I've been dancing for about three years, and doing yoga very seriously for about a year now. I think I've noticed a difference in the way I walk. I can't pinpoint when it changed, but I was hiking about a month ago and I noticed that I felt a definite sense of up and over rotation in my hips, instead of the girly side-to-side sway. It isn't uncomfortable in the least, in fact it feels pretty neat and normal. Has anyone else experienced this? I'm chalking it up to all the hip-opening work and taxeems/mayas I've been doing, but I'd love to know more details about what may have changed in my muscles!
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Sacramento
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Re: Anatomy curiosity - hips
Thu, May 1, 2008 - 5:43 PMFunny, I think I have more of a side to side sway than I did before dancing.
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Re: Anatomy curiosity - hips
Thu, May 1, 2008 - 7:41 PMI definitely have more hip action in a normal walk than I did before dance. It's about 50/50 vertical and horizontal, and it tickles me to no end. I was a soldier for eight years right out of high school... feminine mannerisms haven't always come easy to me. *grin* -
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Re: Anatomy curiosity - hips
Fri, May 2, 2008 - 6:56 AMYup - it's called the dancer's glide....
I dunno if you all are people watchers, but I find it quite interesting to see if I can notice by the way a person walks what they do or how they've been influenced by their lives.
After I had been dancing for about 3 years, I had an old friend of the family remark on it. :) Yup, it was kind of a giddy moment like, HA! I knew walking around with Shareen's voice in my head for months would pay off! -
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Re: Anatomy curiosity - hips
Fri, May 2, 2008 - 12:10 PMI love seeing my students walking around campus after class. There is definitely a little more swing in their step. =) Part of this I feel comes from the confidence they feel in being a woman and fulling inhabiting their own body. They are suddenly proud of those hips and ready for the world to notice them too. -
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Re: Anatomy curiosity - hips
Fri, May 2, 2008 - 1:39 PMYeah, it's much more movement... I feel almost like instead of my hips going side-to-side only, now they go in this pattern that feels like a front-to-back figure 8 that has been folded upwards into a V. It's neat to feel that my hips actually rotate... I know there's a joint in there, and now I can feel it, instead of feeling like my hips are stuck on my pelvis Barbie-style.
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Re: Anatomy curiosity - hips
Fri, May 2, 2008 - 6:58 AMI may be talking out of an orifice other than my mouth, but it seems to me that the hip action in my walk depends on my strides and where the movement is coming from.
Short strides tend to be side-to-side, driven by the thigh/glute, maybe.
Longer strides tend to be more vertical up/down, driven by the hip flexor. (I can tell that because my hand is in my pocket and I feel the flexor working. -
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Re: Anatomy curiosity - hips
Mon, May 5, 2008 - 1:41 AMI did about 7 years of tango before I started bellydance. So I had learned to keep my pelvis absolutely straight when I walk and isolate the leg from the hip at side steps, back steps, front steps... In bellydance I had to relearn the opposite, let my hip go almost all the way out when stepping to the side and such.
After a while I noticed a new feeling in my hip joints when I walked. Like the joints had loosened up beyond anything that was ever there before , they almost seemed to rotate on top of my thigh bones when I walked.
A while ago I met my bellydance teacher on the street, on the way to the studio, we were coming from opposite directions. When I came up close to her, she said:"I am short sighted, so I did not recognise you from afar. I just thought:'That must be a bellydancer. She sways her hips when she walks.'" ; )
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Re: Anatomy curiosity - hips
Thu, May 15, 2008 - 9:12 PMI thought I was imagining things...I have that 'bubblegum walk' (pretty Wrigley, tee hee! Okay, it's an old saying) more than I ever have had. Since seventh grade I've been so self conscious about my derriere...some snide girl made a comment on it and it stuck in my head ever since. Now that I've been dancing very regularly for over a year; classes 2-3 times a week and almost every day at home I've overcome that fear of my backside jiggling too much and WOW there's a definite figure-eightish or side to side movement in my hips that feels GOOD when I walk. I wonder if our tendency to have knee problems is made worse by trying to walk in a way that reduces jiggle? Maybe a perpetually unnatural gait does damage? Could it effect other areas like our back? These days, I just swing my arms and let the booty do it's thang!
