We report on an investigation into the low energy dynamics of walking gauge theory. Taking $SU(3)$ Yang Mills with eight flavors of fundamental fermions as an example, we discuss the light flavor singlet scalar appearing in the spectrum and its implications for low energy physics. We compute the maximal isospin $\pi\pi$ scattering length at the lightest quark masses yet investigated for the eight flavor theory. The validity of chiral perturbation theory is assessed, and we discuss motivations for a more extensive effective field theory analysis to be carried out in future work.