The Mechanics of Olympic Race Walking
Jeff Maucione, in a commentary published by the Lewiston Tribune, argues that walking is technically a genuine sport, citing its inclusion in the Olympics since 1908. His column, titled "Walking: The key tool for Dante, Gandhi and angry Eskimos," links sports to academics and the arts as part of his bi-weekly "Beyond the Game" series.
Maucione notes that race walking involves specific technical rules requiring contestants to keep one foot always in contact with the ground. Participants must maintain pencil-straight legs, rapidly rotating hips, and an erect posture throughout the event.
Intellectual Traditions of Movement
The commentary highlights the historical association between walking and intellectual work. Aristotle’s school philosophers were known as "Peripatetic Philosophers," a term meaning those who walk extensively to conduct their studies.
Several notable thinkers have explicitly credited walking with their creative processes. Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in his "Confessions" that he could only meditate while walking and ceased to think when he stopped. Soren Kierkegaard insisted in his journals that he composed all of his works while walking.
Henry David Thoreau regularly took four-hour treks across the Concord countryside. Friedrich Nietzsche stated that "All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking" and turned to solitary walks for inspiration. Nietzsche died of syphilis at age 44, according to the source text.
Dante wrote in "Purgatorio," Canto V that when free to wander, the intellect’s envisionings become almost divine.
Walking as Emotional and Political Catalyst
Maucione also points to walking as a tool for emotional regulation and political action. An Eskimo custom encourages angry people to walk a straight line across the landscape to overcome emotion. The individual marks the point where anger is dissolved with a stick.
In the realm of politics, Gandhi led a 200-mile long Salt March in 1930 to make salt in violation of British law and taxes, helping to overcome British rule. Martin Luther King, Jr. and hundreds of others were arrested for walking peacefully during the 1963 Birmingham March.
Civil Rights marches in the 1960s included the Alabama march from Selma to Montgomery to petition for voting rights.