The worst enemy of high heels is Munich’s cobblestones. It turns out to be particularly treacherous at Odeonsplatz, for example, as every woman who has ruined her heels there knows. Well, it would have been better to ask Edeltraud Breitenberger, who has a tip on how to manage these nasty meters without an accident: you have to put 90 percent of your weight on the ball of your foot, she explains. The forefoot has more power and doesn’t sink in as easily. Ideally, you should move your hips to do this. “To make it look dynamic.”
“Dynamic” is a word that Breitenberger likes to use. After all, it has been her job for 13 years to teach the women of Munich a gait that is dynamic. Because that looks feminine. And confident. Now the trained body therapist has bundled her experiences from the workshops and individual training sessions in a book. It was self-published and is called “Your strong performance. Walk elegantly, confidently and healthily from sneakers to high heels”. The matter turns out to be more complex than expected, because walking with your legs apart is not the only problem: there are also people who stiffen like a ruler. Or those that fold the upper body forward when walking. On the other hand, if you constantly pull in your chest, you risk a rounded back. That doesn’t look nice. And it can cause pain too.
Breitenberger’s interest in walking arose when her father developed Parkinson’s disease and she wanted to help him understand the motor processes that take place in the body when one step in front of the other. “I’m not a high-heel chick,” she says. It’s about strengthening women’s self-confidence and turning off the inner critic. Anyone who visits Breitenberger in her attic apartment in Haidhausen can walk across a long carpet. Result of the analysis: The so-called widow’s hump is not yet in sight. But you have to make an effort to keep your posture upright, she says and imitates a thread with your hands in the air, which should mentally pull you straight.
Breitenberger, tailor-made sheath dress, well-coiffed page boy, is 65 years old. The Argentine tango, which she has danced for decades, lives in her movements. She jetted around the world as a flight attendant, while also training as a body therapist using the method of the American physician Milton Trager. She also worked as a strength trainer at Kieser for three years before she retired. The idea for her first seminar, which she held at the Munich adult education center (MVHS) in 2009, came to her when she saw a bride in a hotel in Jamaica: dream dress, horrible walk. At that moment, Breitenberger knew she had something to share with the world.
If you’re not trying to save yourself over the cobblestones, one of her pieces of advice is that your heels should click on the ground. “High heels have to have a sound.” She ties an apron with a skeleton printed on it so that the layperson can better imagine why it is crucial for a corresponding dynamic to move the thoracic vertebrae “oppositely” when walking. “The intervertebral disc is offended when I don’t use it.” Then she starts running, legs straight, upper body erect, and while the skeleton on the apron rocks to the rhythm of her steps, it dawns on you that walking is more than a mode of locomotion. It’s an attitude that conveys confidence and femininity.
In the book, the reader will find clearly illustrated tips for carrying handbags that are easy on the back, walking upstairs in high heels or exercises with which to stabilize the ankle cuffs (clamp the tennis ball in between!). The muscles want to be challenged, so it is not good to constantly wear health slippers. It is better to switch regularly between sneakers and ankle boots, pumps and sandals. Especially since: “If you master the technique of walking in high heels, you can also walk elegantly on flat soles.” Pretty clever sentence. After all, the sneaker trend has been spreading in Munich, where people used to stagger so devotedly, for several years now.
Edeltraud Breitenberger warns that high heels should not be bought too large.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
The gait trainer feels the red suede of a high heel and rocks it tenderly in her hand: Large feet can generally cope with higher heels than small ones, but ten centimeters is the greatest feeling for every foot size. A shoe shouldn’t be too pointed at the front, and please don’t buy it too big, otherwise you’ll unconsciously hold it with your hips while walking. Her youngest customer is 16, her oldest 84 years old. She uses it to practice safe walking so that she doesn’t break the neck of her femur. Incidentally, in the past, Breitenberger also taught men. However, this target group requires too much acquisition. The title of the workshop sounded promising: “Walking like Richard Gere”.