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Fox Walk Awareness Practice
The fox walk is an awareness practice that helps us walk with attention and sensitivity to our surroundings. We walk barefoot on the ground while taking time to connect with the earth and our surroundings through our feet and our toes.
Awaken your wild side
I came across Fox walking while reading Rewilding: Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature by Micah Mortali. He takes people on workshops to help them reconnect with the natural world, and awaken their wild side. Micah Mortali brings together yoga, mindfulness, wilderness training, and ancestral skills to create a unique guide for reigniting your undomesticated self.
Meet Micah
Micah Mortali, is a change agent, public speaker, and expert in mindfulness, rewilding, nature connection, and traditional archery. He is the author of the highly acclaimed book Rewilding: Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature, published by Sounds True.
For hundreds of thousands of years, humans lived intimately with the earth. We were in the wild and of the wild. Today, we live mostly urban lives - and our vital wildness has gone dormant. As a result, we’re more isolated, unhealthy, anxious, and depressed than ever, and our planet has suffered alongside us. With Rewilding, Mortali invites us to shed the effects of over-civilization and explore an inner wisdom that is primal, ancient, and profound.
City walking
Most of us walk heel-toe, which means we place our heels on the ground first and then we roll onto the front of the foot. This way of walking came about when we started wearing shoes with heels for walking in cities. We didn’t need to be gentle and skillful in our gait.
Country walking
In the past human beings walked barefoot toe-heel. This allowed them to explore the terrain with the front of the foot, either placing the ball of the big toe or the ball of the pinky toe first and then rolling the heel down to the earth. When you walk this way you have more awareness of the terrain you are walking on.
How to Fox Walk
Begin at the edge of a wood or field. Start by closing your eyes and relaxing your mind. When you feel calm and present open your eyes and look ahead.
Lift one foot while looking ahead, with your arms relaxed by your sides. Slowly and mindfully place your foot down on the earth big-toe side first, and then roll out to the pinky toe side. Finally, lower your heel down, being careful not to snap any twigs. Allow the weight of your body to settle into the front foot before slowly lifting the other foot.
Feel that you are balancing for a few moments on the standing foot, still looking ahead, still calm, steady and light, and still noticing what is moving around you.
Gradually, lower the next foot down on the big-toe side, rolling out to the pinky-toe side and then slowly lowering the heel. Give yourself fifteen to twenty minutes to practice this way of moving over the land.
My Experience with Fox Walking
The first thing I noticed was that fox walking is much slower than I initially imagined. I managed about 20 meters in three minutes. It really slows you down and is impossible to do at a pace. On week days I don't have much opportunity to get out into nature, so I practice fox walking in the mornings when I walk my dog. She's a senior, so my slow pace matches hers, and when we pass a lamp post I'm able to overtake her. I used to bring my cell phone with me as a distraction but now I don't because fox walking takes up 100% of my attention.
I’m Dr. Rodger Douglas, DMH, a South African-born homeopath now based in Osaka, Japan. With a psychology degree from Nelson Mandela University and a diploma from the Hahnemann College of Heilkunst, I specialize in holistic care for fibromyalgia. I serve clients by phone or video across the US, Canada, the UK, and beyond, shipping remedies directly from Japan.