I’ve been doing a fair bit of walking in my lunchtimes of late and it’s made me think about my stride and how my foot lands. I’ve been walking around almost exclusively in Bareshoes for the past nine months now. To start with the motivation was to aid my bareshoe running. The thought behind this being that I’d naturally be extending out my calves and achilles during the day, rather than this only happening during running, or some stretching before hand. However over that time I’ve really gotten to appreciate how nice it is to walk around barefoot, or close to it.
It’s funny how people just can’t get their head around leaving the comfort zone of shoes to experience the pleasure of walking as nature intended. The first thoughts are what about stones, glass, needles and other obstacles on the pavement. The second thought is that it would tire there feet out without the support provided by cushioned shoes. At no point does it occur to the uninitiated that even wearing shoes they do actively walk around such obstacles. Ask yourself, when was the last time you walked through broken glass on the pavement? You avoid this whatever is on your feet. Why should it be any different when you’re barefoot or in bareshoes? It isn’t. Secondly if tired feet from no shoe support is your worry, ask yourself if your feet at the end of the day, having worn shoes, are tired or not? Why does it feel so good to get your shoes off? Do your feet feel better to have taken your shoes off? Why is this?
Although there was a bit of time required for my feet to get used to walking around in bareshoes, it didn’t take long. Plus the feeling of being able to sense the texture of the surface I was walking on was really nice. It’s hard to explain that bit, you really need to experience if for yourself. I think a lot of people trying this would probably give up too soon. We live in a world where everyone expects instant gratification and as you need to learn to adapt your stride to walk successfully in these shoes, most wouldn’t give it long enough to reap the benefits. It’s not difficult though, you just need to stop stomping your feet down without regard to how you’re doing it. Shoes allow you to not pay any attention to how you’re doing this and to have an overextended stride, placing too much shock on your heels.
Wearing bareshoes you gradually start to place your feet with a slightly flatter foot. You still land on your heels, but the rest of the foot is then also used to dampen the impact, which you didn’t do before wearing stiff soled shoes. The irony of cushioning under your heels is that this actually makes you slam your heels down harder. The theory here being that your feet are trying to obtain stability to support your weight, and therefore if soft conditions are felt underfoot, more weight will be brought down to push through the softness underfoot to find the firmer ground beneath. Obviously wearing shoes confuses this evolutionary trait and you end up being heavier footed all the time. It’s this learned behaviour to clomp your feet down that you need to unlearn to be successful and really enjoy walking in bareshoes. But the human body is amazing and with a little time and a little perseverance you soon learn how to do this and the feeling really is amazing. I love to walk now and my feet never get tired. What’s also amazing is that my feet don’t yearn all day to be released from shoes, which is what we all learn to ignore and only notice at the end of the day when we have that release when we take our shoes off. My feet feel that good all day long now that I’m not binding them in a straight jacket all day, which is effectively what wearing traditional shoes is doing to your feet.
So yes, you do walk wrong, but you can’t do anything else wearing shoes.