Stepping for the Situation

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  • #128233

    Anonymous
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    So at various points during the week, I find that different areas of training are open to me.

    I’ve worked a lot on trying to get mud walking down, to get it to a point that it is natural. But I’ve found that I can only really do it in a few specific situations. if I’m wearing my usual shoes, I’ll have to be on certain types of floors, or some loose dirt ground, almost like sand, sometimes very fine gravel, for it to work. Otherwise the traction from my shoes is too great, and I can’t get the slight rubbing on the ground that I need for the mud walking (at least as far as I’ve come to understand it).

    In those situations, in which I still want to get some practice in, I either do one of two things 1) switch to heel toe stepping, or 2) (more recently), fully extend my foot before putting it down (since I can’t get the proper foot break), and then putting my heel down only SLIGHTLY before the ball of my foot.

    I’m wondering: is this okay? Heel toe stepping seems very different than mud walking, at least physically (I still try to maintain the awareness of my feet and the surrounding space). I know that in the text, it says that the two types of stepping are not really practiced simultaneously.

    In the situations in which I have the right ground, or can practice barefoot on the right type of ground or floor, everything works great, and I’ve come to really enjoy mud walking. But sometimes I’d like to get into some practice in which the conditions don’t really allow for that type of stepping, so I’m wondering of simultaneously training heel toe/ my modified mud walking will be okay. My pace is still pretty slow, so I don’t know what ramifications my actions would have at higher levels/faster speeds.

    Thanks for reading!

    #130833

    Anonymous
    Guest

    I can’t give you any concrete advice since I don’t know more than you do, but I have experienced the situation you describe in regards to shoes/ground traction. I usually practice barefoot and my feet ‘slide’ nicely on the surface, but recently I’ve taken up to walking in various shoes/slippers that have a significant traction compared to walking barefoot, and I do it because I want to learn the proper alignment of the forward foot. Bruce says you know your forward foot is placed correctly when there’s no force coming up from your feet to your knee and leg when you do the footbrake. That’s really hard to learn when your foot just slides on the ground with very little resistance, but you can feel the braking force easily in rubbery shoes.

    Also, at least from the martial arts perspective, I don’t think there’s such thing as the right ground. You ought to be able to move anywhere.

    #130834

    Anonymous
    Guest

    In my experience you’ve got to train on a whole bunch of different surfaces. I prefer bare feet on dirt, but at the moment flip flops on a brick patio are the best I’ve got. Mud Stepping is a journey, and there is no end to it. You’ll keep finding many things within it over the years so just take your time and enjoy each session no matter how long or how short.
    Keep up the good work!

    Jess O

    #130835

    Anonymous
    Guest

    Hey rado, I agree with a lot of what you said.

    I’ve been really conscious about the force coming up from my feet to the knee. But sometimes I wonder if that’s caused by my stepping incorrectly, or whether it’s caused by the traction caused by my shoe when my foot is trying to brake- my foot wants to move forward a little bit, but my shoe does not, so of course I’ll feel some forces on my knee!

    As to the martial arts perspective which you bring up- totally agree! My foray into meditation started from martial arts, and I’ve always been extremely conscious about martial arts applications and practical self defense. My interest in bagua stems from the fact that there are complete spiritual, energetic, health, AND martial aspects to it.

    I’m still practicing at slow speeds, and martial applications would be a lot faster, so I don’t want to modify something that helps me practice it slowly, only for it to bite me in the foot later when I start to speed up. In my experience, it’s better to just learn it right the first time!

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