I realize this could be another item on the long list of my quirks, but this happened to me the other day and got me wondering if it happens to anyone else: you’re at the top of some stairs, preparing to head down. You normally lead with your left foot, but for some reason (because of your stride or whatever) you start your descent with your right. (I guess to clarify, you normally start with your left foot, so your steps would be left, right, left, right, left…all the way to the bottom. But if you start with the right, it’d be right, left, right, left, etc.)
Does it feel odd to you? And if so, does it feel odd all the way down? Why is that? I find that whether it’s 4 steps or 40, if I start with the “wrong” foot, I feel like I’m on the verge of stumbling all the way until I reach the bottom of the flight. Like I have to concentrate on putting each step down or I’m going to go ass over elbows. Now if I start with the “correct” foot, I can glide down the stairs with the grace of Gene Kelly. But after the first step, it shouldn’t matter should it?
I realize what you are saying. We all have a favorite side that we generate to. We tie our shoes with one foot first, for example. I don’t know if it happens to do with right or left handed dominance. It may have something to do with our natural strong side, generally the right side. It can be changed and the less strong side can be strengthened with practice.
It seems like you have fixated on this issue like an itch and that is making it more noticeable. Forget about it and go about things naturally as you have all your life so far.
That exact thing happens to me. If I lead with my left foot it’s awkward all the way down. I think it’s because when I go down my dominant foot leads, and that’s the one I concentrate on, and the other foot just follows. If I try and do it backwards it doesn’t work right.
Yes, it feels odd. I lead with my right foot going up and down, but about six weeks ago I injured my right knee. It’s almost better, but things like stairs aggravate it, so I try to remember to lead with my left foot, which takes most of the pressure, leaving my right leg to tag along. And it just feels **weird. **
I didn’t notice I had a dominate foot until I broke the toes of the dominant foot and had to wear a cast. Because of limited flexibility and pain of the casted foot I couldn’t lead with it and had to re-learn walking down steps (each flight required a handrail and some concentration). Then when the cast came off and the foot was better I knew it was completely healed when I began to lead with my dominant foot again (and didn’t have to concentrate on stairs).
I just tested by going up and down the steps a few times with one or the other foot first.
It didn’t feel particularly strange either way (other then the strangeness of walking up and down the steps a few times for no reason). Nor was I particularly more or less graceful with either foot. If I happened to go ‘wrong’ foot first for whatever reason in a real situation, I doubt I’d notice at all.
Also, for what it’s worth, I seem to ‘default’ to right foot first going down, left foot first going up. Never noticed before.
It doesn’t matter to me which foot I lead with, whether going up or down. However, my right foot needs to reach the top first (or bottom when going down). I generally lead with the left because most staircases are even-numbered, so I can expect my right to reach the destination first, but if I’m thrown for a loop, then I have to take the last 2 stairs in one step. For staircases I use often, such as at work, I know if it’s got an even number or odd number of steps, but I generally don’t count them. Oh, and my principle applies to things like curbs, too, which means if I’m running, I often have to do little stutter steps to get it right.
