Exercise for body, mind and spirit...

There’s a paved road around Tuxedo Lake; and I’ve taken to walking it. Ostensibly, the purpose of my ramblings is to set my trim, so to speak, and maintain it once I’ve achieved it. I am waylaid by my love of good cooking, which wars against any attempt at altering form or metabolism. I am, on the other hand, achieving an interesting inside look at the Tuxedo Park community, human and otherwise—and realizing benefits for body, mind, and spirit.

At 4.5 miles, the loop takes a little over an hour to walk—if I don’t stop on little natural history hiccups along the way. There are always fascinating things to see and watch. I try to keep moving, but fantastic fungi, magical, coat-color-changing, white-tail deer families, birds and small animals, often get in the way. The road winds along the lake front, goes uphill and down through Hansel-and-Gretl woods, sub-mountainous terrain with brooding deciduous and coniferous trees that predate any building here.

Traffic is light: there are only 14 homes on the lake, though to be fair, the road services plenty in addition to these. I see more workmen and service-sector vans than residents. The walks can be leisurely, with a much-lessened sense of awareness than, say, Manhattan streets.

Its length provides a decent physical workout. In fall, I come home wreathed in a mist of pre-drip-stage moisture. In summer, it’s a raging torrent—soaked to the waistline. It can be a mind-clearing or mind-filling exercise. Distractions are totally under my control—and I can just pay attention to the breeze in the trees if I choose. Moreover, as every gardener knows, it does the spirit good to be outdoors.

Of late I have taken to walking good sections of it, particularly the up-hill segments; backwards. This has led to some interesting observations. 1) People look at you funny when you’re walking backwards. 2) People drive like idiots. I know this has little to do with the act of walking backwards, but it’s still true (and see below). 3) Walking backwards up-hill is an amazing workout for your quads. You will feel it quickly, and need to alternate intervals of walking forward to prevent yourself from crumpling to the ground.

There’s one more.

When you walk backwards, you see where you’ve been, but not where you’re going.

Quite a large percentage of our lives, particularly in the developed Western world, we’re focused on where we are going, what’s coming next. This is normally not a problem, except when we do it to the exclusion of what happened, and where we were.

Walking backwards does two things. It forces focus, at least visually, on where we’ve been and what we’ve passed (the past). Our present is the first peripheral glimpse of where we are at each step. But there is no visual future.

Second; it heightens all our senses, including vision. Because you don’t see where you’re going, all your faculties become more highly tuned. Close your eyes. Go ahead, close them. Now get up from your chair, move away from your computer and go to your kitchen. Keep your eyes closed. Find your refrigerator. Open it and pour yourself a glass of something nice and cold. Drink it.

All right…open your eyes (you need to keep reading!). If you think about it, all your senses were heightened during your short trip. Sound, smell, touch, taste…you were able to experience them in a different way because you didn’t have the distractions of sight. All took on a new importance in reporting your experience of the world.

Walking backwards does the same thing, except you’re allowed to see where you’ve been—and it becomes the focus of your visual experience. Without getting too metaphysical, I’d suggest giving it a try.

It’s good to look at your surroundings from a different perspective now and then. I’m certainly not suggesting that walking backwards become your primary means of circumambulation, but as an occasional exercise, it will do you and your quadriceps a world of good.

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