“Please walk this way” became the hilarious phrase used by John Inman when he starred as the extremely effeminate retail store assistant Mr Humphries in the British television series “Are You Being Served”. He camped it up after week and we all sat at home watching with squeals of laughter even when we knew he was about to say it again followed
by “That walk”.
Charlie Chaplin was extremely funny but his walk was the funniest thing about him. We giggled as soon as he moved or attempted to do so.
comic affect in Monty Python as well as Fawlty Towers. A mate of mine is a surveyor. He
walks like he’s about to stride across this continent (which he’s done). He walks with
purpose and precision. Kerry Packers father Frank, “had the bulk of a gorilla but walked
with a certain swaggering daintiness”, according to the writer Donald Horne. Kerry Packer
himself had a threatening kind of walk but this may have been due to his height and weight
and the fact that he was a trained boxer.
If we don’t notice a walk it is undoubtedly because it is a good efficient, serviceable gait.
The worst walks we can find are on the catwalks of Paris and Milan and New York. The
models have this horrible, jolting, automaton style of movement. It can’t be described as a
walk because humans don’t walk this way. Where does it come from? Wind-up toys
perhaps! Who knows, but please don’t copy it.
Overweight people don’t walk very nicely because they can’t. They have to waddle to move
along which is unfortunate. So we have to ask if beautiful walks are learnt or earnt or just
natural? A middle-aged woman with an elegant walk glided passed me last week. I didn’t
care whether she learnt it or not but it sure was a lovely walk and it looked natural. It made
heads turn in admiration or envy. It was more than natural
grace.
It is a strange fact that we spend time and money on golf lessons and we have coaches for football, netball, swimming, gymnastics and just about everything else we think we need to improve at but posture is forgotten and so is deportment. A beautiful walk is something to behold and it’s sexy and appealing. This applies to men as well as women but it is harder to define and achieve for males
Lots of elite sportsmen have fluid, relaxed even (dare I say it?) arrogant walks which I swear have been practiced!
So here is some advice I won’t charge you for but it’s certainly worth considering the next
time you are puzzling over a birthday or Christmas present : buy your daughter or loved
one a few lessons from a modelling academy. The value will last a lifetime.
John A Wilson, Gold Coast, September 2017
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