By Katherine and Danny Dreyer

Five steps recommended for improving your walking experience 1. Get Aligned: Carry yourself tall and upright, not slumped or bent at the waist. If you need to lean forward while climbing a hill, lean from your hips while maintaining a shorter stride. 2. Engage Your Core: Do this by pulling in on your lower abdominal muscles, which holds your torso directly over your hips and reduces the effort needed to lift your legs. 3. Create Balance: Shorten your normal stride and walk with your torso over your hips for a more efficient stride and improved balance. 4. Make a Choice: In the ChiWalking book, there is a menu of 12 great walks to choose from such as the Energizing Walk, the Meditation Walk, or the Hilly Walk. You’ll find just the right walk to fit your needs — meditative, aerobic, calming, strengthening, and more, depending on the kind of exercise you’re seeking. 5. Move Forward: Make a promise to yourself to get out there and walk regularly. Invite a friend and make walking a lifelong habit that improves your health and vitality.

In today’s fast paced world, we all want to feel strong and centered to meet our daily challenges with a sense of confidence. The demands of our lives require that we are focused on our goals, and at the same time relaxed and flexible. We need to be directed, and also be open to the opportunities along the way.

ChiWalking takes the fitness activity of walking and brings to it the principles and practices of T’ai Chi to help you attain your fitness and personal goals. Walking and T’ai Chi have both been documented as activities that support your health and well being in a myriad of ways. When they are brought together in a workout, the results are profound. When you go out for a walk, you can learn to not only get a good cardio workout, but also strengthen your core, gain better balance, focus and enliven your mind, stretch your spine, and relax your whole body. How’s that for multitasking?

Get Aligned
At the heart of ChiWalking is one of the main principles of T’ai Chi, alignment. Our grandmothers were correct and in agreement with T’ai Chi masters; good posture is the cornerstone of good health. When your posture is straight and tall, when your bones are lined up to carry the weight of your body, then all the circuits for energy and oxygen and nutrients to move through your body are open and flow freely.

And even more good things happen when you’re in alignment. In order to get in alignment, you will engage your abdominal muscles, strengthening them while you walk, and all the rest of the muscles in your body get to relax, including the muscles in your legs. This means a reduction of shin splits, plantar fasciitis, knee pain, and even hip pain. Many of these ailments are caused by overuse of your lower leg muscles and too little use of your core muscles. In ChiWalking you use your core muscles to keep you in alignment and allow gravity to pull you forward, which makes walking safer, easier, and more efficient.

When you get aligned and create strong core muscles on the physical level, you will find that your mind and even your spirit will follow suit. In T’ai Chi, all movement comes from your center or your dantien, home to your chi energy and found slightly below your navel and in toward your spine. When you focus on this area of your body, which you will do every time your remember to engage your core muscles, you will quiet and focus your mind as well. You will come home from your walk ready to take on the challenges of the day.

Whether you’re going out for an all day hike or a simple stroll, you’ll enjoy your time more if you follow these simple suggestions for good walking technique.

Katherine and Danny Dreyer are ChiWalking founders. Visit www.chiwalking.com for more information. Their book, ChiWalking: The Five Mindful Steps for Lifelong Health and Energy, can be found at most bookstores.