Everywhere, there is movement in this expanse of trees and grass and temples. All ages–from 9 to 99–are here, practicing Tai-chi and Sword Arts, swinging their arms, rubbing their kidneys, rotating their waists, and hanging from low-hanging tree branches (to stretch their spines).
Amid all this, is one area which makes me rub my sleepy eyes and look again: sets of women are walking backwards up the lane. That: walking backwards, calmly and confidently.
This ancient exercise (yes! It is really an exercise!) is probably the treasures of Chinese health practice, addressing issues of balance, leg strength, back strength, and posture. It might appear simple, but the explanations why it’s a sound practice are profound. Here are just several:
1. As we get older, our fear of falling causes us to be react wrongly. When babies fall backwards, they just plump down to a sitting position, but this tendency disappears once we mature. Many falls turn out going backward because we arch our backs. Walking backwards rounds that section of our back that we arch, and encourages ‘forward’ muscle use.
2. Anything that is wrong concerning your posture originated in walking forward! Slumping, slouching, rounding, arching…those improper habits. Walking backwards reverses these habits.
3. From an energetics standpoint, walking backwards actually re-frames consciousness in your bodies. The straightforward explanation is always that our attention is likely to favor top individuals bodies on the exclusion of what’s behind us. Chinese health and martial exercises both encourage ‘whole body’ awareness for ‘whole body’ health. Walking backwards creates a ‘sensor’ to integrate el born area.
4. Walking backwards actually engages different multiple muscles. This is very important especially as we age, because we lose flexibility and our range of flexibility often diminishes. Through the use of different muscles we exercise areas of our own bodies that want attention.
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