The words
A step, in three plain ideas.
None of this is a verdict about your body. It is a way of looking, and one walk is enough to try it.
01 / Where a step starts
Ground contact
Your feet are the only part of you touching the ground. Whatever a step becomes, it begins as information arriving there: the surface under you, the slope of it, the way weight gathers under one part of the foot and not another.
Most of that arrives without being noticed. That is not a problem so much as a habit, and habits are easier to see once you go looking for them.
On your next walk
Stand still for a moment without adjusting anything. Where does the pressure gather under each foot: heel or forefoot, inside edge or outside?
Why we ask
The movement check opens with pressure and contact, because it is the part of a step you can answer honestly without knowing anything about movement.
02 / The handoff
How a step travels
A step is a handoff. The heel arrives first and passes the weight forward. The middle of the foot spreads to accept it. The front of the foot takes the last of it and gives it back to the ground as push.
Each handoff depends on the one before it, which is why a step is easier to feel as a sequence than as a single event. Slow it down and the relay becomes obvious.
On your next walk
Walk slower than feels natural for one minute. Is there a place in the step where the motion seems to skip, or to arrive earlier than you expected?
Why we ask
When you tell us where a step feels loud or quiet, you are telling us which part of that sequence you can already feel.
03 / Two moments
Spread and gather
Two things happen in the middle of a step: what the foot does when it meets the ground, and what it does next. As the weight arrives, the foot spreads and softens. As the weight leaves, it gathers and firms up again.
Those two moments have clinical names you may meet elsewhere. The spreading is called pronation. The gathering is called supination. The everyday words are enough to notice them, and noticing is all this page is asking for.
Most steps carry some of both, and most people do more of one than the other. That is a description of a step, not a score for it.
On your next walk
Walking slowly, see if you can feel the moment your foot softens, and the moment it firms up again. One foot at a time is easier than both.
Why we ask
Inyo asks what you notice at those two moments, because that is where your own words tell us the most.
Next
Take one of these on a walk.
The movement check is ten questions about what you already notice. It takes about three minutes, asks for no account, and gives you one thing to carry into your next walk.