Walking on a line

If you work on a wood floor or carpet with lines in it, this is easy to track. It takes work in the adductor muscles and makes for a very smooth glidewalk.

Hello Esther, It has been great to practice glidewalking. During the past motnhs, I have found my leg and hip muscles have improved and relaxed a lot from it. I think I got the basics now, and am now following the steps in your book in which you refine your gait. I am now at the step in which you walk on one line, but I have some difficulty with it. I find that it is easy to bring my right leg to the front and to the centre during the swing phase, but for my left leg it takes a lot of effort. Whenever I bring my left leg to the front and to the centre, I find myself using a lot of others muscles apart from the abductors. The leg becomes less relaxed, and doesn't 'swing' anymore, as it is supposed to do during this phase. Do you have any recommendations? I don't have the feeling my hips are at different height, but I could be mistaken. Thanks again for your great book, which has improved my health significantly! Khemadhammo Bhikkhu.

Sounds like a weak muscle(s). Do you have a gym near you? Try testing the strength of your adductors separately and see if one isn't weaker than the other. If so, do some physical therapy type exercises (repetitions against resistance) to bring it up to the level on the other side. I suggest you find a good physical therapist to clue you in on this one. There is clearly something particular to you going on; it takes detective work to figure this sort of thing out. Not easy to do long distance!

Thanks for your help. Living in a monastery, it is hard for me to go to a gym, but I could try some of the exercises you mention. Now that I am becoming more aware of this problem, it would appear as though i am walking not completely straight, but slightly slanted to the left side. I am thinking it might come from not having the right leg rest on the floor completely during meditation, as I meditate for 2-3 hrs. per day. I am normally sitting in quarter lotus (with the right leg on the left lower leg). Do you think this might be the cause? I haven't quite figured out how to solve this, but I did discover that engaging the inner corset when walking helps to straighten my body. I am now also trying to adjust my meditation posture a bit, trying to position hips and knees at the same level. I wouldn't want to switch legs and put my left leg on top, though, or would that be necessary?

My immediate thought was to encourage switching legs. I f that is not desirable, doing some extra stretches for the side that is adapting to a short resting length is a good idea. If this is the origin of the problem, then it's an asymmetric  tightness issues rather than an asymmetric weakness issue. Good luck puzzling this one out - it can be done!

Thank you very much for the tip. The leg with the short resting length would be the lower leg, right? Are there any stretches you would recommend in particular?

Yes, the lower leg. I would put it in a similar stretch to what the upper leg is experiencing in your meditation pose, only a more challenging version since you don't want to spend as long a time in this pose as you do meditating. Paper clip pose (in the appendix of 8 Steps) or pigeon pose from yoga would be good.

Thank you. It does seem to improve slightly now, now that I am doing a stretch for the left leg.

Cool!