A man-taught man would have picked his way with many stumbles through the cheating moonlight, but Mowgli's muscles, trained by years of experience, bore him up as though he were a feather. When a rotten log or a hidden stone turned under his foot he saved himself, never checking his pace, without effort and without thought...
Here, again, a man-trained man would have sunk overhead in three strides, but Mowgli's feet had eyes in them, and they passed him from tussock to tussock and clump to quaking clump without asking help from the eyes in his head. He ran out to the middle of the swamp, disturbing the duck as he ran, and sat down on a moss-coated tree-trunk lapped in the black water.
Sadly I'm nowhere near that level but none-the-less I like the way I can pick my way across this sort of ground without looking at my feet - generally my gaze is fixed on the ground somewhere between about one and five metres ahead, depending on my speed and the severity of the terrain, and somehow my feet land in the right place - usually. It is of course in my body's interest - the penalty for getting it wrong is a bloody toe that will take a week or so to heal. I can assure any would-be barefoot runners that, as one's feet harden, stubbed toes, cracks and splinters become less and less common. But they don't go away!
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