Walking on the moon

Are you over 40? If so, you probably remember where you were when the Apollo 11 astronauts took the first moonwalk. We watched it at a friend's house, and I was simply blown away. For months afterwards, we kids would slow our normal gallop down to play "walking on the moon": Wearing moon suits we had made out of white plastic bags, we would climb on to the family sofa to bounce on the cushions, leaping in slow motion, trying to defy gravity the way Armstrong and Aldrin had. Sure, we tripped and fell. Sure, we looked ridiculous. But so did the cast of Star Trek. Walking on the moon was just the first step, and being in outer space was our fantasy.

Later on, as a teenager in love, I found that nobody expressed the feeling better than The Police did in "Walking on the Moon" in 1979.

"Giant steps are what you take,
Walking on the moon.
I hope my legs don't break,
Walking on the moon.
Feet, they hardly touch the ground,
Walking on the moon.
Feet don't hardly make no sound,
Walking on, walking on the moon."

Their official video featured original film footage of Armstrong and Aldrin taking that first hike across the untouched surface of the moon. During the moonwalk, Armstrong gave a running commentary on how easy it was to lose your footing in zero gravity: "You do have to be rather careful to keep track of where your center of mass is. I find it takes about two or three paces to make sure that you've got your feet underneath you."

So, just for the record, Michael Jackson was not the first to "moonwalk". We were all doing it. But he was inspired enough to associate the memory of those clumsy, funny-looking movements with the "backslide", a graceful dance technique that creates the illusion of being pulled backwards while walking in place. Defying gravity had never looked so good. This week, we look at the vocabulary of human locomotion on any surface, from the dancefloor and the mountains on up to the moon. Come on, moonwalkers! See if you can find your feet in the exercise on the next page.

Anne Hodgson