Barefoot Mick and Sunshine Sam of the Barefoot Academy offer specific exercises to strengthen our re-connection to the Earth through our natural ball-to-heel barefoot walk.

Date:   6/26/2005 10:06:54 PM ( 19 y ago)

From Mick and Sam:

We study a lot of walks, it is our life's work. One of the things that we have observed is that when the human bipedal animal first begins to walk as a toddler, they step on their front paw and then bring the heel down, stepping from the core of their body. It is later that wearing shoes and the walk of domination is taught to our children. This domination walk causes so much pain in the body, as well as the community and the earth. The body tries to respond back by showing the natural walk, and this is why you see old people shuffle like they do. It is the body wisdom trying to walk as we are meant to walk.

So, follow the natural wisdom of your body, and allow this genetic memory to teach you your natural walk, and remember that as your feet touch the earth, the earth will awaken your body wisdom, and you will eventually overcome the old programming of confinement and disconnection from the earth.

Another practice to help you is to observe how you walk up hill and down hill, or up and down stairs.

Love,
Mick and Sam

Liora Leah responds:

I find that walking up and down a hill is much easier to get the feel of ball-to-heel walking, and then it's easier to maintain this gait on the flat ground. Also, if I start out with a slow jog, then I naturally lean forward and go on the balls of my feet first; then I slow this down to a fast walk. What I find hard to do is to maintain this gait when I am tired and am walking slowly--then I tend to go back to the old pattern of heel-to-ball. I find this way of walking very jarring after the ball-to-heel, and yet the ball-to-heel is not really comfortable or natural yet, so now I'm in a place where both modes of walking feel uncomfortable!

I guess you'd say I'm "transitioning"!

Love to you, Mick and Sam!

Liora Leah


Reply from Mick and Sam:

You are at such a wonderful place in the transition of your walk. You are recognizing the old neural programming of the dominator or heel walk, and as you become more comfortable with the natural walk, the more you feel the natural walk, and the more your body posture will align to the feel of it. Remember, you have a genetic memory that has just been waiting to grow naturally, and as the shoes are moved out of the way for healing, so you must move the old heel-walking out of the way.

One thing that helps me, when I get tired and feel the heel walk coming on, is to begin dancing in my walk, twisting, turning, skipping, creating dance with the path and my walk. After some dancing, I then drop back into my natural walk again. The dancing movement establishes a new relationship with, new tactile stimulaton through, your body. New movement helps break up old habits that have become solidified and locked in our body tissue. We have become comfortable with a walk, a body posture, and so when we get tired we revert back to what feels comfortable. But then you come to realize that the old walking habit is damaging and causing pain. Once you have stepped out into new stimulaton, and the insight comes and you can feel the awareness, then your practice goals are so obvious. You need to pay really close attention during this time, and get down into words, for this needs to be explained really deeply. It is the feeling of a shift in knowing, stepping out of disconnection and separation, and stepping into integration.

Another useful exercise is to develop your grip by picking up a stone, holding it at your core, and then slowly begin walking, remembering to step from the core, and walk the natural walk. Try a few steps in the heel walk, and you will find how the body is not comfortable in this at all. The altering of the gravitational field, by holding a mass, awakens the body to respond naturally and find your way into your natural step. Then raise the stone to your shoulder level, and continue to walk, and then raise the stone high over you head, while walking, dancing, moving, while remembering to bring the wind deep into your core. And as you get used to handling one mass, increase to a stone that has more mass.

We do not use the word "weight". We prefer to use the word "mass" when we practice in stone. The mass is about the relationship between you, the earth, and the stone. To get hung up in the concept of weight, is to get hung up in "how much should I lift? How much does someone else lift?", and the ego and numbers come into the practice. Finding your natural walk is about establishing your own relationship with the natural walk of your species.

Another very important exercise to bring into your walks is jumping. The achilles tendon and calf muscles are very weak in shoe and heel walkers. These groups of muscles have evolved to give us a spring in our step, so add some jumping, in fact lots of jumping. We have practitioners begin jumping, and then after they get a jump routine going, we have them begin to fall forward, and jump while running, putting spring into their walk and run.

As the practitioner gets stronger and stronger, we tie the stone-walks and the jump together. You need to work yourself into these exercises, remembering that your feet have become weak from loss of touch. The losing of this touch through the feet is not anything to feel bad about either. It is a good thing, because you are older and aware, and the flood of tactile stimulation that begins to flow through your soles is intense. The more time that you spend in developing this touch, the greater that your perceptual level of knowing grows, and this is a fundamental quality of intuition.

It is so good to know you.

Mick and Sam


Barefoot Mick and Sunshine Sam do not have a website. Please contact them via e-mail at: BarefootAcademy@aol.com

See my other blogs on Mick and Sam, barefoot walking, and reconnecting to Mother Earth through the soles of our feet:

"Warrior Woman of the Shield"  http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=57 
"Barefoot Walking: The Four Disciplines" http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=27
"Wildman Barefoot Buddha" http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=17
"Deer Animal Totem": http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=20
"Walking Like a Deer" http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=18
"Earth Shoes" http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=19
"Barefoot Walkin' Blues" http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=22
"Earth Heals Pain" http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=4
"Barefoot Story" http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=5
"Re-connecting with Earth" http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=6

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