Swish

I've been wondering for a while why my right leg has been all crook (beneath the obvious you had a stroke surface, of course), and I think I've figured it out and started to correct the problem: it certainly feels like I'm walking better.

When I first started to recover, the muscles of my right pelvis and butt weren't strong enough to support my weight naturally, so they would kind of lock, leading to a sort of stiff-legged limp. They're stronger now, but my gait was still stiff and weird.

I knew that my pelvis was sort of tight, rather than loose and fluid, so I figured that was related. I knew also that my glutes had got a lot of work, and should be comfortably strong enough to support me, but that when I stagger or stumble, it's usually to the right, and my right glute max seemed to be failing.

The problem seems to be that I lacked swish. Although it's not typically obvious in WASPy men (unless we're also streetwalkers), everyone's butt swishes from side to side a bit as they walk. Because at some point I hadn't had the strength to do so, I learned unconsciously to protect against that motion, and never un-learned the rigid protection when I finally had the strength for my pelvis to move.

So, by putting what feels like an exaggerated swish in my gait, I am quite a lot more stable. As I lose the automatic protection, the feeling of exaggeration will mostly diminish, but like with a lot of things, my brain is having to re-learn what to expect from my right side as 'normal,' so it may take a while.