My foot!

Slightly inspired by the previous post, and by other recent observations, I have come to the conclusion that human beings are not designed with eye-foot co-ordination in mind. Far too often one sees dancers crucify themselves by trying to watch their feet. The result is too often dis-improvement rather than improvement of their movement. Part of this is of course caused by the break in posture. A heavy head, the hips shifted back to give a clearer view, the feet brought forward of the weight, the feet should never be forward of the weight! The other part of this clumsiness is, as I have already stated, due to the fact that eye-foot co-ordination is not a part of our make-up. We are bipeds evolved, rather than designed, to stand on our feet and scan the horizon. The whole feet walking business is supposed to go on underneath without too much interference from us above. Take the duck on water, all calm gliding along above, underneath it is furious paddling, and you don’t see ducks with their heads stuck under water checking where their feet are going. Before you strike back with the suggestion that footballers (the non-American kind) have great eye-foot co-ordination I would like to point out that footballers do not spend the time with their eyes glued to the ball. Most of the time their eyes are on where their opponents and team mates are. They know where the ball is, that is called ‘ball control’. Quite simply you are not supposed to watch yourself walking, so don’t, let your feet do the walking.