Practice what you preach is often easier said than done.
My barefoot sneakers came off the shelf for the first time in a while last week and I was disappointed when I saw the sole of the shoe and the wear patterns on the treads. The foot is supposed to fall to the floor in a specific pattern. The outer heel makes contact with the floor, the foot moves towards the center of the sole before falling to the outside of the foot and then rolling to the inside finishing on the mound of the big toe. While I had my heel contact as desired and had some wear on the inner foot and the front of the shoe it was clear that I was spending way too much time on the outer foot with each step.
What I saw in the shoe was later corroborated by a rolfer (Maya Ray) that I had a session with last week. The session was amazing and mostly about my feet. Maya noticed immediately that I use my feet differently than I tell others to use theirs. I told her I knew this all too well from seeing my sneakers.
I try my best to practice what I preach but it I still have stubborn patterns that refuse to practice what it is I am preaching to them.
Us humans are a work in progress. I know how I am supposed to walk and probably do it exactly right about 70% of the time but that other 30% keeps me oh so stubbornly stuck in decades old patterns.
I describe my walking program as neuromuscular re-patterning through repetition. The first thing is to figure out the pattern that needs changing and prepare a course of action for re-patterning it. And while it is as simple as that, years and years of conditioned patterns can be very stubborn when it comes to changing.
What I learned this past week is that ten years later with many stubborn patterns changed, there are still many more to go.