Learn to "Chi Walk" in order to make your pilgrimage more of a walking meditation!
I was no longer walking in the same aggressive way as when I trained over the winter in Maine. Instead, I began to walk in a way that conserved energy. I called it “sleepwalking” at the time. Now I refer to it as Chi walking. Sleepwalking is more of a short shuffle that glides you along. If you stop pushing off hard with your feet and legs, if you cease powering yourself along with giant strides, you will begin to walk at a slower pace. It allows you to walk for longer distances without getting tired. Anyone who has traveled through a big airport where they went on the moving walkways that connect the sprawling terminals would have adjusted their walking style and would likely have incorporated elements of Chi walking. When I went through Madrid Barajas Airport, I had to make my upper body lean just slightly forward to adjust to the “rug pulled out from beneath you” feeling. I also made short choppy steps to help with my balance, as I was whisked along the moving escalators in the airport.
Chi walkers do not make the mistake of leaning backward with their upper bodies; rather they have a slight forward inclination. The other mistake most people make when distance walking is that they overstride. A Chi walker will shorten the stride, particularly when climbing a hill.
Other biomechanics of Chi walking include loose joints, engaging the core muscles, and relaxing the peripheral muscles of the arms and legs. The arms should swing parallel and not cross the chest. When you walk consistently mindful of your balance and alignment, you will need fewer recovery breaks.
Imagine a needle resting inside a ball of cotton. With Chi walking all movement comes from the needle, the center line. The more you move from the center, the more you can let go of the extremities and begin to experience them as light as cotton. You relax the shoulders and hips, as movement originates from the center, from the core, the abdominal muscles.
It is all about correct alignment with the body upright and balanced. Most walkers I saw on the Camino tended to overstride, particularly the pole walkers. They were doing the exact opposite of Chi walking, as they were transferring energy from the centerline—the needle, if you will—to the extremities, to the arms, and making them heavy rather than light like cotton. They were pushing themselves from side to side with their walking poles, and the needle was wobbling.
Stability is about flexibility, not being rigid. You glide and skate rather than push and shove your way along. The Inuit people were said to be lazy by the first European explorers because they walked slowly and methodically across the arctic. They walked so as not to break a sweat, because sweating and getting wet can mean hypothermia and death in the frigid arctic. They were Chi walking, staying balanced and aligned and conserving energy.
The mental image that helped me with my Chi walking was that of a rope attached to my belt buckle pulling me along the Camino. Often the wind on the Camino blows from the east against your back.
My Frogg Toggs rain gear was loose and baggy and would often act like a sail when the wind was at my back. This increased the feeling of being pulled along by an outside energy. Mentally focusing on your legs pushing off and your arms pumping will deplete your energy.
It is not poor muscle strength, but poor muscle alignment that makes you tired. In addition, the body must be aligned with the mind and communication link must always be open between them. This is why I chose not to listen to music while walking or to even take a cell phone with me. Chi walking is mindful walking.
The mind must be listening to the body and making adjustments, better arm swing, more parallel. Going uphill, the mind must tell the body to shorten stride and walk more relaxed with less tension. Glide up the hill; don’t try to push your way up. I found myself really having to focus on my walking during the second half of the day. Those days when I was pushing 20 km, and I had already walked for five hours that day and it seemed like I would never get to the albergue or hotel—it was then that inner strength would come from pulling it all into the core, aligning myself and taking one mindful step at a time.
I would tell myself, you can do this if you take it slow and easy, conserve the energy, stay balanced, don’t push with the legs, get pulled by your core, glide, Terry, glide.
From "Slow Camino" by Terence Callery
What are the first 5 to you?
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response. I suppose that is better than Dante's placing Ulysses into one of the lower circles of Hell for false counsel. That was for encouraging aging shipmates to continue their voyaging.
I’m sure folks would prefer me in a bottom bunk than waking them up every three hours climbing up and down a ladder.
🛏⛰
They spiral upwards from there. 
