July 10, 2024 • 45 mins
In this episode of Honestly Aging by Friends Life Care VigR®, Carol Bilek joins us to discuss Chi Walking - a practice that combines walking with the principles of Tai Chi. Carol is a certified Chi Walking instructor and shares her journey of discovering Chi Walking after dealing with injuries and mobility challenges.
She explains how Chi Walking differs from traditional walking, focusing on engaging the core, aligning the body, and moving in harmony with nature's forces like gravity. Carol highlights the numerous mental and physical health benefits of Chi Walking, including improved balance, endurance, breathing, mood, and injury prevention.
Throughout the interview, Carol provides insightful tips for getting started with Chi Walking, such as:
- Focusing on body alignment and engaging the core
- Adjusting to a natural, shorter stride
- Allowing gravity to pull you forward rather than pushing with the legs
- Starting on flat terrain and gradually progressing
- Incorporating a metronome to increase walking cadence
She also shares inspirational stories of students who overcame mobility fears and knee issues through Chi Walking. Whether you're an avid walker looking to improve technique or seeking a low-impact exercise for overall wellness, this conversation offers valuable guidance on embracing the mindful movement of Chi Walking.
At the end, Carol invites listeners to connect with her for private lessons, group workshops, or more information on getting started. Carol and Cheryl also go for a Chi Walk.
Resources:
Chi Walking and Carol:
https://chiliving.com/instructor/wholewomanpacarolverizon-net/
https://www.friendslifecare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Carol-Bilek-Chi-Walking-Flyer.pdf https://hellowestchesterpa.com/2024/01/30/walk-this-way-retired-west-chester-educator-wants-to-keep-you-moving/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:20):
You're listening to Honestly Aging by Friends Life Care Vigor,
a podcast where we explore what it's like getting older, the peaks,
the valleys, and everything in between.
In this season of Honestly Aging by Friends Life Care Vigor,
we're covering topics related to solo aging.
(00:40):
I'm your host, Sheryl Proska. Let's grow old together.
Music.
On today's episode, I'm joined by Carol Billick, who is a Chi-Walking instructor,
retired teacher, and Friends Life Care member.
(01:02):
Carol, welcome, and thank you for being here. How are you today?
I'm great. Thank you for having me. My pleasure.
So, Carol, you are joining me today to talk about Chi-Walking and educate our
listeners about the practice should they wish to try it out themselves.
So let's get started. What is Chi walking?
(01:24):
Chi walking is a practice.
It is much like Tai Chi or yoga or meditation.
It's a gradual progress.
Chi walking is healthy and fitness activity. and it takes walking and combines
(01:45):
walking with the principles of Tai Chi.
We all learned when we were very young how to walk correctly,
and over time, we've learned how to walk incorrectly.
So as people age and they're walking, they often don't walk as much.
Walking becomes painful. We all have, in aging, you all have some sorts of aches
(02:10):
and pains that are going to come up.
In qi walking, you learn how to, in tai chi, one works with the body and with nature.
So in qi walking, when you work with these things, you become a much more efficient
walker And you are able to have injury prevention, which is huge for people.
(02:36):
I'll be 75 in September. It's huge for people in this category.
So that is, it gives you an opportunity to go out and you can use chi walking anywhere.
I always chi walk. I chi walk in my house. I chi walk anywhere.
And I have a particular regimen where I go out and I chi walk in the morning.
(03:00):
So it's a meditation and a fitness walk.
Is there anything more that you want to say about how chi walking differs from
traditional walking and other forms of mindful movement like Tai Chi or yoga, as you mentioned?
Well, Chi walking would be in a category with meditation and yoga and Tai Chi.
(03:27):
It does differ from traditional walking.
In traditional walking, think of your body as having pendulums.
And And the science of the pendulum is the longer the pendulum, the slower you go.
So in traditional walking, your arms are hanging.
(03:50):
There's a lot of body movement. And your legs are stiffer.
As they move out, there's a stiffness.
And that stiffness, well, if you have any plantar fasciitis,
heel problems, knee problems, that's going to send right up your leg.
(04:12):
You're going to get some bad feelings about those things.
So in Chi walking, we want to, we minimize that.
In qi walking, the legs are not the propellers. The propellers are the core.
As in tai chi, the core or the center of your energy,
(04:37):
if you take your thumbs and place them in your navel and make a heart and then
take your index finger and push in.
Imaginary about two to three inches towards the spine,
that's where your center of energy is
all right and in tai chi your energy
(04:58):
is like water
flowing through a hose what we're aiming for in the practice is to have that
water flowing nicely through all through the body right what happens in our
traditional walking is we get kinks in the hose,
(05:20):
or energy does not flow correctly.
So this is really one of the biggest differences.
As you're walking, traditionally, you're going forward, and so you're breaking
every time you take a step.
So you're not working with nature, you're working against gravity.
(05:44):
In Tai Chi, we're using our alignment to work with gravity and we're using our
direction to work with gravity.
So we want all our body parts going in the same direction.
All right. And so we're cooperating with the forces.
If you watch any of the Tai Chi martial arts movies and there are two guys who.
(06:09):
Or two women attacking each other, the person who's being attacked does not
come and punch the other person.
The person who's being attacked simply moves back and goes with the force of
energy that's coming at them.
And that's a lot of what happens in Chi walking.
When I'm working, my body is working with gravity.
(06:31):
And because I'm working from my center of energy, instead of my leg muscles,
which are smaller, can have more injury.
There's a lot of impact injuries, overuse injuries.
My legs, when I'm chi-walking, are more like going along for the ride.
And gravity, when I'm in my alignment, gravity is taking me forward.
(06:56):
So instead of striking my feet, My feet are simply peeling and lifting,
peeling and lifting, and going forward.
And my stride stays the same.
You figure out your natural stride, and your natural stride is typically shorter
than your walking stride that you use now. So you have the same stride.
(07:19):
Therefore, I can walk slowly in my house using Chi walking.
I can do casual Chi walking. But we all know if we want to get the benefits
of walking that we want to be able to walk faster.
So you can have that same stride, but what changes is the number of steps per minute.
(07:40):
So you can walk at many different, you can walk slowly, you can walk faster, you can walk medium.
Okay and the beauty of it is since your body is not since your body is not doing as much work,
You learn to be more consistent with your walking. You can walk farther.
(08:04):
So you go out and you get, for me, I live in the borough of Westchester.
So I get up to the university and I go, I'm not ready to stop yet.
I can continue on and I can go into the university parking lot.
And by the time I get home, I'm not tired.
I've always been a walker. when I walked before I'd come back and I'd be,
(08:27):
I wouldn't have any energy left. I'd be tired.
Or if you watch walkers or runners, even they're always looking at their watches
to see when their time is up. I'm one of those runners.
How much more time do I have to do this? How much longer do I have?
With chi walking, you're using your body and you're also working with nature.
(08:49):
And so you don't have that. You can have that, I guess, but you don't have that.
You just are going and you can actually feel more energized and relaxed when
you get back. Now, it's a gradual progress.
Everybody's progress is individual.
It is not exceptionally hard, just as you can go to a yoga class or a Tai Chi class.
(09:14):
In the very first class, you get benefit.
And then the teacher says you want to continue to learn because then you'll get more benefits.
So you can take chi walking on a trail. You can take chi walking upstairs and downstairs.
You could take chi walking up hills and down hills.
(09:34):
So there are little tweaks that you
can make for all of these things so basically it's
a very accessible form of getting exercise and all you need is is a nice pair
of shoes and you even learn because it involves body sensing so your mind and
(09:54):
your body become one after a while you think hmm let me think about my feet.
And you learn more about your feet. Let me think about what kind of shoes I'm
wearing. Can I find out more about feet?
And yes, there's a lot of information about feet and about shoes.
And there's one person I particularly love. He's out in Portland now.
So you learn a lot about that.
(10:16):
And I learned what I put on my feet.
So there's so much more. And it feels good.
It feels very good. And you're healthy. How did you discover ChiWalking?
My husband and I were taking Tai Chi classes 20 years ago, and the instructor,
(10:40):
Mitch Goldfarb, one of the students in our class, she fell down.
She fell off a curb, which happens a lot to people.
They fall off the curb, her face was old. And he said, look,
I'm going to show you a couple of techniques that the ancient Chinese,
the Chinese who followed Tai Chi practices, how they used them.
(11:01):
So he showed us one or two techniques.
And my body has always, I have what is called a sacralized spine.
So I don't have that nice curve that most of you have, that lumbar curve. I'm straighter.
And so that impacts me. Now, when I grew up, I grew up poor in Queens.
And so if the babies came out with five fingers and five toes,
(11:23):
they sent them home and they said, that's great, go ahead.
Nowadays, if I were having a child now, I'd take my child off to a pediatric
chiropractor and get them a job.
So there are lots of things that we know now that we might have done differently.
So all my life, I've been somewhat knock-mute. And it's probably because of
the spine, which I just found out about a couple of years ago, the spine.
(11:46):
And that's probably caused me to be somewhat knock-kneed, which is then, by the time I was 55...
Caused me to have terrible knee pains. And the doctor said, well,
you know, come back when you can't stand that terrible pain and we'll replace your knees.
And I thought, well, there must be something between that and that.
(12:09):
So I started to think back to those techniques Mitch had taught us.
And I went looking and I found Danny Dreyer and his wife, Catherine,
had taken Tai Chi and walking and put them together in a method.
And so I started to explore that method.
(12:31):
And over time, I began to use qi walking and became more naturally,
because it is a natural way of walking, naturally using qi walking.
And then a few years back, I had an ankle injury.
And then a couple of years after that, this car hit me. And so I thought my walking days were over.
(12:56):
But I remember I knew Chi walking.
And as soon as I, you know, I worked with a chiropractor.
I've worked on some other things over time. I started again with the Chi walking and I'm back.
I'm back to going out every day. I've spent lots of time snowing in this good
weather. I go out twice a day to walk.
And it's not a painful process. It's something that's very enjoyable.
(13:19):
And it's something that even if you haven't walked in a while,
or if you've had injuries, a lot of people who have osteoarthritis in the knees
are learning they can go out and walk.
Now, they may start out slowly. Okay.
But then over time, you can use a metronome for different speeds.
(13:43):
Over time, you increase a couple of steps at a time. And as I said,
your stride stays the same.
It's your cadence, the number of steps you take. And because you are not having
that impact with the ground, but you and the ground are working together,
you're cooperating with that force, you don't have that stress on your knees.
(14:05):
Now there was a study that
was done at boston university there are many studies done
on walking many many studies so we know that walking's beneficial
right we know that you get muscle strength you get endurance you get you can
have weight loss lots of people say to me oh i'm about 20 pounds overweight
(14:28):
well guess what once they get into the chi walking process and they're out there walking,
they come back and they go, hey, you know, I'm down about five pounds.
You know, I did some healthy lifestyle changes and I'm doing this and boy, I feel really good.
You're breathing better because you have better alignment, okay?
Walking improves your mood. It boosts your immunity.
(14:50):
If you come from a family like mine where there's a number of people have had
diabetes, you want to do anything you can to lower your chances of getting it.
Walking helps prevent these things.
It improves your chances of not suffering from heart disease and diabetes, right?
(15:10):
Now, what does Chi walking do? Well, we've already talked about it makes you
a more efficient walker.
So if you're more efficient and you're not using the energy,
you're going to, over time, be walking further and you're going to be feeling good about it.
You're engaging with nature.
So you go out, and I was out this morning. It was raining. It wasn't pouring.
(15:33):
It was raining. I just put on a little jacket. I have these different get-ups
to wear for different kinds of weather.
And I go out, and you sense different things.
You smell things. You see things. You hear things.
So it really puts you in contact with nature.
It keeps you safe.
(15:55):
That lady who fell down the curb, when you're using your qi walking techniques,
because you're not coming down on your heel and then striking down,
and then how are you going to fall? You're going to fall right on your face.
You can use your qi walking techniques as you get to a curb.
You peel up, there's the curb, you come down gently, and you move forward.
(16:19):
So you are not as afraid of things. A lot of people People have osteoporosis.
They're always looking down. I've worked with women for years now.
They're always looking down.
When they look down, this whole area is closed off. So your breathing is closed off.
When people are using their canes or their walkers, they're down. And there's a fear.
(16:46):
There's a fear of movement because you're afraid you're going to fall down.
And if you fall down, you're going to ruin your hip. You're going to have a
knee injury. Something's going to happen.
As you learn Chi walking, you feel safer.
How did you come to then eventually teach Chi-Walking? Well,
(17:07):
I've always been a teacher.
I grew up in that poor neighborhood in Queens and in the Catholic school system.
And from a very early age, the nuns decided I would be a tutor.
So they had me tutor kids in the summertime. on.
Then I went on, and almost every path that I've taken in my life has involved teaching.
(17:33):
I started out teaching in Queens, in the Catholic schools, because you could
just basically walk in and get in, and I had to support myself at a very early age.
So I was a teacher then. I came to Pennsylvania.
I started to teach in special education. education the teaching in any of the
(17:54):
areas in the country and in some now still very little.
Payment so you'd get like five hundred dollars
a year five hundred dollars a year and we
wanted to have a house so ron continued in education and i started to branch
out i worked down at the child guidance clinic i worked at another program in
(18:17):
philadelphia and then i was also given a position in advertising where I went
around and taught all the people how to cooperate and work together.
Once I retired from my last big gig in education was at the Lower Marion School District.
So I was special education teacher for 26 years.
Once I left that, I decided I wanted to do something.
(18:42):
I had pelvic organ prolapse, which was diagnosed about the same time.
And I thought, okay, that's It's an end, not a beginning. But it wasn't.
It was really just a change.
So I learned about how to educate women through a program called the Whole Woman Program.
Christine Kent, who was out in Albuquerque. And I worked with her for a number
(19:02):
of years. And because she wasn't a teacher, she had me help teach her classes.
So again, I was teaching. And we would go out and we would teach at her yearly conferences.
So I worked with that. Around the time of the pandemic, any of that work kind
of dried up. We didn't want to see people in person.
They didn't want to see me in person. I have a husband who's a transplant survivor. So that...
(19:27):
Kind of went away. So I started again to look at my chi walking.
And I said, I'm really not finished yet with doing things.
What could I do that would have balance in my life? I wouldn't have to do it nine to five every day.
I'd have some control. And I looked at all these people.
I live in a big community. And I looked at all these people who were struggling with walking.
(19:51):
You could sit in the pharmacy waiting to get one of your booster shots.
And you see the people And just to get from the door to the counter is a struggle for them.
And you think, well, it's not so much a struggle for me anymore.
And I have things that bother me.
Maybe I can use that as another teaching mode. Maybe I can become a teacher
(20:13):
and teach people how to walk better, how to feel better, how to be healthier.
Not to live forever, but how to be healthier in living now and feel better about living now.
So I contacted the Chi walking people.
I didn't want to become a Chi runner. I've never been a runner.
(20:34):
And I had those ridiculous knock-knee legs. So I decided I would take,
they accepted me into their program. It's a rather rigorous program.
And so about a year ago, I got my certification in November 23.
I completed my program and became a certified Chi walking instructor,
(20:57):
which was, again, helpful to me.
And it's helpful to other people because there was a lot I still needed to learn about chi walking.
And what I found out is there really isn't anybody in this area.
There are instructors, walking and running instructors all over the world,
but we do not have them in this area. So I thought, this is good.
(21:21):
I will do this. I will get out and teach people how to walk.
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(21:41):
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So you've touched on the health benefits and the mental wellness benefits that come from Chi walking.
(22:08):
Let's say we have some listeners who are feeling inspired.
They wanna get out there. They want to give chi walking a try for themselves.
Could you explain some basic techniques as our listeners could take to start
chi walking today or later this week? Okay.
(22:32):
They could get in touch with me. I teach private lessons as well as do group workshops.
And I am listed on the cheliving.com site under instructors,
they could do what I did, which was find out more information about this.
And I'm a visual auditory person, so I wanted to see things.
(22:56):
So if you simply Google Danny Dreyer and Catherine Dreyer,
you can find a lot of videos to take a look at and to see what traditional walking looks like.
It's like breaking as you go down the street and she walking looks like.
And that alone inspired me to learn how to do these techniques.
(23:24):
And if you need anything else,
it would be, look if your
knees are bothering you over time your knees
might feel better i go out and my knees don't bother me all day long you know
so that is so that's that's what i would do i found it good to have someone
(23:46):
show you demonstrate for you because there is if you take your hands Cheryl,
and you cross them and you see where your thumbs lie,
there's a natural position for your thumbs.
If you take your hands and you put your thumbs in the other direction,
it feels somewhat different.
(24:08):
And that's what you have with traditional walking, which you've always done, and chi walking.
And a lot of people are put off then and don't want to put in the effort,
which is really not a tremendous amount of effort to get started.
Okay. It's going to take your alignment, which is your core,
(24:31):
your structural column. Okay.
And it's going to take cooperating with nature.
Those are the two things, two types of alignment, learning how to use them to your benefit.
And just so our listeners know, Carol is going to allow us to record her chi walking.
(24:55):
So at the end of the episode, if you're listening, she's going to be going over
verbally how some of the steps and practices she puts in place.
And if you're watching us on video, you can stay tuned to the end and we'll
have a recording of Carol actually doing her chi walking. working.
So I'm also wondering, do you have any personal anecdotes or success stories
(25:23):
from those who you've taught, you know, some of your students?
Well, my certification was last November, so I'm getting known out in the community.
I worked with a pole woman colleague, and she's rather fat and 70,
but she was terribly afraid of walking now because she has osteoporosis.
(25:45):
And she said, look, why don't I, you know, she drives around places a lot. Why don't I come by?
She was in New Jersey at the time. And you can teach me.
And she got it quickly and she started to use it.
And as she was walking, she found out that she said, you know,
I always wondered on the the bottom of my toes, I always get calluses.
(26:08):
And I realize, because now I remember that body sense, paying attention to your body.
She said, I realized I'd been walking on my toes.
So she found a great deal of difference with the chi walking.
And also, she wasn't looking down so much anymore.
You can look out about 10 feet and get yourself a nice flat terrain,
(26:31):
and look out about 10 feet, get to a place, get another focus, get to another place.
And so she began walking more and getting more benefits from that.
My husband was very ill the last couple of years.
We're not sure why. It could be related to COVID or not. We had gone off to
Australia to do some whole woman work.
(26:53):
And when we came back, he began to have health issues.
And he needed something to motivate him. And what motivates my husband is planning some adventure.
So he was in OT and I said, look,
Why don't you plan something that we can do?
(27:14):
And if we can't do it, we'll be able to cancel it. So he came down the next
day and he said, how about a cruise to the Hawaiian Islands and the Polynesian
Islands on a Viking cruise?
And I said, okay, sure, we'll do that.
How about it? He said, it's over a month, you know, and I'm thinking doctor's
appointments and all. I said, sure, okay, if that motivates you.
(27:38):
And you could cancel right up until the end if we needed to.
So we're on this ship for over 30 days on the Pacific Ocean, and ships move.
And there are lots of numbers of older people on the ship, and they're wobbling
back and forth. A few of them fell down.
You could see the boots appear on them because they had good medical assistance there.
And people would say to me, you're not falling.
(28:02):
You're not even weaving. You're going, you know, and it was the Chi walking
because it improves your balance. It improves your mobility.
So I never had any issues on, on this ship where other people were,
you know, having a hard time getting their, their balance.
And then most recently I had a woman named Pat.
She's local in this area and she's always been a walker and she was getting nervous now.
(28:28):
She's 72 and every few days her knees would really hurt her.
And so she was afraid that was going to continue. And instead of every few days,
it would become every day.
So she saw, there was an article done on me in a news blog, Hello Westchester.
She saw that and she was able to track me down.
(28:51):
And we realized that she's always walked with very rigid knees.
A lot of people do that. They really have very rigid, rigid knees.
And after about 40 minutes of work, she said,
wow, this really feels good. And she's been practicing and she's going to continue.
(29:15):
So if you give yourself the time and you give it a try, you can really reap a lot of benefits.
And so chi walking then becomes, or chi running, if you wish to become a runner,
and there are many people, not me, but there are many other people who have
(29:35):
always said, gee, I wish I could be a runner.
This is a perfect segue into learning chi running and becoming a runner.
Well, I'm wondering, so you get ready to go out and do a chi walk.
What are you saying in your mind? What are you saying to your body?
(29:57):
And how does it really transpire into your walking so that you can start reaping
the health and mental wellness benefit?
Well, first of all, when I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is take
a couple of deep breaths and say, geez, I'm really glad I'm here.
(30:18):
And then I say, basically, unless it's icy outside, I'll get out and do a walk.
So I get myself ready. I might do what we call body looseners.
You don't want to do stretching before your activities.
That's, as I understand it, more harmful. But you can do these body looseners.
(30:40):
So I will go out and do one or two of those. It takes a couple of minutes.
Get outside and I go, okay, I'll start at the bottom. Start with my feet and my knees.
Go to the top. Pull my head up through the back of the head,
slight tuck of the chin. My shoulders are relaxed. next.
Then I go to the middle. I engage my core. So if I sit like this, my core is not engaged.
(31:07):
When I sit like this, my core is engaged. It's the same when I'm standing.
I could stand like this or I can stand like this.
And then I take a deep breath. I might start moving my feet.
I turn on my metronome and I think about my dantien, my center of energy.
I want that to you move a little forward so I have a slight tilt to my column,
(31:32):
not to my shoulders, to my column. And I go...
And there I am going up the street. And that's all there is to it. And it is. Go ahead.
Well, I'm thinking about how I like to do yoga.
And it is a practice where sometimes I find myself having to remember,
(31:56):
lift my body up, work from my core.
And that is what it's about. So it sounds like as you are chi walking,
it's not as if you flip a switch one day and all of a sudden you're chi walking all the time.
Sometimes you are going to fall back into old habits and it's that remembering
and reminding yourself to take that.
(32:18):
So I might get back and feel tension in my shoulders.
A lot of runners feel tension in their shoulders and they don't realize that they're doing this.
They're pulling up. so when you're chi
when you're chi walking or when you're chi running you can
take a focus and say today i'm going
to be working on making sure that i'm
(32:40):
not pulling my hitting my toes
down when you're chi walking you kind of peel
up it's like peeling a pancake off the floor with
a spatula peeling peel up and then
the front just base falls down you're
never coming that far off the ground so you come up
and come down so you're really working with the the forefront and the midfront
(33:02):
of the foot depending on whether you're going up a hill down a hill so you can
work on one focus at a time and if you go out and you're doing this just going out is a benefit.
That's the benefit right there. And then the more you work on your focuses,
(33:23):
the more benefits you get.
What benefits have you seen or you've been able to realize from incorporating Chi-Walking?
For me, just about any of the doctors I go to say, that's incredible.
Your blood pressure is incredible.
Your pulse rate is incredible. We wish other 75-year-olds,
(33:46):
which I'll be in a couple of months, had this
right my balance is
much better my endurance is much better
what else i i really having gotten sick i've not had covet i do take precautions
(34:07):
i don't go out in crowds of 500 or 1000 people but i do believe that breathing better.
And using these techniques has really improved my health. It makes you feel better.
And when you feel better, when you have a better mood, you're going to be less stressful, right?
(34:29):
And there are other things to do too. I mean, I've learned a lot about Ayurvedic
techniques and Chinese medicine techniques and meditation techniques.
And so you start to put that together. so your body is in a much more de-stressed
so you're able to deal with other people when you see them,
(34:51):
And you're not going to get, or you're less likely to, I wouldn't say you would
never, but you're less likely to be irritated by little things that happen because
you're breathing better, you're feeling better.
And you go, okay, I'll deal with that person with compassion and non-reaction.
All of these things really fit in together.
(35:12):
This is a huge chunk for me right now. And it sounds, you've talked about being
able to Chiwok in your house, around your neighborhood, on a cruise ship.
It sounds very adaptable to different environments.
What's your favorite place to do your Chiwoking?
I, right now, what I do is, I live in an urban area, so there's lots of traffic,
(35:40):
lots of college kids, rigged sidewalks, so there's lots of obstacles.
Vehicles, but I walk on a one-way path.
So I see the cars and I just move myself over.
I get up to the university. I kind of walk all around the parking lot and I've
(36:01):
been able to, because there are different halves in the parking lot,
I've been able to extend them until I can get all the way to the end.
And there's a hill, I can go up the hill.
Now I'm going to, over the summer, start to do more walking around Westchester
in the afternoons and going up more hills and down more hills.
It lends itself beautifully to the many parks we have in Chester County.
(36:23):
So it's fairly simple. We have one East Ocean park to find a park with a,
I suggest to people to use a flat terrain when they're walking until they get
more used to what they're doing.
And then they find that that you can really tackle.
You can feel really good going up a hill and going down a hill,
(36:44):
which is hard for some people to imagine.
But again, that's as you progress along your path.
So you can really do it in any path.
It helps you avoid obstacles. I live in a busy house. My son lives here.
He has friends who come here. So you never know where something's going to be.
So once your feet and you're used to your feet and she walking and you know
(37:10):
where they're going, you're really less likely of a big dog to have impact with any of those things.
So, you know, it's just as the backyard, you know, you're less likely to fall
into a ditch. which you really have.
It's just a much more comfortable sense.
(37:31):
It's a less restrictive way to go about life. And it sounds to me like it's
given you some purpose, some purpose with being able to set personal goals for
yourself. You want to go a little bit further.
You want to try a little bit more of a challenging terrain, brain,
as well as to be able to goal set for others and continue your profession or
(37:59):
your calling more so of teaching.
So when you see me doing my chi walking down the street and you see 10 older
senior citizens following along behind me, you'll know that I've gotten enough word out there.
And that's what we're trying to do. Yes. And I can't imagine it's only for older adults.
(38:19):
No, it's for, it's actually for any age.
If you look at young children, I don't know how young your children are,
maybe one to four, they naturally walk in a Chi walking style.
So it is a correct and conscious way of walking.
(38:40):
Any of my university pals up there who are walking with their cell phones or
walking plugged into music, it would really benefit them to learn how to do chi walking.
It's really great for runners like yourself who run into an injury and they
(39:01):
can't run the way they were running, but they also don't want to stop being active.
Chi walking is a great technique to use when you're rehabilitating from an injury.
It's a great technique for runners. I understand that there are runners who
run 10, 20 miles, and then they need to take a break.
(39:24):
It's a great technique to put in on your break day.
So yes, anyone and everyone can learn how to do chi walking.
If you have less mobility at any age, you can learn how to chi walk with walking sticks.
So it really is, it's out there for everybody.
(39:45):
It's just word of mouth. So that, you know, once people hear about it and they
start to look into it, then they begin to get an understanding.
Otherwise, it's like for me being the only one in this area.
I have people saying, what is this? I was at a health fair recently. What is this chai stuff?
(40:08):
I know how to walk. Why do I have to learn how to walk?
Most recently, last week, a fellow said, look, I was in the military.
This is how I walk. But then he came back and he came back.
And this week, he's coming for a half an hour free lesson to learn some chi
walking techniques. things.
So I would love for this podcast to help get you to your goal of your 10 Chi
(40:36):
Walkers, either from our members or our friends who are listening.
You briefly mentioned people could look you up, but is there,
could you say the website to find you again so that hopefully we We can get
to 10 Chiwalkers with you.
I do not have a website, but it's easy enough to find me at my email address,
(41:00):
which is whole, W-H-O-L-E, woman, K-A-R-O-L, at Verizon.net.
Or my landline is my office line, 610-431-3266.
Or my cell, which is 610-724-7218 or go to chi-living.com.
(41:30):
I'm listed under the instructors and there's a way to contact me through that site.
It also gives you a sense of what's going on and it leads you to understand
that chi-walking and chi-running become chi-living. living.
You're washing the dishes. You think, oh, I need to pull up.
(41:51):
You're sitting at the laptop and go, oh, I don't want to be sitting like this.
I want to be sitting like this. What can I do? Put some books under it, put a stand under it.
It just raises your whole level of consciousness.
So we like to say that Chi walkers move into Chi living.
And I will link all of that information below for anyone who wants to get in touch with Carol.
(42:17):
And I just want to give you the opportunity if you have any final advice for
someone who's considering starting or trying to walking.
As I have been aging, there are days when I feel time has not gone by and I
feel that I have not changed.
(42:40):
On other days, I go out and I feel I'm older.
I'll have a couple of kids, not
that often, pass by saying, can I help you get those bags in the house?
And I'm thinking, who are they talking to? Well, they're talking to me because I'm an older person.
(43:03):
My feelings for myself, and I hope they go out to other people, are be who you are.
And you're in there. And time doesn't necessarily have to have a lot to do with
that. Be who you are and do things.
And this is an activity for me and I think for others that helps you be more
(43:26):
connected to yourself and to others.
Lovely. Thank you so much for our chat today and helping myself and all of our
listeners learn about ChiWalking.
And I look forward to meeting with you in the next couple of weeks to record you Chi walking.
(43:48):
So we have a really fantastic example. So people can take a look at that too. All right.
As you do in yoga, thank you very much. For footage of my Chi walking tutorial
with Carol, please visit our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash friendslifecare.
We'll also link the full video episode in the description.
(44:09):
Thank you for listening to Honestly Aging by Friends Life Care Vigor,
a unique program focused on aging with vitality, independence,
growth, and resilience.
You can find links and show notes
from this episode on our website at friendslifecare.org slash podcast.
Thank you to Carol Billick for joining us today. You can learn more about Carol
(44:34):
and she walking by visiting she living.com. If you like our show,
please rate, review, subscribe, and join us next time.
To learn more about aging with vitality, independence, growth,
and resilience, subscribe to our blog at friendslifecare.org slash blog.
(44:55):
Music.
Music.
(00:20):
You're listening to Honestly Aging by Friends Life Care Vigor,
a podcast where we explore what it's like getting older, the peaks,
the valleys, and everything in between.
In this season of Honestly Aging by Friends Life Care Vigor,
we're covering topics related to solo aging.
(00:40):
I'm your host, Sheryl Proska. Let's grow old together.
Music.
On today's episode, I'm joined by Carol Billick, who is a Chi-Walking instructor,
retired teacher, and Friends Life Care member.
(01:02):
Carol, welcome, and thank you for being here. How are you today?
I'm great. Thank you for having me. My pleasure.
So, Carol, you are joining me today to talk about Chi-Walking and educate our
listeners about the practice should they wish to try it out themselves.
So let's get started. What is Chi walking?
(01:24):
Chi walking is a practice.
It is much like Tai Chi or yoga or meditation.
It's a gradual progress.
Chi walking is healthy and fitness activity. and it takes walking and combines
(01:45):
walking with the principles of Tai Chi.
We all learned when we were very young how to walk correctly,
and over time, we've learned how to walk incorrectly.
So as people age and they're walking, they often don't walk as much.
Walking becomes painful. We all have, in aging, you all have some sorts of aches
(02:10):
and pains that are going to come up.
In qi walking, you learn how to, in tai chi, one works with the body and with nature.
So in qi walking, when you work with these things, you become a much more efficient
walker And you are able to have injury prevention, which is huge for people.
(02:36):
I'll be 75 in September. It's huge for people in this category.
So that is, it gives you an opportunity to go out and you can use chi walking anywhere.
I always chi walk. I chi walk in my house. I chi walk anywhere.
And I have a particular regimen where I go out and I chi walk in the morning.
(03:00):
So it's a meditation and a fitness walk.
Is there anything more that you want to say about how chi walking differs from
traditional walking and other forms of mindful movement like Tai Chi or yoga, as you mentioned?
Well, Chi walking would be in a category with meditation and yoga and Tai Chi.
(03:27):
It does differ from traditional walking.
In traditional walking, think of your body as having pendulums.
And And the science of the pendulum is the longer the pendulum, the slower you go.
So in traditional walking, your arms are hanging.
(03:50):
There's a lot of body movement. And your legs are stiffer.
As they move out, there's a stiffness.
And that stiffness, well, if you have any plantar fasciitis,
heel problems, knee problems, that's going to send right up your leg.
(04:12):
You're going to get some bad feelings about those things.
So in Chi walking, we want to, we minimize that.
In qi walking, the legs are not the propellers. The propellers are the core.
As in tai chi, the core or the center of your energy,
(04:37):
if you take your thumbs and place them in your navel and make a heart and then
take your index finger and push in.
Imaginary about two to three inches towards the spine,
that's where your center of energy is
all right and in tai chi your energy
(04:58):
is like water
flowing through a hose what we're aiming for in the practice is to have that
water flowing nicely through all through the body right what happens in our
traditional walking is we get kinks in the hose,
(05:20):
or energy does not flow correctly.
So this is really one of the biggest differences.
As you're walking, traditionally, you're going forward, and so you're breaking
every time you take a step.
So you're not working with nature, you're working against gravity.
(05:44):
In Tai Chi, we're using our alignment to work with gravity and we're using our
direction to work with gravity.
So we want all our body parts going in the same direction.
All right. And so we're cooperating with the forces.
If you watch any of the Tai Chi martial arts movies and there are two guys who.
(06:09):
Or two women attacking each other, the person who's being attacked does not
come and punch the other person.
The person who's being attacked simply moves back and goes with the force of
energy that's coming at them.
And that's a lot of what happens in Chi walking.
When I'm working, my body is working with gravity.
(06:31):
And because I'm working from my center of energy, instead of my leg muscles,
which are smaller, can have more injury.
There's a lot of impact injuries, overuse injuries.
My legs, when I'm chi-walking, are more like going along for the ride.
And gravity, when I'm in my alignment, gravity is taking me forward.
(06:56):
So instead of striking my feet, My feet are simply peeling and lifting,
peeling and lifting, and going forward.
And my stride stays the same.
You figure out your natural stride, and your natural stride is typically shorter
than your walking stride that you use now. So you have the same stride.
(07:19):
Therefore, I can walk slowly in my house using Chi walking.
I can do casual Chi walking. But we all know if we want to get the benefits
of walking that we want to be able to walk faster.
So you can have that same stride, but what changes is the number of steps per minute.
(07:40):
So you can walk at many different, you can walk slowly, you can walk faster, you can walk medium.
Okay and the beauty of it is since your body is not since your body is not doing as much work,
You learn to be more consistent with your walking. You can walk farther.
(08:04):
So you go out and you get, for me, I live in the borough of Westchester.
So I get up to the university and I go, I'm not ready to stop yet.
I can continue on and I can go into the university parking lot.
And by the time I get home, I'm not tired.
I've always been a walker. when I walked before I'd come back and I'd be,
(08:27):
I wouldn't have any energy left. I'd be tired.
Or if you watch walkers or runners, even they're always looking at their watches
to see when their time is up. I'm one of those runners.
How much more time do I have to do this? How much longer do I have?
With chi walking, you're using your body and you're also working with nature.
(08:49):
And so you don't have that. You can have that, I guess, but you don't have that.
You just are going and you can actually feel more energized and relaxed when
you get back. Now, it's a gradual progress.
Everybody's progress is individual.
It is not exceptionally hard, just as you can go to a yoga class or a Tai Chi class.
(09:14):
In the very first class, you get benefit.
And then the teacher says you want to continue to learn because then you'll get more benefits.
So you can take chi walking on a trail. You can take chi walking upstairs and downstairs.
You could take chi walking up hills and down hills.
(09:34):
So there are little tweaks that you
can make for all of these things so basically it's
a very accessible form of getting exercise and all you need is is a nice pair
of shoes and you even learn because it involves body sensing so your mind and
(09:54):
your body become one after a while you think hmm let me think about my feet.
And you learn more about your feet. Let me think about what kind of shoes I'm
wearing. Can I find out more about feet?
And yes, there's a lot of information about feet and about shoes.
And there's one person I particularly love. He's out in Portland now.
So you learn a lot about that.
(10:16):
And I learned what I put on my feet.
So there's so much more. And it feels good.
It feels very good. And you're healthy. How did you discover ChiWalking?
My husband and I were taking Tai Chi classes 20 years ago, and the instructor,
(10:40):
Mitch Goldfarb, one of the students in our class, she fell down.
She fell off a curb, which happens a lot to people.
They fall off the curb, her face was old. And he said, look,
I'm going to show you a couple of techniques that the ancient Chinese,
the Chinese who followed Tai Chi practices, how they used them.
(11:01):
So he showed us one or two techniques.
And my body has always, I have what is called a sacralized spine.
So I don't have that nice curve that most of you have, that lumbar curve. I'm straighter.
And so that impacts me. Now, when I grew up, I grew up poor in Queens.
And so if the babies came out with five fingers and five toes,
(11:23):
they sent them home and they said, that's great, go ahead.
Nowadays, if I were having a child now, I'd take my child off to a pediatric
chiropractor and get them a job.
So there are lots of things that we know now that we might have done differently.
So all my life, I've been somewhat knock-mute. And it's probably because of
the spine, which I just found out about a couple of years ago, the spine.
(11:46):
And that's probably caused me to be somewhat knock-kneed, which is then, by the time I was 55...
Caused me to have terrible knee pains. And the doctor said, well,
you know, come back when you can't stand that terrible pain and we'll replace your knees.
And I thought, well, there must be something between that and that.
(12:09):
So I started to think back to those techniques Mitch had taught us.
And I went looking and I found Danny Dreyer and his wife, Catherine,
had taken Tai Chi and walking and put them together in a method.
And so I started to explore that method.
(12:31):
And over time, I began to use qi walking and became more naturally,
because it is a natural way of walking, naturally using qi walking.
And then a few years back, I had an ankle injury.
And then a couple of years after that, this car hit me. And so I thought my walking days were over.
(12:56):
But I remember I knew Chi walking.
And as soon as I, you know, I worked with a chiropractor.
I've worked on some other things over time. I started again with the Chi walking and I'm back.
I'm back to going out every day. I've spent lots of time snowing in this good
weather. I go out twice a day to walk.
And it's not a painful process. It's something that's very enjoyable.
(13:19):
And it's something that even if you haven't walked in a while,
or if you've had injuries, a lot of people who have osteoarthritis in the knees
are learning they can go out and walk.
Now, they may start out slowly. Okay.
But then over time, you can use a metronome for different speeds.
(13:43):
Over time, you increase a couple of steps at a time. And as I said,
your stride stays the same.
It's your cadence, the number of steps you take. And because you are not having
that impact with the ground, but you and the ground are working together,
you're cooperating with that force, you don't have that stress on your knees.
(14:05):
Now there was a study that
was done at boston university there are many studies done
on walking many many studies so we know that walking's beneficial
right we know that you get muscle strength you get endurance you get you can
have weight loss lots of people say to me oh i'm about 20 pounds overweight
(14:28):
well guess what once they get into the chi walking process and they're out there walking,
they come back and they go, hey, you know, I'm down about five pounds.
You know, I did some healthy lifestyle changes and I'm doing this and boy, I feel really good.
You're breathing better because you have better alignment, okay?
Walking improves your mood. It boosts your immunity.
(14:50):
If you come from a family like mine where there's a number of people have had
diabetes, you want to do anything you can to lower your chances of getting it.
Walking helps prevent these things.
It improves your chances of not suffering from heart disease and diabetes, right?
(15:10):
Now, what does Chi walking do? Well, we've already talked about it makes you
a more efficient walker.
So if you're more efficient and you're not using the energy,
you're going to, over time, be walking further and you're going to be feeling good about it.
You're engaging with nature.
So you go out, and I was out this morning. It was raining. It wasn't pouring.
(15:33):
It was raining. I just put on a little jacket. I have these different get-ups
to wear for different kinds of weather.
And I go out, and you sense different things.
You smell things. You see things. You hear things.
So it really puts you in contact with nature.
It keeps you safe.
(15:55):
That lady who fell down the curb, when you're using your qi walking techniques,
because you're not coming down on your heel and then striking down,
and then how are you going to fall? You're going to fall right on your face.
You can use your qi walking techniques as you get to a curb.
You peel up, there's the curb, you come down gently, and you move forward.
(16:19):
So you are not as afraid of things. A lot of people People have osteoporosis.
They're always looking down. I've worked with women for years now.
They're always looking down.
When they look down, this whole area is closed off. So your breathing is closed off.
When people are using their canes or their walkers, they're down. And there's a fear.
(16:46):
There's a fear of movement because you're afraid you're going to fall down.
And if you fall down, you're going to ruin your hip. You're going to have a
knee injury. Something's going to happen.
As you learn Chi walking, you feel safer.
How did you come to then eventually teach Chi-Walking? Well,
(17:07):
I've always been a teacher.
I grew up in that poor neighborhood in Queens and in the Catholic school system.
And from a very early age, the nuns decided I would be a tutor.
So they had me tutor kids in the summertime. on.
Then I went on, and almost every path that I've taken in my life has involved teaching.
(17:33):
I started out teaching in Queens, in the Catholic schools, because you could
just basically walk in and get in, and I had to support myself at a very early age.
So I was a teacher then. I came to Pennsylvania.
I started to teach in special education. education the teaching in any of the
(17:54):
areas in the country and in some now still very little.
Payment so you'd get like five hundred dollars
a year five hundred dollars a year and we
wanted to have a house so ron continued in education and i started to branch
out i worked down at the child guidance clinic i worked at another program in
(18:17):
philadelphia and then i was also given a position in advertising where I went
around and taught all the people how to cooperate and work together.
Once I retired from my last big gig in education was at the Lower Marion School District.
So I was special education teacher for 26 years.
Once I left that, I decided I wanted to do something.
(18:42):
I had pelvic organ prolapse, which was diagnosed about the same time.
And I thought, okay, that's It's an end, not a beginning. But it wasn't.
It was really just a change.
So I learned about how to educate women through a program called the Whole Woman Program.
Christine Kent, who was out in Albuquerque. And I worked with her for a number
(19:02):
of years. And because she wasn't a teacher, she had me help teach her classes.
So again, I was teaching. And we would go out and we would teach at her yearly conferences.
So I worked with that. Around the time of the pandemic, any of that work kind
of dried up. We didn't want to see people in person.
They didn't want to see me in person. I have a husband who's a transplant survivor. So that...
(19:27):
Kind of went away. So I started again to look at my chi walking.
And I said, I'm really not finished yet with doing things.
What could I do that would have balance in my life? I wouldn't have to do it nine to five every day.
I'd have some control. And I looked at all these people.
I live in a big community. And I looked at all these people who were struggling with walking.
(19:51):
You could sit in the pharmacy waiting to get one of your booster shots.
And you see the people And just to get from the door to the counter is a struggle for them.
And you think, well, it's not so much a struggle for me anymore.
And I have things that bother me.
Maybe I can use that as another teaching mode. Maybe I can become a teacher
(20:13):
and teach people how to walk better, how to feel better, how to be healthier.
Not to live forever, but how to be healthier in living now and feel better about living now.
So I contacted the Chi walking people.
I didn't want to become a Chi runner. I've never been a runner.
(20:34):
And I had those ridiculous knock-knee legs. So I decided I would take,
they accepted me into their program. It's a rather rigorous program.
And so about a year ago, I got my certification in November 23.
I completed my program and became a certified Chi walking instructor,
(20:57):
which was, again, helpful to me.
And it's helpful to other people because there was a lot I still needed to learn about chi walking.
And what I found out is there really isn't anybody in this area.
There are instructors, walking and running instructors all over the world,
but we do not have them in this area. So I thought, this is good.
(21:21):
I will do this. I will get out and teach people how to walk.
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Plan today for a future lived at home with vitality, independence,
(21:41):
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So you've touched on the health benefits and the mental wellness benefits that come from Chi walking.
(22:08):
Let's say we have some listeners who are feeling inspired.
They wanna get out there. They want to give chi walking a try for themselves.
Could you explain some basic techniques as our listeners could take to start
chi walking today or later this week? Okay.
(22:32):
They could get in touch with me. I teach private lessons as well as do group workshops.
And I am listed on the cheliving.com site under instructors,
they could do what I did, which was find out more information about this.
And I'm a visual auditory person, so I wanted to see things.
(22:56):
So if you simply Google Danny Dreyer and Catherine Dreyer,
you can find a lot of videos to take a look at and to see what traditional walking looks like.
It's like breaking as you go down the street and she walking looks like.
And that alone inspired me to learn how to do these techniques.
(23:24):
And if you need anything else,
it would be, look if your
knees are bothering you over time your knees
might feel better i go out and my knees don't bother me all day long you know
so that is so that's that's what i would do i found it good to have someone
(23:46):
show you demonstrate for you because there is if you take your hands Cheryl,
and you cross them and you see where your thumbs lie,
there's a natural position for your thumbs.
If you take your hands and you put your thumbs in the other direction,
it feels somewhat different.
(24:08):
And that's what you have with traditional walking, which you've always done, and chi walking.
And a lot of people are put off then and don't want to put in the effort,
which is really not a tremendous amount of effort to get started.
Okay. It's going to take your alignment, which is your core,
(24:31):
your structural column. Okay.
And it's going to take cooperating with nature.
Those are the two things, two types of alignment, learning how to use them to your benefit.
And just so our listeners know, Carol is going to allow us to record her chi walking.
(24:55):
So at the end of the episode, if you're listening, she's going to be going over
verbally how some of the steps and practices she puts in place.
And if you're watching us on video, you can stay tuned to the end and we'll
have a recording of Carol actually doing her chi walking. working.
So I'm also wondering, do you have any personal anecdotes or success stories
(25:23):
from those who you've taught, you know, some of your students?
Well, my certification was last November, so I'm getting known out in the community.
I worked with a pole woman colleague, and she's rather fat and 70,
but she was terribly afraid of walking now because she has osteoporosis.
(25:45):
And she said, look, why don't I, you know, she drives around places a lot. Why don't I come by?
She was in New Jersey at the time. And you can teach me.
And she got it quickly and she started to use it.
And as she was walking, she found out that she said, you know,
I always wondered on the the bottom of my toes, I always get calluses.
(26:08):
And I realize, because now I remember that body sense, paying attention to your body.
She said, I realized I'd been walking on my toes.
So she found a great deal of difference with the chi walking.
And also, she wasn't looking down so much anymore.
You can look out about 10 feet and get yourself a nice flat terrain,
(26:31):
and look out about 10 feet, get to a place, get another focus, get to another place.
And so she began walking more and getting more benefits from that.
My husband was very ill the last couple of years.
We're not sure why. It could be related to COVID or not. We had gone off to
Australia to do some whole woman work.
(26:53):
And when we came back, he began to have health issues.
And he needed something to motivate him. And what motivates my husband is planning some adventure.
So he was in OT and I said, look,
Why don't you plan something that we can do?
(27:14):
And if we can't do it, we'll be able to cancel it. So he came down the next
day and he said, how about a cruise to the Hawaiian Islands and the Polynesian
Islands on a Viking cruise?
And I said, okay, sure, we'll do that.
How about it? He said, it's over a month, you know, and I'm thinking doctor's
appointments and all. I said, sure, okay, if that motivates you.
(27:38):
And you could cancel right up until the end if we needed to.
So we're on this ship for over 30 days on the Pacific Ocean, and ships move.
And there are lots of numbers of older people on the ship, and they're wobbling
back and forth. A few of them fell down.
You could see the boots appear on them because they had good medical assistance there.
And people would say to me, you're not falling.
(28:02):
You're not even weaving. You're going, you know, and it was the Chi walking
because it improves your balance. It improves your mobility.
So I never had any issues on, on this ship where other people were,
you know, having a hard time getting their, their balance.
And then most recently I had a woman named Pat.
She's local in this area and she's always been a walker and she was getting nervous now.
(28:28):
She's 72 and every few days her knees would really hurt her.
And so she was afraid that was going to continue. And instead of every few days,
it would become every day.
So she saw, there was an article done on me in a news blog, Hello Westchester.
She saw that and she was able to track me down.
(28:51):
And we realized that she's always walked with very rigid knees.
A lot of people do that. They really have very rigid, rigid knees.
And after about 40 minutes of work, she said,
wow, this really feels good. And she's been practicing and she's going to continue.
(29:15):
So if you give yourself the time and you give it a try, you can really reap a lot of benefits.
And so chi walking then becomes, or chi running, if you wish to become a runner,
and there are many people, not me, but there are many other people who have
(29:35):
always said, gee, I wish I could be a runner.
This is a perfect segue into learning chi running and becoming a runner.
Well, I'm wondering, so you get ready to go out and do a chi walk.
What are you saying in your mind? What are you saying to your body?
(29:57):
And how does it really transpire into your walking so that you can start reaping
the health and mental wellness benefit?
Well, first of all, when I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is take
a couple of deep breaths and say, geez, I'm really glad I'm here.
(30:18):
And then I say, basically, unless it's icy outside, I'll get out and do a walk.
So I get myself ready. I might do what we call body looseners.
You don't want to do stretching before your activities.
That's, as I understand it, more harmful. But you can do these body looseners.
(30:40):
So I will go out and do one or two of those. It takes a couple of minutes.
Get outside and I go, okay, I'll start at the bottom. Start with my feet and my knees.
Go to the top. Pull my head up through the back of the head,
slight tuck of the chin. My shoulders are relaxed. next.
Then I go to the middle. I engage my core. So if I sit like this, my core is not engaged.
(31:07):
When I sit like this, my core is engaged. It's the same when I'm standing.
I could stand like this or I can stand like this.
And then I take a deep breath. I might start moving my feet.
I turn on my metronome and I think about my dantien, my center of energy.
I want that to you move a little forward so I have a slight tilt to my column,
(31:32):
not to my shoulders, to my column. And I go...
And there I am going up the street. And that's all there is to it. And it is. Go ahead.
Well, I'm thinking about how I like to do yoga.
And it is a practice where sometimes I find myself having to remember,
(31:56):
lift my body up, work from my core.
And that is what it's about. So it sounds like as you are chi walking,
it's not as if you flip a switch one day and all of a sudden you're chi walking all the time.
Sometimes you are going to fall back into old habits and it's that remembering
and reminding yourself to take that.
(32:18):
So I might get back and feel tension in my shoulders.
A lot of runners feel tension in their shoulders and they don't realize that they're doing this.
They're pulling up. so when you're chi
when you're chi walking or when you're chi running you can
take a focus and say today i'm going
to be working on making sure that i'm
(32:40):
not pulling my hitting my toes
down when you're chi walking you kind of peel
up it's like peeling a pancake off the floor with
a spatula peeling peel up and then
the front just base falls down you're
never coming that far off the ground so you come up
and come down so you're really working with the the forefront and the midfront
(33:02):
of the foot depending on whether you're going up a hill down a hill so you can
work on one focus at a time and if you go out and you're doing this just going out is a benefit.
That's the benefit right there. And then the more you work on your focuses,
(33:23):
the more benefits you get.
What benefits have you seen or you've been able to realize from incorporating Chi-Walking?
For me, just about any of the doctors I go to say, that's incredible.
Your blood pressure is incredible.
Your pulse rate is incredible. We wish other 75-year-olds,
(33:46):
which I'll be in a couple of months, had this
right my balance is
much better my endurance is much better
what else i i really having gotten sick i've not had covet i do take precautions
(34:07):
i don't go out in crowds of 500 or 1000 people but i do believe that breathing better.
And using these techniques has really improved my health. It makes you feel better.
And when you feel better, when you have a better mood, you're going to be less stressful, right?
(34:29):
And there are other things to do too. I mean, I've learned a lot about Ayurvedic
techniques and Chinese medicine techniques and meditation techniques.
And so you start to put that together. so your body is in a much more de-stressed
so you're able to deal with other people when you see them,
(34:51):
And you're not going to get, or you're less likely to, I wouldn't say you would
never, but you're less likely to be irritated by little things that happen because
you're breathing better, you're feeling better.
And you go, okay, I'll deal with that person with compassion and non-reaction.
All of these things really fit in together.
(35:12):
This is a huge chunk for me right now. And it sounds, you've talked about being
able to Chiwok in your house, around your neighborhood, on a cruise ship.
It sounds very adaptable to different environments.
What's your favorite place to do your Chiwoking?
I, right now, what I do is, I live in an urban area, so there's lots of traffic,
(35:40):
lots of college kids, rigged sidewalks, so there's lots of obstacles.
Vehicles, but I walk on a one-way path.
So I see the cars and I just move myself over.
I get up to the university. I kind of walk all around the parking lot and I've
(36:01):
been able to, because there are different halves in the parking lot,
I've been able to extend them until I can get all the way to the end.
And there's a hill, I can go up the hill.
Now I'm going to, over the summer, start to do more walking around Westchester
in the afternoons and going up more hills and down more hills.
It lends itself beautifully to the many parks we have in Chester County.
(36:23):
So it's fairly simple. We have one East Ocean park to find a park with a,
I suggest to people to use a flat terrain when they're walking until they get
more used to what they're doing.
And then they find that that you can really tackle.
You can feel really good going up a hill and going down a hill,
(36:44):
which is hard for some people to imagine.
But again, that's as you progress along your path.
So you can really do it in any path.
It helps you avoid obstacles. I live in a busy house. My son lives here.
He has friends who come here. So you never know where something's going to be.
So once your feet and you're used to your feet and she walking and you know
(37:10):
where they're going, you're really less likely of a big dog to have impact with any of those things.
So, you know, it's just as the backyard, you know, you're less likely to fall
into a ditch. which you really have.
It's just a much more comfortable sense.
(37:31):
It's a less restrictive way to go about life. And it sounds to me like it's
given you some purpose, some purpose with being able to set personal goals for
yourself. You want to go a little bit further.
You want to try a little bit more of a challenging terrain, brain,
as well as to be able to goal set for others and continue your profession or
(37:59):
your calling more so of teaching.
So when you see me doing my chi walking down the street and you see 10 older
senior citizens following along behind me, you'll know that I've gotten enough word out there.
And that's what we're trying to do. Yes. And I can't imagine it's only for older adults.
(38:19):
No, it's for, it's actually for any age.
If you look at young children, I don't know how young your children are,
maybe one to four, they naturally walk in a Chi walking style.
So it is a correct and conscious way of walking.
(38:40):
Any of my university pals up there who are walking with their cell phones or
walking plugged into music, it would really benefit them to learn how to do chi walking.
It's really great for runners like yourself who run into an injury and they
(39:01):
can't run the way they were running, but they also don't want to stop being active.
Chi walking is a great technique to use when you're rehabilitating from an injury.
It's a great technique for runners. I understand that there are runners who
run 10, 20 miles, and then they need to take a break.
(39:24):
It's a great technique to put in on your break day.
So yes, anyone and everyone can learn how to do chi walking.
If you have less mobility at any age, you can learn how to chi walk with walking sticks.
So it really is, it's out there for everybody.
(39:45):
It's just word of mouth. So that, you know, once people hear about it and they
start to look into it, then they begin to get an understanding.
Otherwise, it's like for me being the only one in this area.
I have people saying, what is this? I was at a health fair recently. What is this chai stuff?
(40:08):
I know how to walk. Why do I have to learn how to walk?
Most recently, last week, a fellow said, look, I was in the military.
This is how I walk. But then he came back and he came back.
And this week, he's coming for a half an hour free lesson to learn some chi
walking techniques. things.
So I would love for this podcast to help get you to your goal of your 10 Chi
(40:36):
Walkers, either from our members or our friends who are listening.
You briefly mentioned people could look you up, but is there,
could you say the website to find you again so that hopefully we We can get
to 10 Chiwalkers with you.
I do not have a website, but it's easy enough to find me at my email address,
(41:00):
which is whole, W-H-O-L-E, woman, K-A-R-O-L, at Verizon.net.
Or my landline is my office line, 610-431-3266.
Or my cell, which is 610-724-7218 or go to chi-living.com.
(41:30):
I'm listed under the instructors and there's a way to contact me through that site.
It also gives you a sense of what's going on and it leads you to understand
that chi-walking and chi-running become chi-living. living.
You're washing the dishes. You think, oh, I need to pull up.
(41:51):
You're sitting at the laptop and go, oh, I don't want to be sitting like this.
I want to be sitting like this. What can I do? Put some books under it, put a stand under it.
It just raises your whole level of consciousness.
So we like to say that Chi walkers move into Chi living.
And I will link all of that information below for anyone who wants to get in touch with Carol.
(42:17):
And I just want to give you the opportunity if you have any final advice for
someone who's considering starting or trying to walking.
As I have been aging, there are days when I feel time has not gone by and I
feel that I have not changed.
(42:40):
On other days, I go out and I feel I'm older.
I'll have a couple of kids, not
that often, pass by saying, can I help you get those bags in the house?
And I'm thinking, who are they talking to? Well, they're talking to me because I'm an older person.
(43:03):
My feelings for myself, and I hope they go out to other people, are be who you are.
And you're in there. And time doesn't necessarily have to have a lot to do with
that. Be who you are and do things.
And this is an activity for me and I think for others that helps you be more
(43:26):
connected to yourself and to others.
Lovely. Thank you so much for our chat today and helping myself and all of our
listeners learn about ChiWalking.
And I look forward to meeting with you in the next couple of weeks to record you Chi walking.
(43:48):
So we have a really fantastic example. So people can take a look at that too. All right.
As you do in yoga, thank you very much. For footage of my Chi walking tutorial
with Carol, please visit our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash friendslifecare.
We'll also link the full video episode in the description.
(44:09):
Thank you for listening to Honestly Aging by Friends Life Care Vigor,
a unique program focused on aging with vitality, independence,
growth, and resilience.
You can find links and show notes
from this episode on our website at friendslifecare.org slash podcast.
Thank you to Carol Billick for joining us today. You can learn more about Carol
(44:34):
and she walking by visiting she living.com. If you like our show,
please rate, review, subscribe, and join us next time.
To learn more about aging with vitality, independence, growth,
and resilience, subscribe to our blog at friendslifecare.org slash blog.
(44:55):
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