Ministry of funny walks

As others also said too, I get really weird if I'm focussed on myself waking, to the point I can stumble like I forgot how!

Thanks all.

I have suffered from disabling calf pain when walking since I was at high school, but only when walking alone. I’m actually very fit. There’s nothing wrong with my legs. So I always thought it was an odd psychological issue.

Recently I’ve noticed that when I’m walking with other people or when walking alone but absorbed in something, I literally walk with a different gait and have no pain. So I wonder if this is my true, unmasked, unconscious gait. It’s like I walk when I’m around the house.

I've come back to this because of the special interest part. My background is in martial arts and I'm a chartered physiotherapist.  I think that one of the reasons it is maybe I went into that field of training because consciously or otherwise I had movement difficulties when younger.  Having an unusual gait is a broad term - it could be suggested that the gait of Olympic runners is unusual!  I suppose one angle on it is whether the gait one has is instrumental in harm or disability in one way or another.  From my perspective as a relatively recently diagnosed ASD person I think that maybe I should focus on the possibility of helping other ASD people if they wanted me to with movement problems...  Thanks for the post Deleted User 

I have a stoop. It's bad enough that I measure 5'9" instead of the 5'10" I would be if I painfully stretched those tendons back into normal position. My head juts forward a bit like a tortoise.

I’ve had people comment that I walk like a penguin, I tend to wear down one side of boots very quickly, rarely wear shoes as my ankles need support.

Yes - tho' perhaps not in the oft presented stereotypical autistic way.  "Motor co-ordination" of human movement has been a special interest of mine for more than 40 years in one way or another :-) So mine perhaps unusual as it is a meditative practice - quite a lot of thinking and practice put into how to attenuate the automatic systems that Iain  refers to.

When I was younger I used to walk focussing on the pavement (to avoid looking at others in the dubuious hope they would not look at me as I attracted bullies like a magnet) so had a slightly hunched over walk.

I also find that if I actually think about how I walk I nearly forget how to do it and become quite robotic - I need to dissociate slightly to let the automatic motor functions kick in and seem vaguely normal again.