How to walk on ice without slipping

I’ve seen a lot of advice about this recently, some of it, even from other Alexander teachers, was really bad advice. It’s time to correct those mistakes.

Why is walking on ice difficult?

Because it’s slippy of course.

If you put a foot down and your weight is not directly over the foot, your foot slips from under you. On a good surface, the surface grips your shoe and it’s rarely a problem. You can walk badly and get away with it.

On ice, it’s a real problem.

How do you walk so your weight is always over your foot?

I’ve divided the answer into six tips. Follow them all and you’re away.

Tip 1: Take smaller steps

Most people lope along with long strides. They think its faster. They’re wrong actually, people in walking races take very short strides. Try it, you’ll see you can actually get along much faster if you take really small, quick steps.

But, you feel odd taking such small steps. If you’re not actually in a walking race people will comment on it. Anyway, you can normally get away with long strides. Well, if there’s no ice, yes, you can — at a cost. When you take long strides, you break your back with every step you take.

No, of course I don’t mean your back snaps in two, but if you watch anybody loping along, you’ll see how their back bends backwards with every step they take. That makes it harder to get on. In the long run, it tightens and weakens your back.

So take smaller steps.

Tip 2: Make sure your leg is always underneath you

If you look at how most people walk, they almost always lead with their hips so they’re leaning backwards and off balance. When they do take a step, their foot lands in front of their body.

Contrast that with somebody who walks in balance and so doesn’t slip. They lean forward a little with their whole body. That leaning starts them toppling forwards. Then they allow a knee to swing forwards. The foot follows the knee and lands exactly under their body, exactly catching them. If you do that, slipping becomes virtually impossible.

So always land directly over your foot.

Tip 3: Don’t lean to the left or right

Most people put all their weight on one foot to lift the other. That’s a bad idea because it makes it much more likely that you will slip and fall over sideways.

The person who walks as I described above doesn’t sway at all. Her head travels forward in a straight line: it doesn’t sway from side to side. She leaves exactly half her weight on each foot until the moment comes when a forward-moving knee peels one foot off the ground. Have you ever seen a good runner’s head sway from side to side as they run?

Why doesn’t our balanced walker fall inwards then? Two reasons:–

1. Her foot is off the ground only for a very short time.
2. The weight on the foot remaining on the ground is, at this point, all on the inside of the foot. Consequently, her weight is almost directly above her point of support.

So don’t sway.

Tip 4: Stay tall

When you’re afraid of falling, it’s likely you will be tempted to stoop and to bend your knees more so as to get closer to the ground. When you do, you’ll be accentuating a mistake that you already make. When you stoop like that, you squash your back and don’t leave your legs enough room to pick up your feet properly. You end up shuffling rather than walking.

Shuffling, it’s more difficult to place your weight directly above your weight-bearing foot. Plus, you’re much more likely to catch your foot and trip. Bad idea.

So walk tall.

Tip 5: Allow your legs to rotate

The way your hip joints are made, your leg naturally turns outwards as your knee goes forwards. when you land on that foot, you therefore land on the outside of the foot. As you step forwards over the foot, your leg naturally turns back inwards.

When your leg turns inwards, your foot can’t because it’s resting on the ground. If you’ve allowed your hip joint to turn freely like that, you’ll also be allowing your foot to easily shift it’s weight between the outside of the foot and the inside of the foot. The way the foot is made means that when you turn your leg outwards, your weight falls on the outside of your foot. When you turn you leg inwards, that weight shifts over onto the inside of your foot. That’s exactly what I told you should happen in tip 3.

It also makes you walk taller. Walking stops being heavy and stolid and becomes more of a dance.

So dance over the ice.

Tip 6: Use your head

Yes, in more ways than one this article is all about using your head. In this tip I’m talking about using your head to fine-tune your balance.

We’ve seen that not slipping requires that you always be in perfect balance. On ice, you can’t rely on your leg muscles to pull you back into balance when you begin to topple over. When you try that you just fall heavily. Instead, you need to leave your neck nice and loose. A loose neck allows your head to easily move on top of it without bending your neck and squashing your body into a stoop.

That easier movement makes it easy and natural for your head to be a counter-weight to correct every topple as it begins. That way you never have to pull yourself back upright. You never have to grab hold of yourself and control your fall. Instead you master the art of guiding your weight from once balance point on to the next.

Follow these six tips and watch as your confidence in your ability to balance, even on ice, goes through the roof.

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