I discovered his problem when I tried traversing the maze that is our basement with the lights off (not personally my fault--someone turned them off on me, with malicious intent). When you're afraid of bumping into things, and even more afraid of tripping over skates and toy cars and scooters and whatnot that the kids blithely leave around, of COURSE you're going to walk with arms stiffly outstretched and take those large (but unsure) steps, relying on the well-known fact that if something IS there to be bumped into, it's better to do the bumping with your hands than with your face. Also that the larger steps you take, the more ground you cover, and thus the less chance you have of coming down on a foreign object.
Moral: never walk around in the dark, even if your face doesn't match your hair (and if I ever find out who it was that turned the lights off on me, I'm going to teach them this lesson personally.)