I think it was a Robert Heinlein book I was reading which described a man looking at the back of a beautiful woman, “whose movements would draw the outline of a figure-eight when she walked across the room” .
( sounds more romantic than a drunken pilot, anyway 
)
They were invented by Persians for horesback riding. A (suprisingly interesting) cite: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21151350
Another good reference is the movie Some Like it Hot in which Jack Lemmon says upon seeing Marilyn Monroe walking away,“Will you look at that! Look how she moves! It’s like Jell-O on springs. Must have some sort of built-in motor or something. I tell you, it’s a whole different sex!”
Too true!
Dog-I know what happens-*BOIING!!! *
it is a learned behavior, young girls emulate other girls and women and therefore learn to “walk like a girl”. having seen some women who never really learned how to walk by swaying the hips and then try to walk in heels is appalling. If it was a “natural” phenomenon no one female would need to learn it. It might be an unconscious emulation but it is definatly learned.
I second (or third) the notion that it is a learned behavior. When I was 14 and shy and gawky, my parents sent me to a class (four hours a day for four Saturdays, as I recall) at a modeling school to learn how to stand, walk, sit, use my hands, pick out flattering clothes, and apply makeup without looking like a street walker or a clown.
Since them I’ve had several friends ask me to teach them how to walk because they say I glide and roll like a model while they stump around like loggers.
Definitely learned behavior.
It might be in more than one Heinlein book, but in Stranger in a Strange Land Jill’s fanny is described (in Ben’s mind) as making figure eights as she walked
Yes and No.
Some women naturally have this ability to sway their hips. When I was a pre-teen my friend pointed out that my butt jiggled when I walk.
Learning to walk in heels is learned behavior and walking in “soft” manner is learned. For women women swaying the hips is natural talent.
I do however sway my hips more if I see a good- looking man. What can I say, I have an excellent ass.
A drama teacher once told my class “To walk like a girl, pretend you’re walking along a plank, one foot in front of the other. To walk like a guy, pretend you’re walking on two planks, with one foot on each.”
A corollary question here: is that particular - and spectacular - twitch of the buttocks when wearing a bikini a conscious behavior? Some women at the beach cock their asses like a loaded gun.
Yes, walking and moving can be affected by attention and effort. Anything can be exaggerated. Most women do not take instruction in swishing or jiggling when they walk. Drag queens aside, of course.
Do men take classes or practise sitting with legs spread wide? Or are we to believe that’s just natural?
Yep. I spent the entirety of my self-conscious teen years locked in lordotic posture and that’s a hard habit to shake even though I’m the downhill side of my fertile years now. No different from the men who str-e-t-ch, lean against the wall behind me, spread out, flex, pose, and generally take up as much room as possible while pretending to be unaware of the posturing. We’re such monkeys.
It is a bit of both. The reason you see some women not accomplish it well is explained right there in your statement. The women who don’t are the ones that naturally clomp around when they walk, and thus do so in heels as well.
Learning to walk is a complex process that starts in childhood (duh). Everybody adapts a little bit differently based upon their own anatomy. Thus you get bow-legged people and pigeon-towed people walking differently than those who don’t have those features.
When puberty kicks in, anatomy shifts for both genders, so walking has to compensate. Because of anatomical differences, women tend to compensate for the natural balance shift during walking by rotating their hips, men tend to compensate for that sway by shifting their arms and shoulders. Men tend to walk with their feet a bit wider, swinging in line with their shoulders, while women tend to walk with their feet more along a straight line. Of course, those are tendencies. Individuals differ.
Stockier women, for instance, may walk more man-like. Also, some women may intentionally walk more blocky to appear more masculine in the same way drag queens exaggerate their motions to appear more feminine.
Walking in heels exaggerates the effect for women because to walk elegantly and well-balanced, one needs to place the ball of the foot along that centerline and rotate the heel behind the toe and underneath the torso. Women who don’t walk elegantly in heels, who “clomp” around, were not instructed and did not naturally pick up the improved balance by careful foot placement, which incidently drives hip sway. Their natural walk is more of a clomp, and they didn’t figure out (naturally or by instruction) how to adapt on heels. And their walk correspondingly looks more clompy and precarious when they walk.
I first learned about this from, interestingly enough, Patrick Swayze. He grew up dancing and surrounded by women, and was explaining on a TV segment that he often taught women how to walk in heels.
OMG, that segment on SNL was hilarious! What really sold it was Melissa McCarthy’s commitment to the humor.
Summary: Melissa McCarthy hosted SNL last week for her second time. When she came out in the welcome segment, she was wearing a bright red pair of stripper heels (6 in stiletto heels with platform soles), and balancing very precariously, and moving slowly. The band wrapped up the musical intro, and she was still in the doorway. She had them play the song again, and stole a chair from one of them to use as a crutch as she hobbled forward.
Then she started trying to push the chair away and pretend she could balance fine, but then needed the chair. Except it was too far away, and so the chair slide sideways away from her, and she rotated over flat and down to the stage. She had to really commit to the movement to make it look smooth without getting hurt.
Then she’s on the floor not able to stand up, and Taran Killam comes out on “cue” to dance a dance number with her. He’s spinning around, she’s crawling on the floor trying to do the choreography on her knees. Brilliant!
That Huffington post piece either thinks it was accidental, or is trying to continue the gag (Melissa was complaining the whole time that she didn’t practice in her shoes, that they’re harder than she imagined, etc). It comes off like they are clueless.
I didn’t see the SNL segment, but there is actually a technique I teach to my students for how to get up off the floor while wearing stripper heels. It’s very… stripper-y, but at least slightly more graceful than what that segment sounded like. Heels like that are designed very differently from lower-heeled, conventional street heels, so there is a bit of a learning curve when you first start walking in them. It changes your balance and weight distribution, so you have to re-learn the heel-toe, heel-toe thing only spacing your feet a bit further apart instead of walking the center line.
Hmm, nobody taught me how to walk. Other than as a baby, anyway. I’ve never worn heels that I had to practice walking in, either. I have been told I “walk funny”, but no one’s ever been able to tell me exactly what was so funny about it, when asked. Maybe I should take lessons! :o
One woman I know had a pair of shoes with the curve of the sole and her weight distribution when walking, she actually wasn’t using the heel at all. She would stand with the heels not actually touching the floor.
Amusingly, I was able to Sherlock Holmes several things by examining the wear patterns on those shoes - the contact points with the ground, spinning, scuff marks, etc.
Like a T- Rex ?
My neighbors were going to some fancy function, and their 10 year old daughter was wearing what was obviously her first pair of heels. She was at that coltish stage where she was right on the cusp of puberty but not quite there, and her pride in her new shoes was evident. Watching her struggle in those heels while trying to appear nonchalant was one of the sweetest things I’d seen in a while.
Man, what you all go through.
Actually, I went to a gait clinic (there’s a phrase you enunciate carefully) where the guy basically looked at my running shoes and my combat boots to figure out that I suffer from pronation (and also that I extend my legs too far forward when I walk, slamming my heels into the ground. Very very obvious when I’m in combat boots. Sounds like a horse is trying to sneak up on you.)
Went to a shoe store later where the salesman did basically the same trick to figure out what pair of shoes/insoles he should try to sell me.
Does wearing high heels affect the swing of your porch?