With the recent 14-inch snow storm, we've managed to get all sorts of interesting surfaces to walk on. First it was deep snow. Then it was tire tracks of ice, since Henrico County took way too long to get to our neighborhood. And finally it was (and is) sand on the streets, since plowing the ice was hopeless.
This reminds me a bit of when it first starts snowing and I'm driving. If I'm in a parking lot, I compulsively find myself going for a clear area and trying to make myself skid and spin out. I want to get a feel for the new surface, and how my vehicle will respond to it.
Similarly... the sand has been some wonderful stuff. I use a lot of core movement with kicks as well as thrusts and strikes, which means I'm often spinning on my support leg - even with straight front kicks. With the sand, it's even more fun. Sure you have no traction. But with the lost traction also means lost "stiction" of the surface. That's a technical term you know...
It's that grip, slide, grip thing you sometimes get on irregular surfaces. Life doesn't always give you a perfect whatever to work on when the poop hits the rotating propeller. So you learn to do what you do on all kind of surfaces. Rather than fearing the unusual, I find myself exploring it and seeing how well my principles of movement work.Ever tried charging horse stances with shoes on sandy asphalt roads?
- Bill
My two a day walks to the snow drifted beaches of Maine sound similar to your enviomental MA experiments .....no horse stances yet, though ... 