It's Best to Be Grounded

After weighing a number of factors, I've decided to put new posts to this blog on hold indefinitely. It's been a pleasure sharing my thoughts and experiences with you the past couple of years, but the blog's traffic simply does not encourage me to focus much on the posts I want to write and other life obligations must also take a higher priority. I've decided to focus my time on my family and further developing The Primalfoot Alliance and its programs into 2012.

Thank you for visiting Barefoot and Grounded! Below I've listed what I believe are the "highlights" of my posts the last few years. I hope that you may find good information and encouragement from them and will further your barefoot journey:

Commentary

• Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Barefootedness - You have a natural biological freedom to live without shoes. Fight for it!
• Exposing Another Healthy Taboo - What other natural and beneficial activity has seen unnecessary scrutiny - but unlike bare feet is protect by law in most places?
• A Backwards Look at Liability - Who should be liable for injury to our feet: Those who encourage barefoot living or those who make shoes that damage our feet?
• Bare Feet v. 'Barefoot' Shoes: The BIG Difference - It's all about sensation. You feel me?
• When It Comes to Shoes, More Is Less - How much shoe is too much shoe?
• If the Tables Were Turned: Hypothetical Reactions to the New 'Fad' of Shoes - What if we lived in a barefoot world and people started promoting the shod lifestyle?
• 18 Questions to Ask Yourself if You Are Opposed to People Going Barefoot - Really think about the positives and negatives.

Interviews

• An Interview with a Podiatrist and 'Barefoot Advocate,' Dr. Steve Bloor - He turned his practice upside down after realizing the truth about feet and shoes.
• Reflections on a "Barefoot Book" Tour: An Interview with Author Daniel Howell - Dr. Howell shares some interesting stories about acceptance and total rejection of his bare feet.

My Research

• Most Facebook Users Would Go Barefoot in Public: Poll - A statistically significant survey with some surprising numbers.
• Driving Barefoot May Noticeably Improve Gas Mileage - A short study comparing shod v. barefoot driving.

Stories

• 158 Hours Barefoot, Part I and Part II - For a week in 2010 I never wore shoes including at the store, a hospital and street festival.

Injuries While Barefoot: The Elephant in the Room

Okay, everybody. Bring it back in for a minute. We need to talk candidly about something.

"Don't worry. Going barefoot is
VERY safe. I'm not going to
get hurt. Really."

For as much as many others and I promote the barefoot lifestyle and talk about how low-risk it is, a very real possibility is that we will actually get hurt because we're not wearing protective shoes. We can even get hurt wearing minimalist footwear when something might have protected us better. The general public believes that catastrophic injuries to bare feet are waiting in every aisle of every store and under every table of every restaurant. We know that's not true, but injury risks still exist. It sucks.

My intent is not to turn anyone off to the barefoot lifestyle. I think it's so beneficial and that most people can live better through it. But just as "stuff" happens to our heads in car crashes, our hands when working with power tools or any other countless scenarios, "stuff" can happen while we're barefoot that, unfortunately, is really, um, "stuffy."

Why am I bringing this up? "You shouldn't be talking about this!," you may say. And that's exactly the reason I am.

We can't be ashamed, as barefooters, that we might get hurt doing the very thing we promote to others. Just as with ANY injury to ANY part of our bodies, we must do the best we can to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off and move on after a foot injury. We must also support those who've gone through such a thing by encouraging them to not shy away from what's best, overall, for their feet.

I had an extensive conversation on Twitter the other day with a woman by the handle of @QuotidianLight. We'll call her Q for the remainder of this post since I don't know her real name. Q shared with me about how she hurt her foot two years ago after falling off her chair at work and slamming her foot into her metal desk. It was just a freak accident, but she ended up with a neuroma that's been tough to get healed and still gives her pain today - so much, in fact, that she can't go barefoot. She was wearing Vibram Fivefingers at the time, but told me, "If I'd been wearing shoes at work that morning... I'd have ran THIS morning."

The main point she wanted to impress on me was that she felt isolated and alone because she believes barefooters never talk about injuries and just hold in guilt when we get injured.

She's right. It makes sense to keep that information to ourselves so that we don't have shoe promoters feeling validated in their assertion that going barefoot is dangerous. But it also doesn't help when barefooters never address the proverbial elephant in the room.

"It annoys me that people think NO ONE get's hurt barefooting and if you do it's your fault so people don't speak up," Q said. She continued later, "I just wish more people would be open about their injuries. *shrugs*"

I pledged to her that I'd write this post.

Getting a stress fracture while
running in Vibram Fivefingers
turned my barefoot world upside down
in January 2010.

She thanked me and concluded with, "I hate when people get hurt and give up barefoot entirely cause they feel out of options/support."

I've heard it numerous times. Someone loves going barefoot until they get hurt - whether it's a broken toe, bee sting, cut or something else. After that, they get nervous it'll happen again and they hardly go barefoot for the rest of their lives. I know of at least two people in my immediate family who feel this way. It's very real, and these folks need encouragement to go barefoot again.

So there's three points I'd like to make here:

First, we shouldn't ignore the fact that we can - and probably will - get hurt from going barefoot, but we also shouldn't feel ashamed if we do. Understand that your feet ARE more vulnerable when going without shoes or even just minimalist footwear. Resign yourself to the fact that freak things happen sometimes. No matter how an injury to your foot occurs, don't beat yourself up and don't feel guilty or embarrassed about what happened. Just as importantly, let the criticism of shod people roll off your back when they pitch I-told-you-sos in your direction.

Second, don't give up going barefoot because you do get hurt. Obviously, take care of yourself and do what you have to do to get better. Get medical attention to treat and resolve the problem. That may mean a hiatus from going barefoot, but most injuries can and will heal completely. After that's taken care of, remember that you can still confidently go without shoes again. Though risks still exist, the benefits from living barefoot outweigh the risks. Move on a little wiser for the experience. Seek out the support and advice those of us who also go barefoot so that we can encourage you.

Third and finally, support other barefooters who get hurt. Friends, if we find out that one of us has been injured from going barefoot, let's kill them with kindness and not criticism. We need to be wary of pointing fingers and assigning blame when none needs to be assigned or doing so wouldn't help anyway. We want barefooters to stay barefooters, and the only way to do that is to be friendly and understanding with one another.

In closing, both of my brothers used to ride motorcycles on a regular basis. They always had a mantra about the likelihood of having an accident. They'd tell me, "It's not a matter of if you're going to wreck, it's matter of WHEN you're going to wreck." Yet even when they did wreck, they'd fix the bike, heal their bodies and get right back on. Injuries, minor or major, are all but inevitable when going barefoot. It's the mindset we have that determines what we take away from it. In anything we do, we only fail if we give up. Will we let foot injuries isolate us and make us quit, or make us stronger and wiser when we keep going?

Thanks, Q, for your story and inspiring me to write this.

So, community, let's talk about injuries. Do you share Q's opinions? Should the barefoot community be more open and honest about injuries or keep them in the closet? How do we respond to the I-told-you-so remarks from our naysayers? Please leave your comments in the section below.

Bring on the Toe Shoes!

First there was Vibram Fivefingers. Then there was Fila Skeletoes. Now, the second-largest athletic shoe company in the world has announced that they are releasing their own version of toe shoes: The Adidas Adipure Trainers.

The Adidas Adipure Trainer (men's)

In response, the folks at MyFiveFingers.com asked via Twitter, "So what does everyone think of the just announced Adidas 'copycat' version of FiveFingers?" They posted a page on their site about the Adipure Trainers saying, "Another FiveFingers (sic) knockoff. Oh great."

Actually, yeah. It IS great!

The Vibram Fivefingers Jaya

Listen folks, just because Vibram was the first to develop shoes with separate toe pockets doesn't mean they are or will be the end-all, be-all toe shoe manufacturer. Heck, my response to all this is is, "What took everybody so long?!"

How long have we had gloves with individual finger pockets for our hands? Did the second company that made gloves with finger pockets get called a "copycat" or "knockoff?" I don't know, but you don't hear The North Face or any other glove manufacturer getting called those names today.

It makes sense for shoes to have individual toe pockets. It's how our feet are built, after all. That way of making shoes really should be the rule more than the exception.

I think it's great that more shoe manufacturers are coming out with toe shoes because it drives innovation, competition, and public acceptance. That's only good news for people who like to wear minimalist shoes AND it's only good news for the barefoot movement.

The Fila Skeletoes

I'd like to see someone make a better toe shoe than Vibram, because then that would push Vibram to make Fivefingers even better than they already are. I hope the Adipure Trainers are better than Skeletoes, because then maybe Fila will improve their abysmal product.

The competition between manufacturers will naturally force DOWN the prices of these shoes and make them more accessible for the general public.

If a bunch of shoe companies release their own brand of toe shoes, more and more of the public will see minimalist toe shoes and, I believe, see them as a good and acceptable thing. "Heck," they'll think, "if all these companies are making toe shoes then they must know something I don't know." Minimalist, foot-conforming footwear could become -- gasp! -- commonplace?

Maybe, just maybe, people will then take the next step and realize that they can just take off their toe shoes and bare their actual toes by living barefoot. It could happen - and ultimately, I hope it does.

Like I said in the subject line: Bring on the toe shoes! The more, the merrier!

A Backwards Look at Liability

I've been told on several occasions to be careful how I promote barefoot activity. The concerned persons say I might end up liable if people end up hurting themselves. This is a completely backwards and thoroughly confusing concept to me.

How is it that our society's collective thinking has gotten so twisted that we now believe that I could be liable if people use their feet as nature intended and that shoe companies are free from liability for weakness, stiffness, skin conditions and other ailments that are caused or exacerbated by their products? Do you see how topsy turvy that thinking is?

I wonder how many billions of dollars have been spent in the U.S. in the last half century to pay for the various treatments of ailments caused - or at least exacerbated - by shoes including...

• Arthritis
• Plantar fasciitis
• Fallen arches
• Bunions
• Hammertoes
• Morton's Neuroma
• Corns
• Callouses
• Dry/cracked skin
• Toenail fungus
• Athlete's foot
• Hangnails
• Ingrown toenails
• Stress fractures
• Fractures
• Sprains
• And more!

I assert that a great number of these ailments would have never occurred if people had gone barefoot more. Would injuries have happened to barefoot persons? Sure, but I'd bet it'd be far fewer than many would like to believe and that the overall costs of treating such problems would have been less.

If I would be liable for someone who goes barefoot getting injured, why aren't the shoe manufacturers liable for all the ailments listed above that their products may have caused for their customers?

It would be interesting to see how a class-action lawsuit against shoe companies would play out. Would it be thrown out by a judge? Would the plaintiffs successfully plead their case that shoe companies sold their products knowing full well that they could cause these ailments in customers without warning them of such dangers? Would the defense actually try to convince the court that shoes don't cause any of these ailments or that shoe wearers should have known the risks involved?

This feels a lot like the lawsuits that were successfully brought against the cigarette industry years ago. These huge companies spent loads of money in reparations after they'd been found guilty of duping and damaging the American public to make a buck. Warning labels were required on EVERY pack of cigarettes thereafter. The shoes available for sale and use today are just as bad for the feet as cigarettes are for the lungs, but many people don't know it.

Daniel Howell, PhD, author of The Barefoot Book and a professor of biology, believes that sellers of high heeled shoes should put warning labels on them. I agree. How many women would stop wearing heels if they knew that 20,000 women go to the hospital each year due to heel-related injuries? How many women would stop wearing heels if they knew they were far more likely to develop bunions, hammertoes, Morton's Neuroma, corns and other ailments because of them? Are the high heel manufacturers telling their customers this vital information? NO, but they should be.

If someone wants to sell us footwear or cigarettes, we should go into the purchase knowing what risks are ahead of us. Most importantly, if we want to opt out of using such products, we have every right do so and should not be forced by anyone to use products that will likely cause us some harm.

Worth noting is that no one had to convince anyone else that breathing without smoke in your lungs is a good, natural thing. That said, why does society put the burden of proof on barefooters that going barefoot is good, natural and acceptable behavior? As I've stated on this blog before, barefoot is the baseline. It is the natural condition for our feet, just as breathing non-smoky air is for our lungs. Sure, there are risks involved, but we understand that as part of our human nature. That said, I can't tell you how many barefooters have been told to put on shoes for their "safety."

Imagine if a restaurant manager changed the way you dine for your "safety.":

"Good evening, sir. I see you ordered the steak. Because of that I'm going to have to ask you to wear these protective gloves while you use your steak knife to cut the food. We don't want you cutting yourself. Alisha here will also be making sure that you've chewed each bite thoroughly and that you're not speaking before you swallow each bite. We don't want you choking, after all. Just looking out for your safety!"

When we use a steak knife with bare hands, we know we must be careful lest we get cut. When we eat steak we know we must be careful not to choke. Likewise, when we go barefoot we understand we must be careful not to step on something dangerous or stub our toes. We don't need someone coddling us and protecting us from things we already know and understand! What we DO need is more public education on the harm that shoes are actually doing to our feet.

What do you think? Should shoe manufacturers be held liable for selling the public on products that exacerbate foot ailments? Should shoes come with warning labels? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below.