Touchy feely

Rico says he's constantly touching his surroundings (no, not the women) to improve his sense of balance though increasing his index of deflection (can't find a good on-line definition, sorry, but it's the spatial sense of relation to the rest of the world; the only appropriate usage is in a column by Mel Tappan, now edited by his wife Nancy, on gunhandling: "Insist that the overall contour of the stocks be flat enough on the sides so that you will have a good index of deflection."). So if he seems to be groping his way through the world, that's why...