At this point I've pretty much totally abandoned my cane, except for extremely long walks or times when my legs are feeling ouchy. Which they do rather more frequently than I had expected, as re-training my leg muscles not to depend on a cane is proving to be ... interesting.
It's not just that my left leg, the one with the bum knee that I had been favoring, needs to strengthen up the muscles surronding that knee. All my leg muscles had gotten used to leaning on that cane, and are now having to readjust to having my center of gravity back in its normal alignment. Among other things, this means that walks require a lot more physical exertion than I'd been used to--all those muscles working in directions they had gotten out of the habit of experiencing.
I had already experienced the phenomenon of my balance shifting as I took off weight--every time I went dancing, I spent the first several minutes feeling like a spaz because my center of gravity wasn't where I was expecting it to be, causing me to almost lose my balance whenever I attempted to bust a move. Usually by the end of the evening I had compensated--only to go through the whole process again the next night out, when my weight distribution had changed once again. This is like that, only more so. Suddenly I'm calling on muscle control from my toes on up to keep me walking in a staight line without torquing a knee or twisting an ankle.
I also think some of my struggle is due to the fact that I need to replace my walking shoes. I have good quality New Balance shoes, but at this point they're two years old, and while they're still reasonably whole the heels have worn down just enough that I don't think they're holding my feet in the proper alignment any more, making my muscles work even harder. Dang--those things are expensive. But I've learned from hard experience that good walking shoes are one of those things it does not pay to cheap out on--you really get what you pay for, and bad shoes can really screw up delicate knees.
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