Snow and ice mean slips and falls, walk safely this winter by modeling the penguin Published Nov. 23, 2011 72nd Air Base Wing Safety Office TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- Learn to walk with care on snow and ice. Tinker AFB promotes the "Walk Like a Penguin" campaign to ensure that all personnel are aware of the safest way to walk on snow and ice when needed. · Balance yourself with your arms by holding them out slightly to your sides. · Keep your hands out of your pockets and distribute the weight of packages/bags evenly to give you better balance. · Take short shuffling steps, bend slightly, and keep knees loose. · Walk as flat footed as possible. After you have the technique down, remember that other factors will also affect your ability to remain upright when walking on slippery surfaces: · Overly heavy loads affect your sense of balance even when distributed evenly. · Smooth soled shoes or high heels provide less surface area to ground and less traction. · Running or taking overly long strides affect both traction and the location of your center of gravity, affecting your ability to maintain your balance. Various devices can be placed over your shoes to provide better traction when walking on ice. Some of these devices have coiled wires that stretch across the bottom surfaces of the shoe, making walking on ice a little less tricky. Remember, though, even with this assist, how you walk remains key. If, even with proper walking techniques, you find yourself falling backward, make an effort to tuck your chin so that you do not hit your head, and try to relax your muscles. Tension in the body ensures that one hard surface -- your body -- hits a second hard surface -- the ground -- with more force than necessary, increasing the chance of injury.