Walking the board!

I have had the longboard out a fair bit lately due to a lack of swell mainly. As I mentioned in a previous post, I believe that my matting experience has quite markedly resulted in an improvement in my stand up board riding skills. For example, just in the last couple of sessions, I have pulled off some cranking bottom turns that I cannot remember having been able to complete so readily before and damn I am nailing the take off staying in the top of the wave, with plenty of time to leap gracefully (Ahem) to my feet more than I used to also.
Anyway, brimming with confidence, I have now started work on learning to properly cross step up and down the board rather than shuffling in my usual ungainly fashion. Ummm and  it is not as easy as it looks. When I first tried it I just attempted to walk up the board as one normally does and it was straight off the side I tumbled. Then I realised that I had to maintain the angle of my feet, in particular, the starting foot, being the right as I stand normally. I have a long way to go, particularly in actually remembering to do it, but I am encouraged by my progress so far.