Learning To Walk

While Mr. Hatandcoat is learning how to sit, I'm learning how to walk.

One of my new roommates was a dancer in college. Last week she told us that, while she doesn't dance any more, at least she thinks about her body as she walks.

I asked her what she meant, and this is what she told me to do: Sit or lie on the floor, facing up. Put your legs straight out. Really straight. The important thing is that your feet are no more than hip-width apart, and that your hipbones, knees, and feet are all aligned. That's how you should walk. She said that, if you deviate from that straight line, you put undue pressure on your joints.

I read a book in college called White Noise, by Don DeLillo. I once described it as "an important book" to a friend of mine. I wouldn't call it that now, but I still value it pretty highly for its prose, its ideas, and its view of America. The protagonist's wife, Babette, goes to a "sitting, standing, and walking class." The class was made up of middle-aged and elderly people who felt that they walked incorrectly. That they had been taught the wrong way to move and that they should fix it. The protagonist peeked in on one of these classes and saw that the teachers had all of them start at the beginner level: 40- and 60-year-old men and women on their hands and knees, crawling around on the floor.

DeLillo was laughing at these people, but he was also mystified by the way we feel that something is wrong with ourselves, even in the most basic things like walking. He portrayed it as kind of insane that we go and pay money to have teachers teach us the correct way to do these basic, fundamental, human things.

Since my roommate showed me how, I've been walking as aligned as possible. Same while riding my bike. My left knee doesn't feel as bad that way. I guess I was walking and riding incorrectly all along. So there, DeLillo.