“What do we see in a person’s walk?
…we see everything, the whole biography.”
Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate

It is seven-thirty in the morning and I am walking down the hill from the top of the Copper Horse towards Windsor Castle three miles away in the distance. Windsor Castle is one of the residences of Queen Elizabeth II and is the oldest royal residence in continuous use by the monarch in Britain. At this time of morning the castle is shrouded in a greyish-pink glow. The wind around me is cool and moist; across to my right, jumbos are descending into Heathrow every few minutes.

I walk, therefore I am. At four miles an hour the world looks and feels a different place. Alive to rhythm, I am borne along in a perfect balance between gravity and the momentum of forward motion; a perfect choreography of body and mind. This daily miracle never ceases to amaze me.

As I reach the town centre I can see commuters trudging their weary way towards the rail stations and to work. Looking at them, I study their gait and their troubled faces; their short, shuffling steps; and furrowed brows, heads down gazing at nothing in particular. There seems to be a peculiar emptiness about the way many people walk. They have no co-ordination; no sense of rhythm.

Walking is the quickest way to develop a sense of rhythm, balance, and harmony in our lives. The way we walk affects our mood; the way we walk affects our body, mind and spirit. We connect with our own energy when we walk with a positive, rhythmic movement. The alternating rhythmic motion of the arms and legs is similar to the inhalation and exhalation of the lungs when we breathe, and it has a meditational effect on the mind similar to Zen and transcendental meditation. As the Chinese say, ‘The true man breathes with his legs'.

Les Snowdon