Keep Pace With Nature

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday May 17, 2007

Valerie Khoo

It seems as simple as putting one foot in front of the other but walking in the modern world can lead our bodies down a dangerous path, writes Valerie Khoo.

There aren't many jobs that involve teaching the members of INXS how to walk like the Masai tribes of Africa. But that's exactly what Sue Mueller did recently. As a walking therapist, Mueller has helped celebrities, sports people and anyone interested in learning how to walk "correctly".

"I teach people how to walk the bio-mechanically and physiologically correct way," she says. "Our bodies were not designed to walk on hard, flat surfaces like concrete, or for wearing hard shoes and high heels. Ailments like back pain, poor posture and joint problems are the result of the fact that we do not walk correctly."

As part of Mueller's job, she takes people on regular walking classes so they can relearn the natural way to walk. A former midwife, Mueller, 52, moved into walking therapy when her brother-in-law created a range of footwear called MBT.

"My brother-in-law is Swiss but when he was living in Korea, he realised that when he was walking barefoot in the rice paddies - which were soft and squidgy - his back pain seemed to diminish," she says.

"He then went on to study the biomechanics of the Masai tribe to understand why they didn't seem to suffer from the ailments - such as back pain, bad posture and obesity - that people in the Western world do.

"The Masai walk on uneven surfaces so he developed MBT Physiological Footwear, which essentially enabled people to have the sensation of walking on soft, uneven surfaces."

Mueller uses the shoes as a tool in teaching people how to walk correctly. She counts some of the members of INXS among her footwork students.

"A few of them suffer from various joint ailments that I believe we can assist in overcoming. Obviously this does not happen overnight, so we will continue to work with them to try to assist in getting them to walk the natural way."

Another high-profile client was the German footballer Timo Konietzka.

"Timo was nearly crippled after years of football due to many injuries over time."

Mueller says she trains people to become walking therapists.

"You can usually earn between $50 an hour to $100 depending on your experience and your number of clients. If you have a background in physiotherapy, Pilates or podiatry you have a good foundation to become a walking therapist."

MBT is not the only range of footwear inspired by the no-frills approach of tribespeople. Two years ago, a Czech academic, Petr Hlavacek, received rave reviews for his mountain boot prototype, inspired by shoes worn by a 5300-year-old "Iceman".

At the time the head of the technological laboratory at Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Hlavacek replicated the boots found on the mummified body of Otzi the Iceman, discovered in a glacier in the Italian Alps in 1991. The shoe expert spent years re-creating the primitive footwear, using a mixture of calf, bear and deer skin, with hay and animal fats.

His prototype boots were so popular with the mountaineers who tested them that a Czech footwear company approached Hlavacek with a view to mass-producing them.

In July 2005, the Herald reported the academic's comments: "Wearing the shoes is like going barefoot, only better. They are very comfortable ... They may not look very attractive, but from a technical point of view they are very strong, sound, and able to protect the wearer's feet against hard ground, extreme temperatures and damp. They also have a very good grip and withstand shock very well."

He only envisaged one small problem with mass-production.

"We will have to look for a replacement for the bearskin leather."