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Running and walking doesn’t have to be as hard you might think or have experienced. The impact on your body and mind, has to do with how you move, how you align yourself, how you interact with the laws of nature and where your mental focus is.
The ChiRunning® and ChiWalking® technique was developed by Danny Dreyer, who broke down the elements of running and walking and combined them with concepts of T’ai Chi. He created a teachable form of running and walking that helps to prevent injury, to improve energy efficiency and engages your chi, the energy life force moving through your body. Not only that, as a holistic practice, it increases mental focus and clarity. This is how children move before sedentary lifestyle sets in and break this natural movement. As teenagers and adults, we can relearn how to walk and run as we once did.
With ChiRunning® and ChiWalking®, you get your body in alignment structurally. This allows the body weight to be supported by the axial skeleton, ligaments and tendons, rather than significantly by the muscles. In addition, by cooperating with the force of gravity and the force of the road coming towards you, you decrease impact on your body and allow these forces to actually move you, rather than your muscles doing all of the work. All of this frees up energy and also helps to prevent injury, fatigue, and pain.
How does this benefit you? Using these techniques will make running and walking gentler on your body. There will be less impact on your body while you cooperate with the forces of nature and this will help to decrease the risk of injury or eliminate current issues such as plantar faciitis, iliotibial band syndrome, and shin splints. Many runners and walkers who had given up the activity of running or walking for fitness purposes due to injuries have been able to return to their beloved form of exercise when they learned how to move more safely and effectively using these techniques. In addition, running and walking will feel easier and often people experience a sense of flow as they use their bodies efficiently in harmony with the environment. It’s really surprising, but there really is a lot to running and walking. For most people, it doesn’t even occur to them, that there is anything to learn, but it is just like other fitness activities such as golf, tennis, skating or skiing. If you learn the techniques and perfect the technique, everything just becomes easier, more fluid and effective. Unlike other training, ChiRunning and ChiWalking techniques address efficiency and injury prevention simultaneously.
Menaka Charan, MS PT is a Certified ChiRunning® and ChiWalking® Instructor. She has been running since the early 1980s. Since her late teens, she has been awed by the body, mind and spirit. She is even more fascinated by what can transpire when you combine them. In her 20s, she studied physiology and physical therapy and has studied and practiced spiritual concepts since her 30s. Now in her forties, she has discovered how ChiRunning® and ChiWalking® is one way where she can bring everything together.