Introduction
Walking is something you do constantly—moving around your home, strolling outside, or rushing through errands. But if you’re like most people, you probably never really considered how you walk. You just do it, assuming it comes naturally. But what if the way you walk and stand could be better, more efficient, and even more enjoyable?
Brian Esty’s writing on stance and gait can open your eyes to a new way of thinking about movement. He suggests that modern lifestyles have dulled certain reflexes and postural habits that once made human movement more fluid. From rigid shoes to flat floors and too much sitting, your body may operate with habits that don’t fully support its design.
Meanwhile, the recent Stecco et al. paper provides the scientific framework that explains why Esty’s methods work. The fascial system—a whole-body connective tissue network that senses, adapts, and responds to movement—is the structural foundation for many of the effects Esty describes. Combining these perspectives can help you approach your movement with practical tools and a deeper understanding.
So what if you decided to relearn how to walk and stand, drawing inspiration from both our evolutionary past and the latest in fascia science? By making small, consistent changes, you could dramatically improve how you move and feel, your resilience, and your regenerative capacity. Here’s how to get started.
1. Understanding How You Were Meant to Move
Your body evolved over millennia to walk barefoot across varied terrain, balance, squat, and climb. Ancient footprints and skeletal studies show a tendency toward forefoot or midfoot striking, which allowed early humans to use the arches of their feet like springs. These efficient movement patterns rely on your fascia—not just your muscles and bones.
The Stecco paper explains that your fascial system is designed to transmit force and adjust its stiffness dynamically. That means how you walk doesn’t just impact your joints—it changes how your fascia behaves. By restoring natural patterns like midfoot landing and barefoot walking, you stimulate the fascia’s proprioceptive and elastic properties. Even a few minutes a day walking barefoot on natural surfaces can reawaken dormant patterns and begin to reshape your tissues.
2. Reconnecting with Your Reflexes
You probably don’t think much about reflexes like the cross-crawl pattern—the instinctual left-arm/right-leg coordination from crawling that supports efficient gait. But if that reflex isn’t well integrated, you may walk with unnecessary effort, overuse your joints, or feel off balance.
Esty recommends basic drills that help you reactivate these reflexes.
From a fascial perspective, Stecco shows that fascia isn’t just connective tissue—it’s a sensor-rich communication system. Repeating reflexive patterns stimulates the fascial network, reinforcing neural pathways that underlie smooth coordination. Practicing simple cross-crawl drills or toe grasping exercises helps you reorganize not just your motor control, but the sensory feedback loops within your fascial matrix.
3. Adjusting Your Posture with Gravity
You’ve likely been told to “stand up straight,” but a rigid posture doesn’t align with how fascia and gravity interact. Instead, you can learn to engage a dynamic posture—slight knee bends, weight balanced toward the forefoot, and head aligned over the spine. This setup lets your fascia distribute load through tension rather than compression.
Stecco’s research describes fascia as a continuous network that transmits mechanical signals. When you stand or move in alignment with gravity, those signals help tissues maintain elasticity and reduce fatigue. Letting the ground “push up” through you, rather than collapsing downward, cues your fascia to support rather than resist movement.
4. Rethinking Your Footwear and Foot Health
The type of shoes you wear shapes how your fascia behaves. A stiff sole or narrow toe box reduces ground feedback and inhibits toe splay, both of which are essential for fascial health. Shoes that allow your foot to flex and your toes to spread enable the fascia to stay mobile and responsive.
According to Stecco et al., fascia in the foot is heavily involved in balance and proprioception. When you transition to minimalist shoes (slowly), you engage those fascial layers, building intrinsic foot strength and improving gait efficiency. Esty’s advice to go barefoot more often aligns perfectly with the idea that fascial tissue needs gentle, variable loading to remodel in healthy ways.
5. Learning to Absorb Shock More Naturally
A smooth, elastic stride protects your joints and keeps your fascia pliable. Heel striking with a locked knee sends sharp, high-frequency forces through your system. Bending your knees and landing softly—more on the forefoot or midfoot—lets your fascia act like a spring, absorbing and dispersing shock.
Stecco explains that fascia behaves viscoelastically: it stiffens under load but rebounds if loaded gradually. That means how you land determines how much your tissues absorb or resist impact. Gentle, rhythmic motion keeps your fascia supple, whereas harsh, abrupt impacts cause it to densify. Walking becomes not just more comfortable, but healthier for your entire body when you let your fascia do its job.
6. Seeing Your Body as an Interconnected System
Changing one part of your movement—like your foot strike—affects your whole system. Freeing your toes may help your hips rotate better. Improving your head posture may ease your lower back. That’s because your fascia links muscles, bones, and nerves across the body. As Stecco describes, it’s not a series of isolated parts—it’s a communication web.
When you bounce gently, squat deeply, or move smoothly, you’re training this system. Fascia thrives on multidirectional movement and varied loads. Esty’s advice to listen to your body, adjust gradually, and focus on the quality of motion matches what fascia research confirms: tissue remodeling is a slow, integrative process.
7. Avoiding the Traps and Rushing
It’s tempting to jump into new shoes, change your gait overnight, or start bouncing everywhere. But fascia doesn’t respond well to sudden overload. Esty emphasizes patience, and Stecco backs him up. Mechanotransduction—the process of tissues adapting to force—takes time. Abrupt shifts can lead to microtrauma or excessive stiffening.
Instead, progress step by step. Add five minutes of barefoot walking. Introduce one posture change at a time. Listen for fatigue or tension as feedback. When you train your fascial system gradually, it builds elasticity and coordination without strain.
8. Why Physical Therapy and Fascia Science Support This
Everything Esty recommends—from reflex integration to soft landings—has a home in physical therapy. PTs work to strengthen your deep foot muscles, stabilize your core, and improve joint alignment. The fascial science from Stecco’s paper shows why these approaches work at a tissue level: fascia adapts when loaded gently, aligns when movement is smooth, and supports when reflexes are engaged.
Understanding fascia helps you go beyond memorizing exercises. You start to feel what efficient movement is. That connection makes you more likely to keep up the practice because you’re not just fixing pain—you’re improving your body’s entire communication network.
9. How Movement Shapes Your Tissue Health
One of the most empowering ideas from Stecco’s paper is that your fascia is always adapting. When you walk with more elasticity, squat deeply, or balance on your toes, you’re giving your fascia healthy input. When you slouch, stiffen, or pound your heels, you’re training it in a different way.
You can’t control every step you’ve taken in the past—but you can begin shaping your future. Each time you move with intention, your fascia responds. It aligns its fibers, reorganizes its layers, and adjusts hydration. You’re not just moving—you’re remodeling the very fabric that connects your body.
Conclusion: Walk Like You Were Built To
You were made to move with ease, coordination, and elasticity. By combining Esty’s intuitive, practice-based insights with the anatomical foundation of fascia science, you can rediscover how walking and standing can feel powerful and light.
As you experiment with posture, footwear, reflex drills, and movement awareness, remember that your fascia is listening—and responding. With patience, consistency, and curiosity, you can reshape not just your gait, but your entire relationship with movement.
This is your body’s original design: resilient, adaptable, and interconnected. By aligning with it, you give yourself a better foundation—one step at a time.
References
Esty, B. (n.d.). Stance and Gait [Blog series]. Retrieved from https://www.brianesty.com/bodywork/category/stance-and-gait/
Stecco, C., Gagliano-Puccini, A., Gesi, M., & Pirri, C. (2025). Towards a comprehensive definition of the human fascial system. Journal of Anatomy, 247(4), 565–578.
https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.13974