An important phase in the walking gait is balance: where all your weight is on one foot and leg. In order to avoid falling onto the next leg, we need to develop an awareness of and ability to stabilize the hip. You can start by noticing how you get one leg off the ground: do you shorten the unweighted leg by bending at the the knee and hips? Do you lean to the side to unweight the leg and lift it up? Do you shift your pelvis over onto the standing leg so the other leg can rise? Also, if you stand on one leg do you notice the lifted side's hip drops lower? All these indicate we're not using the lateral hip muscles effectively to stability the balancing leg. The Hip List is the name of the part of the walking gait where you push through the standing leg into the ground to pull the standing leg's hip downward which in turn pulls the unweighted side off the ground. It's a very active action for balance. Practice with a hand on your hip and use the leg muscles to pull that side of the hip downward and watch the other side lift off the ground. Practice this wherever you are standing for a while: waiting in line is perfect for this. While Walking: start with a hip list, then walk for a while, then pause and see if you can balance on one leg, then continue walking. Repeat as often as you like until you get a notion that standing on one leg is actively balancing and not about letting the other hip drop.

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