Turn, Tuck, Lift
04:38 Uphill Turn, Tuck, Lift, Push
07:05 Conclusion

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