Do You Know How the Way You Walk Affects the Way You Dance?

Walking is supposed to be so easy. In many dance styles, we hear the teacher tell us to just walk. In kizomba, I can’t remember the number of times, I heard all we needed to do was walk. I heard the same about tango. The same in West Coast Swing. And in all dances, if you want to cross-step when the guy asks you to walk, well you’re supposed to do just that, with some styling. But it turns out that walking isn’t the easy mechanics I thought it was.

I recently had some bad news from a foot specialist. Nothing that serious, nothing life-threatening, but it was annoying enough that it was affecting my dance lifestyle. When, at last, wearing high heels to dance zouk provoked yet another issue – inflammation in my foot – it seemed that it would never go away, and so I finally decided to pay the podiatrist a little visit…
After all, when something gets bad enough that you can’t even zouk properly anymore, it’s really time to get yourself checked out…

Walking barefoot on uneven surfaces could cure most feet problems according to many specialists. Walking in shoes on flat surfaces is what kills our feet, making our muscles weak and useless.

But even the specialist couldn’t answer all the questions I had. I had read a lot before going to see him, so I could ask him questions accordingly. I knew from some friends that most doctors or specialists don’t actually know that much, and many of them don’t even seem to care much about finding out the real issue with their patients. They often tell you to just “try” something and see if it works, maybe because they have limitations concerning health insurance. But sometimes, it’s just not good enough.

So I turned to my beloved Internet… It ended up answering many more of my questions than the specialist could.

The most interesting part of this new “journey” for me is, first, how it renewed my interest for physiotherapy. This is really something I want to study as soon as possible, when I can afford to do it.
Also, from a dancing point of view, I realized I had been so completely unaware of my feet, until then. Unaware of how my weight was distributed. Unaware of how it was affecting my ankles, my knees, and from there, even my hips! Unaware of what muscles I was using… and what muscles I was not using which I should be using. It seems to me, now, that I was not really aware I had legs at all!

I spent the last few weeks intensively focusing on how my feet and legs felt while I was walking in the street. I stopped, sometimes, and touched some muscles and did some movement to see how it affected my legs and then continued walking… Yeah, I must have looked strange, but it was pretty fascinating to discover how rich and diverse the feelings in my lower body can be, and that I had not truly paid attention to it until now.

Weight distribution on normal, supinated, and pronated feet

One topic is the weight distribution in the feet. Basically, if you don’t have any genetic deformation of bones, we can say more or less that you are “normal”, and most of it can be treated, or at least improved. It can start as low as the arch of the foot itself, which is on the inside of your foot. If you are part of the 75% lucky people who have normal arches, this is not so important for you. But if you are part of the other 25% which is a pretty huge percentage, then you are concerned. All of us have flat feet when we are born, and the development of the arch usually takes place during childhood.

Weight distribution and appearance of the arch when growing up

But 25% of us don’t and we end up having weak arches (or fallen arches). So I figured that, since so many of us are concerned, I might as well share it. Having “flat feet” does NOT mean that your feet look completely flat (unless you have genetic deformity since you were born, which is another topic): If you lift your foot up and look at it, it may well look “normal”, at least to the untrained eye.
But, as soon as you put it on the floor, if this arch flattens to the side, even a little, it means you have some degree of pronation:

“Some of the bones of the foot drop to a less stable position because the foot arch is too weak to keep them in proper alignment.  The arches themselves may be unnaturally stretched which places stress on the entire foot – this is known as “flat feet”.” (Diversified Health)

Supinated & pronated ankles

“The various issues that typically arise from flat feet are not due to the feet themselves, but from over-pronation. Pronation is a normal rolling in of the foot at the end of every step we take in a run to absorb impact on the feet. Over-pronation is the case when the feet roll inwards too much, past the point necessary for shock absorption. “(Runsociety)

Obviously, if you are walking either way, it would have a huge impact on how you control your body and your balance, particularly in zouk where girls have to turn with their head and upper bodies on the side and control their turns from their feet.

If you are not sure about your own feet, you can check this short video for a quick explanation of pronation and how to find out approximately whether you are a normal “pronator”.

Also, if you have flat feet AND you have any pain or strange things happening in your knees, tibias, hips, or even spine and neck, it can simply come from your feet (meaning that if you treat your feet, everything else MAY go away, too. Pretty crazy huh…).

From Somaconstruct

Possible effects of flat feet on the rest of the legs

There are quite many reasons for having flat feet. They can develop from injuries, weak ankles or weak ligaments and tendons in the lower legs. Particularly if it started after an injury, when you were already an adult, your whole body as well as your balance can be deeply affected by it.

In any case, strengthening exercises can help a huge deal. If you are interested in learning more about the topic and what exercises are beneficial, here is a great video:

For those who don’t have this problem (which is actually quite common among dancers, too, from what I found out), you can still improve your balance a great deal with exercises done on balance cushions, like the one I was recommended to get. They are actually used not just for rehabilitation but also by athletes doing balance and strengthening exercises. And they can also help improve your proprioception (your ability to sense the position of your body parts without looking at it).

As you can see in the next few pictures, they can be used for a variety of things. I intend to make the most of this one and I look forward especially to seeing how much it will improve my balance when I dance! After all, if this is supposed to help me get stronger feet and legs, it means that my zouk should improve, too…

To be continued…

My balance cushion

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Author of this article: Gaëlle Céline Le Vu

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