mix,
I got news for ya....nothing will ever feel as natural as one's natural gait. Too many thousands of years of natural selection for that. Note also: mudstepping is an exercise, not a goal. Much like other material in Baguazhang, there is built-in "overlearning", whereby we as practitioners work like demons toward Platonic goals of perfection in structure, force generation, balance, relaxation, etc. This is intelligent for those that already also know how to fight, since in a real situation, Murphy always shows up and takes his cut off the top, leaving you with less of everything than you normally have in training. The more ridiculously close to perfection you practice with in training, the more you will be left with post-Murphy in a real encounter.
Mudstepping is an example of how to step with whole-body congruence. That's all. It does a fine job of it, but that's really all it's supposed to do. You're not ever meant to move that way in your everyday mundane life. Even if you got to where you mudstepped everywhere you go, you'd look like a total dork and create social ostracision for yourself, not to mention increasing your safety risk on stairways and on uneven terrain. Further, you would look anything
but natural in a real encounter, most likely either tipping off your attacker that you believe you have some kind of training, or appearing to have a significant handicap and further inviting predatory behavior upon yourself as a result.
Straight up: realize what the exercise is for, and work it like hell in practice, but save it for the training hall where it belongs, man.
