The way you walk

I think once I wrote already that I like analysing people. Now I try not to focus on judging others, guessing what they are like and what they might be thinking about, but I still watch others in the street to observe the way they walk. You can learn a lot about someone by simply watching how they walk as this is part of body language which always communicates information about a person. Also, it is said that a large part of communication between people happens through body language (something like 70-80%, if I remember well).

For example, if someone's shoulders are elevated/lifted up, you can conclude quite comfortably that the person is under some kind of stress. You can't really say whether it's a moment only when he's thinking about some stressful event or his life, in general, is stressful. However, knowing/recognising their state, when it comes to talking to them, you can adjust your behaviour to match theirs and achieve a more harmonious conversation (you would say 'connection', in the aikido world).

 Another example is, and it is also related to the shoulders, that you can observe the extent to which the arms of a person swing when they walk. I examined myself first to learn something about arm-swinging and found that when my arms can swing freely I'm much more relaxed. That is why, I think, there are some special free-arm-swinging exercises at the beginning of some aikido classes, to relax the arms and shoulders first, in order to do a techniques better. Another observation through watching myself walking (when I didn't have any better things to think about while walking :)) is that arms are not relaxed equally: sometimes my left arm can swing more, sometimes it's the right arm. I haven't managed to figure out what exactly causes these differences but I think it has something to do with our being left or right handed and what non-symmetric tasks we perform before the observed walk.

I also tend to look for symmetry in the way people walk and entertain myself by guessing whether they are left or right legged or handed. It's a difficult task to do but not always impossible. Based on observing my own way of walking and the way others with known leg/hand preferences walk and run (friends I play football with), I think how people move their hips can help most to determine left or rightleggedness. Depending on which side opens more while stepping forward you can find out about someone's leg preferences. Ok , this is not the most useful things you can learn about life but if you relate it to your aikido trainings, it makes some sense. I think it's easy to see in aikido training that it's easier to do techniques to one side than to the other side. Unless you have trained for decades, you will always find that, for example, doingtenchinage to the left is easier than to the right. Once you notice this and, more importantly, once your instructor notices this, you can train accordingly and - over time - you can achieve harmony between your left and right sides. Just think about it: when you start learningukemi, especially ushiro ukemi, one side will definitely be better than the other. Often people start ushiro ukemi on one side and then, having not enough experience and control over their body, they switch back to their 'better' side. This, obviously, is not a good thing because you can get injured more easily but that's why we practice rolls a lot, to avoid these possible injuries (for details, see Common ushiro ukemi mistakes).

 To give another example, if sensei asks you to take on the ready/guard position (hanmi),  will you stand in hidari (left) hanmi or migi (right) hanmi (please ignore that the Japanese do almost everything to the left side first)? If you don't know how to find out your preferred stance, try the following exercise: close your eyes and imagine doinggyakuhanmi katatedori tenchinage (heaven-earth throw) on an imaginary uke (attacker). Which one of your legs/hands is in front?
Is your preferred stance determined by your being left/right handed or left/right legged? Hint: think about boxing stances.

I think if we take some time to think about the above aspects of walking and side preferences we will be more conscious about our natural preferences as well as limitations. This then will make it easier to improve ourselves. And it doesn't have to be aikido techniques, it can be any area of life: once you learn about yourself you can consciously improve yourself, too. 

The following part is a recent observation about myself, my way of walking and differences between my left and right sides (Actually, this is why I'm writing this post at all.):

In the Veszprem summer camp, we practiced hanmi on the first day. Sensei called me to help him demonstrate it. My hanmi was (and is still) far from perfect so he could easily move me forward or backward no matter how stable I wanted to be (and he's also twice the size of me and has 5th dan in aikido but that should sound as an excuse rather than cause of why I could be destabilised so easily). Triggered by this memorable experience from day one of the camp, I have started thinking more about my hanmi recently. I tried to observe the slightest details and problems of my stance at home, during our aikido summer break in July/August. I tried to compare the exact positions of my feet, knees, hips, torso and arms to what Connor describes in the Guard Position video. I found one interesting thing about my left hanmi which I knew to be less stable than my right hanmi. And it was that when my left foot is the front one, I am visibly unstable. I kind of unconsciously force my left knee to move left. This force makes my knee area muscles stressed and stretched whereas they are supposed to be relaxed. My sole doesn't have proper, full contact with the mat as if someone was pushing my knee to the left which would also lift the inner side of my sole. I need to stop a bit and tell my left leg to relax so that my position can become more stable and less stressed. I've been thinking about why this is happening: is it because I'm right legged? Is it because my bone structure is not symmetric enough? Is it because I'm a bit X-legged? I haven't managed to figure this out yet but I think I'm closer to my goal of being better (more stable) as I have already managed to identify one cause of my instability. The next task is to find the cause of this cause and sort out both this cause and its own cause :). In case you are a doctor (MD) and you can help me in this I would be very grateful.