Race walking looks funny, but works

by Ralph Chatoian
Independent Journal reporter

Jack Bray doesn't mind if someone laughs as he struts by in his race-walking gait.  He just smiles back. 

Bray, a gerontologist at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco and a Greenbrae resident, teaches race walking classes at the College of Marin and also offers semi-private and private lessons for the beginner.

The 59-year-old certainly has the qualifications for teaching his sport.  He's ranked No. 1 in the world among race walkers in his age group (55-59).

While some people giggle when race walkers strut by, arms pumping and hips wiggling, Bray, who used to be a runner, says it's the only way to go.

"I was always an exceptional runner," said Bray, "but I used to wake up in the morning with lower back pains and sore knees.  I could hardly get out of bed.  I knew there must be an alternative."

That was just four years ago.  In the short time since, Bray has developed into an expert race walker.  And part of it involves ancient Chinese healing arts.  Bray is a student and  teacher of chi Kung, a Taoist healing art which, he says, "moves vital energy through the organs, systems and tissues of the entire body.  It makes you more energized with more vitality."

In his younger days, Bray was quite a basketball player and received a scholarship offer from John Wooden at UCLA but was drafted into the Navy before he had a chance to become a Bruin.

Danced with Ginger

After his time in the armed service Bray received another scholarship offer, but this time it was to the American School of Dance.  He became a professional dancer in the 1960s and appeared with Betty Grable, Ginger Rogers and Lisa Kirk and was in more than 20 Broadway shows, including "My Fair Lady" and "West Side Story," the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre.

When he started his race walking career, Bray obtained some videos of some of the best race walkers in the world and studied them.  Among those was Marco Evoniuk of San Francisco who is in Barcelona as a member of the U.S. race walking team.  Both Evoniuk and Bray are coached by Frank Alongi of Dearborn, Mich., who comes west each year to head a race-walking workshop for Bray at College of Marin.

Bray teaches to all ages, his students ranging in age from 8-year-old Jared Stoots of Tiburon to 92-year-old Daudee Douglas of San Francisco.

"I teach race walking to all people," said Bray,  "You start when you are young and carry it through your life.  I have families taking the classes, and mothers who will teach their children."

Bray likes to call race walking "the dance of life," and teaches his students to walk with "a smile on their face," said Bray.  "That's part of the Taoist practice.  The inner smile. You smile from your eyes to your lips, down to your heart, to you liver, and to your kidneys.  It move the energy through the body."

Rules to walk by

There are rules in race walking, and in competition a person can be disqualified for not following them.  The walker must have one foot on the ground at all times, and the 'passing leg' must be straight at the knee.  It is the improvement of this technique that increases the speed.  And it is this technique, which requires the hips to move to and fro, that give the walk its peculiar look.

"It is the challenge of maintaining a legal technique as well as the drive to improve one's speed," said Bray.  "It makes it a sport of the mind as well as the body."

Many of Bray's students take the classes for the sport's aerobic benefits rather that to develop themselves for competition.

"Fitness writer John Poppy refers to race walking as the Rolls Royce of aerobics, burning more fuel, or calories, than running at a comparable speed for the same length of time." Said Bray.

"It is a superb sport of the over 60 crowd, helping participants maintain a good range of motion in the shoulders and hips.  A special benefit to senior women is the gentle impact on hip and shoulders which signals the body to restore calcium to those joints and help prevent osteoporosis."

Bray said race walking is wonderful for the heart and lungs and it builds strength and endurance without adding bulk.  "Because you glide instead of bounce, there is no stress to the knees, kidneys or lower back."

And, he said, it is good for women of all ages.  "It is the only sport that we know of that diminishes cellulite in the thighs and hips." 

A great exercise

Bray, a board member of the Marin County Heart Association, points out that the sport also is good as a cardiovascular exercise. 

"It is an excellent way to get the heart rate up," said Dr. Mark P Wexman, past president of the Marin chapter of the American Heart Association and cardiologist at Marin General Hospital.  "It is especially good for older people and offers exercise without the orthopedic trauma on joints and muscles and bones that jogging causes."

Wexman, who is also an assistant professor of clinical medicine at University of California San Francisco, said, "I appreciate what Jack has done.  He is an inspiration and a model of practicing what he preaches."

The lean Bray who appears much younger than a man approaching his sixth decade, stands 6-foot- 2 ½  and his normal weight is 162 pounds.  Because of extensive training in preparation for a national meet, his weight is down to 155.

The meet he's training for is the TAC National Masters Track and Field Championship in Spokane Wash. Aug. 13-16.  He will be competing in the 5-kilometer (3.1 miles) and 20-kilometer (12.4 miles) events in a meet that is expected to attract more than 1,000 athletes.  And around the corneris the World Veteran Games in November 1993 in Miyazaki, Japan, where Bray will be competing along with 8,000 seniors around the world.

Pace is rapid

The pace for expert race walker is very rapid, with some Europeans being clocked in five-minute miles.  Olympians can cover 50 kilometers (31 miles) in 3 ½ hours and the world record in the 20-kilometer (12.4 miles) race is 1 hour and 18 minutes.

Bray said race walking dates back to the end of the 18th century in England.  According to his research on the subject, thirsty English gentlemen who were gathered at a race or other outing would send their coachmen on foot to fetch a jug of ale from the nearest tavern, perhaps a mile or two away.  They would then lay bets on whose coachman would return first.  Of course the men could not run, for fear of spilling the ale, and so they developed the curious strutting gait which has progressed to modern-day race walking.

Bray's early teacher in race walking was Bill Ranney, San Rafael High School teacher and coach who died unexpectedly in 1986 after exercising on a rowing machine.  He was 51.

"He was my mentor," Bray said about Ranney, who was headed for the 1980 Olympics before the United States pulled out.  "He told me I would be doing 7 minute miles sometime down the road, and now I am.  I miss him very much."