Posture Letter 4 - Walk Like a Lady

Settle down please girls! It’s time to get started.

I saw you all standing outside the classroom and bravo girls. I can see a lot of you have been practicing diligently and it’s starting to have an effect.

Everyone find a seat please and we’ll get started…

...good. I can see that most of you were expecting this and sat down in the correct manner. Just to reinforce things, everyone stand up...now everyone sit down.

Now, everyone stand up CORRECTLY. I know almost all of you did, but a few of you clearly haven’t woken up yet so, we’ll do it again until everyone gets it right. Good, good. Now, everyone sit down CORRECTLY and assume the correct posture.

It’s expected that during my lessons you will now sit down and stand up correctly. That you will maintain a feminine posture when seated and not fidget. If you’re standing, it should be in the hesitation position. Miss Frida told me I was handing out rewards too freely and should use the stick more (I think this was a metaphor). So I’m afraid there’ll be no more gold stars just for doing what you should be doing.

From now on, every time you catch yourself in the wrong posture (seated or standing) or entering or leaving a chair incorrectly, note it down and record minus one star.

Feel free to fidget now and assume a different position

Everyone good? Wonderful, let’s begin.

Walking

I can hear you all now, ‘Becca, your job is entirely office based...why did your deportment course cover walking at all?’. Well, aren’t you just clever little bunnies 🐰! I thought exactly the same thing.

The last two days of my deportment course was a number of intensive sessions covering walking. After being shown the appropriate technique, I was locked into two-inch heels, shackled to a treadmill and left to walk...and walk...and walk. After the first session, I was allocated a break and then placed into three-inch heels and repeated the same process as the earlier session. After the first day, I was allowed a long, luxurious bubble bath to soak my aching calves in and then the next day I was back on the treadmill in four-inch heels.

I never got to ask why I was learning this, there was no one in the room during my session and I was gagged anyway. They were monitored by video and I would receive a shock if the Trainer felt my technique was slipping (although looking back, I don’t recall seeing any cameras and it may just be that I was given random shocks to keep me focused on the task at hand).

Anyway, the relevance of all this to my job is that when the weather is nice, Miss Frida likes to take a stroll around the campus on a morning. This gives her a chance to be among the student body and engage with them a bit and it gets her creative juices flowing for the day ahead.

As ever, where Miss Frida goes, I follow. She has a lovely, rolling gait that just seems to eat up the distance and I will be trotting behind her, notebook in hand with my much more mincing stride. If you haven’t seen her, you may have heard ‘Come along Becca’ or ‘Don’t dawdle Becca’ which she uses with embarrassing frequency.

So, walking. Everybody has to do it to a greater or lesser degree. If you’re on campus, unless you’re a senior member of staff, the only power you have is your own two feet.

First video. Just watch it, no need to take notes, if you can see the model’s feet, see how she walks. If you can’t then focus on what effect her walk has on her body. You can also pick up some posing tips, but focus on the walk for now. Well done, Gold Stars 🌟 all round!

We’ll get to the technique shortly, but first of all, I want to stress MINDSET IS IMPORTANT. When you’re walking you should think that you’re traveling across the space and that how you reach your destination is as important as getting there.

Video 2 now girls, feel free to shift posture now but the video isn’t very long. This will show you the technique so pay close attention.

Key Points

To recap

Posture - steps - arms

Add these to your notebooks girls (maybe with a big yellow star around them). Now pens down and stand up.

Good, I see that most of you managed to do it correctly! I can be a little mean and try and catch you off guard but almost all of you managed to stand correctly and are now in the hesitation pose…

...and I see that mentioning it has caused the rest of you to adopt it. Now, hold still and watch the video again.

Three Gold Stars girls (🌟🌟🌟), one for watching the video the first time, one for the second and the other for standing still.

Practical work

Now that we have a grasp of the theory, let’s start working on it. As with sitting, we’ll break things down a little and practice them in stages.

To begin with, get a feel for the posture. Practice it until it feels comfortable, again a full-length mirror will be very useful here.

Next the actual walking. There are three things to work on here. The first is your stride size, you will almost certainly need to take smaller strides. Give it a try, just walk as you usually would but take smaller strides. If you find it hard to do, you can use tie some string around your ankles so you know when you’re striding too far (and this comes with the obvious caveat to be careful, there’s nothing graceful about falling due to your lack of attention).

Next work on placing your heels in a line when you walk. If an imaginary line is too hard or you want to make extra certain that you’re doing it right, place a long piece of string or tape on the floor and start walking up and down it. It’s ok to look down when you’re getting started to make sure you’re doing it correctly, but after a while try and keep your head up, if you’re having difficulties then just slow down a little (and your strides should be kept short as well).

Finally for the walking, practice the smooth rolling foot movement, heel to ball to toe and then push off the front toe to begin the next step.

Now start to put it together. Start at one end and walk to the other with good posture and correct stepping, then turn around and come back. Repeat until you start to get the hang of it and then add the arms and put it all together.

Excellent, I can see a lot of good effort being applied and you are definitely having some success. Another three stars 🌟🌟🌟 for all your hard work.

So take a break (...hesitation posture please girls, you were doing so well) as we watch another video. Don’t focus too much on the ‘before’ portion but the ‘after’ portion shows how you can really femme your walk up if the situation calls for it, so now go and give that a practice as well. This won’t be how you’ll walk most of the time but it’s a useful skill to have.

Heels

Ok girls, back to your seats, as promised let’s talk about heels. I’m not allowed out of heels when I’m working. Most of my day is spent in four-inch heels but these are switched every now and then for six-inch ones. Miss Frida has made it very clear that I should expect to be in six-inches full time in the near future (I think she was talking about shoes) and I believe after that she ultimately wants me in ballet boots.

The one bad point about heels for sissies is that they increase your height and can give you a more looming presence then you would like. The good points are myriad. First of all, you’re wearing heels! It’s up there with wearing a bra for sheer femininity. The sound you make as you walk in them, the way they throw your hips forward, the way you feel like an uncoordinated newborn giraffe at the start, the feeling of grace as you become proficient in them. The way that if you see a cute boy and you walk past him, you can ‘trip’ and fall onto him and blame your clumsiness (but I can’t give away all of my secrets 😉).

Now, this course isn’t an introduction to heels or anything like that, I wanted to cover them because I know a lot of students own heels and a course on deportment (even a short one) without mentioning them would be incomplete.

We won’t dwell on heels but this video will give you some tips on elegantly walking in them and, if you have heels, feel free to practice in them from now on if you’re not already. You will probably notice that walking in heels does femme your walk up quite a bit as well.

I’d also like to say a special thank you to the student who very kindly sent me a helpful link on wearing heels. You clearly have a lot of experience hun, have you thought of writing an article for the Academy Magazine?

Homework

Of course, you’re still listening to the file by Vive (Download here), but a reminder never hurts. As always, if you’re uncomfortable with hypnosis, listening is optional (to the hypnosis, listening to me is mandatory!).

For those of you with a negative number of stars or who haven’t been keeping track or simply lost count. Go back and read the other two letters and practice whichever techniques are lacking.

For this lesson practice, practice, practice. And when you’ve done that practice some more. You don’t even want it to feel natural, it should be a part of you and just how you walk.

Practice femmeing it up as well.

When you’re out and about, watch women walk. Watch them walk in flats and in heels. Watch them walk when they’re with people and when they’re on their own. Watch them walk when they are clearly in a rush to get somewhere and when they’re in no hurry.

If you’re watching a film or a tv show, watch how they walk there as well.

Now you may have noticed I like to sneak new information into the homework section and today is no different. Watch this video and practice the techniques therein as well.

Finally for today, try and use your more feminine walk out in the real world. Not the ultra-femme one (unless you really want to), just the basic one.

Feel free to take a bubble bath tonight, your legs will thank you for it! You’ve done a lot of good work today girls and you should be very proud. Now go and do your homework and have some fun, there’s one lesson left in the course and don’t worry, I couldn’t possibly be so mean as to spring a surprise exam on you or anything so there’s no need to read over your notes or practice anything to make sure you have a firm grasp on the subject matter 😉.