That older woman is wearing the kind of high-heeled shoes that she probably tried because someone told her they were easy to walk in, and thought, “Oh, these really are comfortable.”
When I look around, I notice quite a few people wearing similar shoes.
Watching the way people walk is one of my habits.
When we walk in shoes with high heels, instead of landing on the heel first as we naturally would, we often end up landing flat on the whole sole of the foot.
As our weight shifts from the heel through the rest of the foot, the ankle, knee, and hip work together.
So I think “stepping from the heel” is a kind of starting signal—a switch built into the body that helps reduce the strain that follows and lets us walk smoothly.
But when the whole sole lands flat on the ground, it’s hard to tell whether that switch has been turned on or not.
The movements that are supposed to follow don’t connect very well, and we end up walking in a way that makes the knees absorb the impact.
If that continues, maybe it can eventually lead to knee pain or misalignment.
I tend to have an arched lower back.
The backs of my thighs look flat, while the fronts of my thighs feel tight and bulky. That’s something that bothers me.
When the pelvis tilts forward beyond what is considered a normal degree of anterior tilt, the bones of the lower back—the lumbar spine—move along with it, increasing the curve of the lower back more than they should.
The hamstrings, the large muscles at the back of the thighs, attach to the sitting bones—the bones that start to ache when you’ve been sitting for too long.
So when the pelvis is tilted forward, the hamstrings are constantly being stretched.
When a muscle contracts, it bulges, a little like making a bicep.
Maybe the reason the backs of my thighs look so flat and thin is that they’ve become less good at contracting.
I try standing with the intention of bringing my pelvis upright.
For me, it feels as though my weight shifts slightly backward.
I imagine there is a single stick that fits perfectly between my sitting bones and my heels—as if I were just barely resting my bottom on a tall stool—and I gently let my sitting bones touch that stick.
Then I feel something like,
“Oh, this is where they’re supposed to be.”
It feels as though my hamstrings click into place.
If I don’t press the floor firmly with the soles of my feet, I feel like I might fall backward.
That also switches on the function of my feet that stabilizes my body, almost like pitching a tent with the soles of my feet.
And my core naturally switches on too.
It makes me realize just how many different switches in my body I’ve been leaving turned off in everyday life.