Everywhere, there is movement within 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 pretty much everything, is one area that creates me rub my sleepy eyes and search again: categories of women are walking backwards the lane. This: walking backwards, calmly and confidently.
This ancient exercise (yes! It’s an exercise!) is probably the treasures of Chinese health practice, addressing issues of balance, leg strength, back strength, and posture. It may look like simple, but the logic behind why it’s a good practice are profound. Read about a couple of:
1. As we grow older, our nervous about falling causes us to be react wrongly. When babies fall backwards, they simply plump down to a sitting position, but this tendency disappears even as get older. Many falls end up going backward because we arch our backs. Walking backwards rounds that portion of our back that we arch, and encourages ‘forward’ muscle use.
2. Exactly what is wrong about your posture originated in walking forward! Slumping, slouching, rounding, arching…all of the bad habits. Walking backwards reverses these habits.
3. From an energetics standpoint, walking backwards actually re-frames consciousness in your bodies. The straightforward explanation is our attention is likely to favor top individuals bodies to the exclusion of what is behind us. Chinese wellness martial exercises both encourage ‘whole body’ awareness for ‘whole body’ health. Walking backwards creates a ‘sensor’ to integrate this area.
4. Walking backwards actually engages very different multiple muscles. This will be relevant especially as we age, because we lose flexibility and our range of flexibility often diminishes. By using different muscles we exercise areas of our own bodies that need attention.
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