Paw,
I like your name. By the way, I forgot to say welcome to the forums![
]
Grounding is when you do certain things which bring your energy back down from your head, where it rises to with yoga practices. When there's too much energy in the head, you may tend to feel too "up in the clouds"...not really "down to earth". If that bothers you, then it's useful to ground. When you walk, the energy moves down to the feet. It's better if you're barefoot, like yourself, because there's more stimulation, which means more energy flowing down. It's great, as long as you don't step on glass.
I personally think that one half of yoga is grounding. A good yogi, in my personal opinion, stimulates the energy then puts it to good use (being active in life, social, physical, mental, emotional, etc). Makes it go up, then makes it go back down. I believe this because it's the same path that the circulatory system follows, towards the heart. I think energy is simply the "flow of life", which includes blood, lymph, neural activity, and awareness. The goal seems to be to make the body work more efficiently (have the flow of life not be scattered, as it is with non-yogis), while maintaining your effectiveness in life (not being a nutball).
So to sum it up: grounding is what you should do when you feel kind of loopy due to yoga.
Walking is also great for health. I personally think yoga and good health go hand in hand. Illness seems to be caused by either injuries or samskaras (stored karma...habitual tendencies...however you want to put it). Lets say you're feeling angry a lot of the time...this will cause your blood pressure to rise, your muscles to tense up, and your neck to jut forward (like an ape). Over time, this will cause problems...perhaps lower back pain from the odd structure of the spinal cord. I'm sure there would be more problems than just that. And people tend to think that illnesses are due to germs, the food we eat, lack of exercise....not true. It's mostly due to our mental state, and how that impacts our body.
I do a mobility program nearly everyday, called IntuFlow, which loosens up your connective tissues and works at taking away your pain. This might be useful for your sore rotator cuffs.
http://www.rmaxinternational.com/mambo/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=159&category_id=a3a25c6fd76c4fa77dbdf0d19185acdc&option=com_phpshop&Itemid=1Don't take my suggestions if you don't want..you seem to know what you're doing with the walking stick. If you ever find yourself needing to ground, remember my question about the left or right hand with the stick and let me know if you notice anything.