Go on, try it. Can you walk down the stairs without looking at the steps prior and after being asked “Can you walk down a flight of steps without looking at it?”.
After wondering about this question, I found that I can’t. Once I have forgotten about the question, I could.
Yes. I was taught to do so in acting school because looking down at the steps looks bad on camera. The same instructor also taught me to descend stairs more smoothly than is normal, because the bouncing up and down caused by normal stair descent also looks bad in a tight shot.
Mind you, I normally descent stairs in an ordinary manner; I just know how/when not to.
No. hell, I can’t even walk down normally, I have had shitty balance all my life, and have done the little kid way, step, bring the other foot down to the same step, then the next step … and one hand in a stranglehold on the railing. It is worse now I am on crutches, but I can grip the second crutch in my off hand [took a lot of figuring and practice] if I don’t have mrAru around to log it down for me. As you may surmise, I seriously avoid stairs wherever possible. At mom’s house I have an umbrella stand at the top and bottom of the stairs, and I keep a spare pair of crutches upstairs, and use my old cane in the non railing hand. The cane just goes up and down stairs as I use them. I have pretty much stopped sleeping upstairs, and only go up if I need to shower.
I don’t routinely look at stairs. I look as I take the first step. I look when I get near the bottom or top so I don’t try to take and extra step for a stair that’s not there. If it’s a familiar staircase, I know how many steps there are and I don’t even have to do that.
I’ve learned to look at most, if not all the steps of staircases after one particular incident.
It involved the building I used to work in until late last year. There was one little staircase of three steps that I used in each direction at least once most days. I had gotten to the point of taking the steps each way without thinking about it. Then one day I missed the first step while going down and fell very hard into the staircases metal hand rail.
I was diagnosed with a bone bruise in the left side of my rib cage, which was the point of impact against the hand rail; very painful.
I used to- then I spent a year during college on crutches. Since then, walking downstairs without looking is an act of will. Probably my home stairs are the only I can do without thinking about it too much.
I look before I start, but rarely while descending, at least on the steps in my house. On strange steps I am more careful. I went through too many years not being able to see my feet.