When somebody has “been there and done that”, it makes sense to pay attention to what they have to say.

And when it comes to the Combat Sports, nobody’s “been there and done that” more than my good friend James Lafond.

He’s been in 50 Boxing Bouts, over 600 stick fights, and more than 200 machete duels.

All while surviving the Ghetto of Baltimore and its denizens of the criminal element! 

So when he has something to say about the Combat Sports, I sit up and listen.

And one passage of his in particular caught my attention recently…

It caught my attention because it lined up with a lot of my own training experiments!

CATS ON THE PROWL  

The passage in question was on the role of the feet in combat sports.  

In Thriving in Bad Places: Studies in Awareness, Avoidance and Counter-Aggression, James Lafond notes that there are 3 kinds of walking with the feet that he has observed in the Combat Sports. 

These are: 

• “Prancing” or “High Walking”
• “Heel Walking” 
• “Cat Walking” 

He defines “Prancing” or “High Walking” as “the habit of pushing with the calves while walking.”[1]  

He defines “Heel Walking” as “the shoulders carried over the hips and a ‘rooted’ ground connection”.[2] 

And he defines “Cat Walking” as “a gait that carefully distributes weight without forethought, that is to say ‘a foot that feels the ground.’” [3]

He notes that the Cat Walker “is the guy that, when he steps on a nail, pulls his foot back before the nail runs into his foot, where the heel walker will get totally impaled and the high-stepper will have the nail half-way in his foot.”[4] 

These passages really got me thinking…

THE BIG QUESTION 

In 2024, the main thrust of my Physical Culture research and training has been built on one big idea: 

David Weck’s Head-Over-Foot, Coiling Core circular rotational movements. 

This focus was the mainstay of my research while working as a Personal Trainer at Stretchlab, and I described the conclusions of this experimentation in three articles:

• “ABCs or Hieroglyphics: Who’s Teaching You Movement Literacy in Combat Sports?” from September 27th, 2025

• “Apollo Slaying the Serpent: The Secret to Patterning the Fight, Flight, and Freeze Response for Combat Sports” from November 19th 2024

• “Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Tactical Training Secrets of the Strongman Revealed!” from January 9th, 2025

But after all of this, one big question remained:

If the Coiling Core training is Head-Over-Foot, how do you best train the foundation of the whole thing? 

How do you train the Foot that you put your Head over in the Combat Sports?

ONE FACT

With this question in mind, I made training feet my main physical mission for this year of 2025. 

And as I looked back over the years, I realized that I had been training my feet for a long time. 

Eight years in fact, since the Summer of 2017! 

And everything I’ve experimented with on up to today builds up to one fact:

James Lafond’s three different styles of walking are all true…and you can train them all with specific foot exercises.

And the truth is, just like James Lafond’s different styles of walking…some foot exercises are more equal than others…

HIGH WALKING: RUN AWAY 

I first discovered High Walking Training in the Summer of 2017 from a book I picked up at an estate sale entitled The Cool Impossible by Eric Orton.

He’s a running coach who trained the reporter Chrisopher McDowel to run a 50 mile race in Mexico with minimalist footwear…to race the native Indians who run either barefoot or in rubber flip flops! 

Training High Walking boils down to one thing: Calf Raises.

Eric Orton likes to do straight-legged ones isometrically on a slantboard. Ben Patrick of Knees Over Toes fame likes to do them dynamically in both straight-legged (“FHL”) and bent-knee (“KOT”) varieties. 

Hindu Squats, as taught by guys like Matt Furey and Tom Billinge, would count here too, as they involve balancing on the balls of the feet, just like in a Calf Raises. 

The reason High Walking training is popular with Runners is because it allows them to propel their feet forward from the ground.

Or as James Lafond noted when I discussed this with him on 12-09-2025: 

“Runners like this so they can run away because they can’t fight!” 

HEEL WALKING: SQUAT DOWN

I first discovered Heel Walking Training in October of 2019, when I met Ben Patrick of Knees Over Toes fame on Instagram. 

Ben Patrick had major knee problems that stifled his basketball performance with excruciating pain, until he began training with his knees over his toes…earning him his moniker “The Knees Over Toes Guy”. 

The key to Knees Over Toes Training is the same thing that Heel Walking Training boils down to: Tibialis Raises.

Ben Patrick made this exercise famous…essentially, you are dorsiflexing the ankle. 

If you do it straight-legged like Ben Patrick does, it stretches the gastrocnemius muscle of the calves. 

If you do it bent-kneed, as I’ve experimented with pretty extensively while working at Stretchlab, it stretches the soleus muscle of the calves. 

This exercise is likewise beloved amongst Olympic Weightlifters and Powerlifters alike, because it allows you to sink down into the ground into a squat.

It seems to me that shorter fighters would like this, like Mike Tyson and Jack Demsey alike, because they squat down to get up under the opponent. 

And as James Lafond noted when I discussed this with him on 12-09-2025: 

“A lot of power punching styles like this.” 

CAT WALKING: DISCOVERING THE HOLY GRAIL  

I finally discovered Cat Walking…the Holy Grail of Feet Training…on 07-02-2025.

I came across it in an Instagram post by an innovative trainer named Quinten Torres.

In the post, he literally explained how the feet mechanics of fighting are the same as the feet mechanics of predatory cats…and he even explained how to train it! 

Quinten Torres likes to train these Cat Walking mechanics with Towel Crunches, and he even explains how these Towel Crunches apply to different aspects of the Combat Sports. 

Since 07-02-2025, I’ve been painstakingly testing this out…and I’ve learned some interesting things.

THE STRANGE STRETCHLAB PHENOMENA

When I worked at Stretchlab as a Personal Trainer for a year and a half, I saw the same phenomena time and time again.

I would be stretching a person…and they would say they couldn’t feel the stretch.

I could see their tissue elongate with my eyes. I could feel their tissue elongate with my hands.

And yet still…they couldn’t feel it!

The reason?

They didn’t have much body awareness and subsequent neurological control, especially when it came to their feet and lower extremities.

And this had a big impact on balance, walking, and athletic performance. 

If I saw this phenomenon once, I saw it hundreds of times.

And once I identified it, I started noticing it in my own body!

REGRESSION & REFINEMENT  

I knew Quinten Torres had struck gold when I watched his initial post on 07-02-2025.

But when I went to try out the Towel Crunches, I could feel the same phenomena I so often observed in my clients and so often felt in myself.

I did not have the body awareness and neurological control built up to do it effectively. 

So through months of painstaking experimentation running through Thanksgiving 2025 and on up today, I came up with a regression and refinement to train Cat Walking. 

Just what is this regression and refinement, you ask?

THE KEY TO CAT-WALKING 

The regression and refinement is called Big Toe Plantar-Flexion. 

And it’s about as simple as it gets. 

To do Big Toe Plantar-Flexion, cross your leg across your other leg, in a chair or on the floor. You are now sitting in External Hip Rotation. 

Now from this position, take your big toe, and pull it down toward the sole of your foot. This is Plantar-Flexion. 

Pull your big toe down toward the sole of your foot repeatedly in sets of 100x reps, down though a full range of motion as far as you can. Don’t pull it up, just pull it down.

This contracts the Flexor Hallucis Longus Muscle, and stretches the Extensor Hallucis Longus Muscle

Do this, and you’ll build your inner arch so your feet and ankles won’t collapse. 

And while you do it, you’ll also be working External Hip Rotation, which as David Weck has noted, is the key to rotational movements and directional pivots in the Combat Sports. 

The bottom line? 

Big Toe Plantar-Flexions are the key to Cat Walking! 

FOR FURTHER ADVANCED FUN

Need further advanced fun after you’ve mastered Big Toe Plantar-Flexions? 

Cross your leg across your other leg, in a chair or on the floor. You are now sitting in External Hip Rotation. 

Now from this position, take your pinky toe, and pull it down toward the sole of your foot. This is Plantar-Flexion. 

Keep the pinky toe statically in this position of Plantar-Flexion. 

Now while it’s in Plantar-Flexion, pull your pinky toe over sideways and down to the inside of your foot. This is Inversion, aka Adduction.

Keep the pinky toe statically in this position of Plantar-Flexion and Inversion/Adduction.

Now  your big toe, and pull it down toward the sole of your foot. This is Plantar-Flexion of the big toe.

Now while it’s in Plantar-Flexion, pull your big toe over sideways and down to the inside of your foot. This is Inversion, aka Adduction of the big toe. 

Keep the big toe statically in this position of Plantar-Flexion and Inversion/Adduction.

At this point, both the big toe and the pinky toe should statically be in this position of Plantar-Flexion and Inversion/Adduction at the same time. You will feel Invert/Adduct the ankle. 

That’s what it’s supposed to do! 

The big toe and the pinky toe in this position act as “handles” for what you are about to do next. 

Now from this position, start to dynamically Dorsiflex the ankle, up and down, like in a Tibialis Raise. 

While you are dynamically Dorsiflexing the ankle, you are statically keeping your bit toe and pinky toe in Plantar-Flexion and Inversion/Adduction, using them as “handles” for the movement, to keeping the ankle Inverted/Adducted while it Dorsiflexes. 

It is important to maintain the “handles” of the movement in this position so you do not let the big toe and pinky toe Dorsiflex or Evert/Abduct. You do not want that! 

By doing this exercise the right way as described above, you will stretch out the Peroneus Longus, Peroneal Brevis, and Peroneal Tertius; as well as the Soleus Muscle of the Calf. 

This is all from the Inversion/Adduction and Dorsiflexion action changed together. 

At the same time, you are contracting the Flexor Hallucis Longus at the big toe and the Flexor Digitorum Longus at the pinky toe, the Abductor Hallucis on the inside of the foot attached to the big toe, and the Anterior Tibialis on on the front of the shin.

This is all from the Plantar-Flexion and Inversion/Adduction action changed together. 

You will even feel this movement stretching out the IT band on the outside leg above the knee going up to your hip, and you will also feel it stretching into the glutes in the hip, likewise stretching out the QL in the low back.

 Do it in sets of 100x reps, up  though a full range of motion as far as you can.

Give it a shot…it will feel great! 

And when you stand up and walk around, you’ll be shocked to find yourself walking like a Big Cat![5]

FOUNDATION OF ROCK  

 “…A wise man… built his house on the rock,” Jesus said in Matthew 7:24-25, ESV. 

“And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock…

“A foolish man…built his house on the sand,” Jesus contrasted in Matthew 7:26-27, ESV.

“And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Your feet are your foundation in the Combat Sports.

And not just in the Combat Sports…but in walking, running, throwing…heck in all of life!

Make sure you build your foundation on rock, and not on sand!

The rock to build them on is Cat-Walking, and the way to train it is with Big Toe Plantar-Flexions in its beginner and advanced variations. 

This is the foundation for more advanced Cat-Walking Training, like Towel Crunches. 

And with your foundation of Cat-Walking through Big Toe Plantar-Flexions, you can even add High Walking Training and Heel Walking Training on top of it, if you are so inclined!

But whatever you do, keep your foundation built on rock… 

In order to win the big victory in the Combat Sports…

With Big Toe Plantar-Flexions…the key to Cat-Walking!

Sincerely,

Richard Barrett

12-13-2025

Written at 6:02 AM, somewhere in the USA…

Sources Cited

Image 1. 

[1] Lafond, James. Thriving in Bad Places: Studies in Awareness, Avoidance and Counter-Aggression. Baltimore, MD: Punch Buggy Books, 2016. Pg. 61. 

[2] Ibid. Pg. 61. 

[3] Ibid. Pg. 61. 

[4] Ibid. Pgs. 61-62. 

[5] Note: This section entitled “For Further Advanced Fun” was added on 12-21-2025 at 11:30 AM, and 12-22-2025 at 3:21 PM, based off of further experimentation by the author. Enjoy!