Eighty Eight Ways of Walking

By
Michael P. Garofalo

The Ways of Walking

Pathways in the Green Valley

February 13, 2010

All photographs are of Michael P. Garofalo

Eighty Eight Ways of Walking
By Michael P. Garofalo

Index

1. Walk with a Cane

2. Read about Walking

3. Muscle Tendon Transformation Qigong Exercises

4. Chanting Cadence While Walking

5. Listen to Lectures

1. Walk with a Cane

Consider carrying a cane or walking stick when you take your walk. A simple wooden crook neck cane, sized correctly for walking, is easy to purchase. Carrying and using a cane properly while walking is legal in most areas and locations in the world.

The purpose of carrying a cane or walking stick while walking is threefold. First, you can do various exercises with the cane while walking to improve your strength and flexibility in your shoulders and arms. Second, if the terrain is rough or slippery, you can improve your footing by using a cane or walking stick; and, this is useful when hiking in the mountains, along riverbeds, or in rocky areas. Third, you can use your cane to brandish against or defend yourself against animals or evil doers.

A cane used for walking is usually a few inches longer that one used to support your bodyweight when you are recovering from injury, coping with infirmities, or when a person is weak from chronic illness or old age. Experiment a bit to find the right size for a cane to use to match your stride while you are walking briskly.

There are many exercises, drills, practice sets, and martial arts forms that make use of a cane, walking stick, or short staff. I have provided a complete guide to this subject on my comprehensive webpage titled The Way of the Short Staff.

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2. Read About Walking

Ideas, images, and stories can fill the mind with the passion to walk. Information about the health benefits of walking can help to get you out and walking. Tales of interesting walking adventures can motivate you to plan for some long walks. Trail guides can excite you about taking a challenging hike. Descriptions and historical facts about city walks can draw you out on the sidewalks. The mind is a very powerful force in making you want to walk more.

Take a look at some of the many quotations I have collected about walking, and read a few of the many valuable books on the subject. The subject of Walking Meditation may be worth exploring.

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3. Muscle Tendon Transformation Qigong Exercises

I practice and teach Chinese health exercises (Qigong, Chi Kung, Daoyin). One particular set, the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Classic (Yi Jin Jing Qigong), is well over a thousand years old, and is popular with Shaolin Temple monks. I have prepared a webpage on the subject of the Yi Jin Jing, and have described a set of exercises that can be done while walking and using a cane. You might enjoy doing these Muscle-Tendon Changing Exercises while walking.

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4. Chanting Cadence Walking Technique

Soldiers, when marching, build camaraderie by repeating a phrase called out by a Caller in the group. The singing/chanting, cadence songs, help the group keep a steady pace. Children playing skip rope or clapping often use cadence songs.

While walking, you might practice reciting your mantram, reciting a verse of a favorite scripture, or reciting some inspiring sentence. Choose a specific phrase and find a way to make that phrase work while using it in a cadence song manner.

Most songs in 4/4 time work quite well for cadence walking.

I usually repeat the chosen phrase very quietly or silently.

RF – Right Foot Comes Down, LF = Left Foot Comes Down

Smiling Kindness Healing Me
R L R L R L R L
repeat

Jesus Loves Me This I Know
R L R L R L R L
repeat

Om Mane Padme Om
R L R L R L R L
repeat

Phrase ? ...... / You're right
Phrase ? ...... / You're right
Phrase ? ...... / You're right
Phrase ? ...... / You're right
Sound off! / 1,2
Sound off! / 3,4
Cadence count! / 1,2,3,4,1,2...3,4!
repeat

The possibilities are endless. Be Creative!

For a discussion of the spiritual practice of mantram recitation see:

Meditation: A Simple Eight Point Program for Translating Spiritual Ideals into Daily Life. By Eknath Easwaran (1909-1999). Nilgiri Press, 2nd Edition, 1991. 252 pages.

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5. Listen to Lectures

I used an audio-tape playback unit with Dolby for decades to listen to lectures and music as I walked. But, times have changed for the better. The invention, manufacturing, and retail sales of small electronic devices to play digital recordings is a great advance for walkers. For the last five years, I have been using the Creative MP3 players and my favorite is the Creative MuVo v100 2GB MP3 Player. These Creative units come with Creative Media Source software that enables you to take an audio CD that you own and convert or “burn” the tracks on the CD into tracts in the MP3 format. I know that many people use I Pods or their new cell phones to store digital recordings for the playback of MP3 recordings and many other uses. These playback units are light, trouble free, have fast track selection and control options, and produce high quality audio output.

I take my favorite lectures on CD and covert the tracts to the MP3 format, or download MP3 albums or tracts from vendors, and then load the tracks onto my Creative MP3 player. You can change filenames and manipulate in Windows so that playback of tracts follows the order you want.

Plug in some good quality earphones or earplugs and you are ready to walk and listen to an audio recording of a lecture. I prefer earphones with a volume control slide switch in the cord to the headphones.

Few of us can afford the expense of going to a distant retreat center or university to listen to master lecturers, professors, and experts; but many of us can afford to purchase recorded lectures in the MP3 format and then listen to the same master speakers and lecturers in our homes or as we take our long walks.

There are thousands of recorded lectures, workshop presentations, sermons, readings, language learning, and inspirational speeches in audio CD or MP3 or audiotape format. Every subject imaginable is available. Expand your horizons, learn from the great teachers, be inspired, acquire knowledge, improve your skills - all while to take your daily walk.

This weekend (2/14/2010), for example, I am beginning to listen to Allan Watts' Out of Your Mind. Essential Listening from the Allan Watts Radio Archives of over 100 radio broadcasts in MP3 format, @ $17.98.

MP3 Downloads from Amazon

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