The class is formulated to help you learn new skills that increase your confidence in walking in winter.

There are several types of skills that you will develop:

1. Reduce the Flight/Fight reactions. When we are nervous about walking, we involuntarily tighten all over ourselves - our jaw, neck and shoulders; our chest and low back; our butt-muscles, and hamstrings; the calf muscles and the muscles of the feet. In fact, it is hard to find muscles that do not tighten in these situations.

What happens when we tighten the muscles:

• we lose the ability to easily balance
• our feet do not completely contact the ground
• our tight hands (as if in preparation of landing) reduce our ability to move our arms to increase balance
• our tight neck means we cannot move our head or eyes easily

So, the first step is to reduce this tension. This whole-body flight/fight reaction happens through the activation of the sympathetic nervous system. To slow this down, one very effective approach is through breathing.

We need to teach our sympathetic nervous system to become quiet. The best place to start is in a location that does not stimulate it - for example lying down comfortably, or sitting comfortably in a chair.

Teaching the nervous system takes time. You will need to repeat practicing the breathing, so there are two recordings, a beginning one, for the first time or two, and a second, a bit shorter, as you become familiar with the idea.

2. Discover your balance. Try standing on one foot. Is that easy for you? Many of us find challenge in balancing -- on a firm surface, so when we are un an unstable surface, balance is challenged even more. So, discovering (or re-discovering) balance is important. The class has many lessons that help you slowly regain your balance. In addition, the class has concepts you can use to help.

3. Moving with Intention. Many people say they have fallen when they were distracted. How can one walk with more intention? This conundrum is covered as you develop more awareness of yourself.

4. Moving with Precision. On what are you stepping? Discover what part (or parts) of your foot contact the ground and how that profoundly impacts your balance, your intention, and thus the accuracy of placing your feet for maximum safety.

5. Walking is controlled imbalance. Learn new ways of balance-- dynamic balance. Often we have developed habits that interfere with effective balance, which is particularly important when we are walking in winter conditions. Thus, there are several lessons that focus on particularly ineffective patterns, and helping your system discover more effective ways.

6. Repeating the learning. All skills take time to become integrated in our patterns of moving. So please plan to repeat the lessons in quiet comfortable settings so that your system can really integrate the new ideas, and then be able to immediately apply them to new situations, such as walking in winter.

Your systems need time to change. They need support in their change, so repeating the lessons often will help your systems to find the most effective ways to maintain your dynamic balance.