Bare Foot II

The last few post were more philosophical. This week I wanted to revisit an older post encouraging barefoot walking. For many people this can be a difficult skill to relearn. So I thought I share an exercise that helped me on this along this path. 

In a previous blog I tried to my case for why we should walk barefoot. Now I want to explore some practical steps we can take to learn to walk unshod. Like most people, I grew up wearing shoes, sneakers, and boots. I never naturally walked on anything more challenging than beach sand, or some lawn. The first time I intentionally walked barefoot on gravel (a terrible place to start) I spent a good couple of hours laughing afterward because I was high on endorphins. Before I go further I will state I have not been trained to do this in any way. This is something I figured out through trial and error. I do feel most people should be able to walk naturally without shoes as we have evolved to do. That said rehabilitating our feet to move naturally may require more exact methods for some people. Modern footwear is a mild form of footbinding that prevents the 28 bones in our feet from articulating properly. So full caveat: We are all responsible for our health and safety. If you decide to relearn to walk naturally please be attuned to your body. Listen when it tells you through pain you are doing something you should not be.  Please don't injure yourself for health. 

The big breakthrough I had that allowed me to painlessly traverse terrain without shoes was psychological. I learned to separate the pressure nerves in my feet, from pain nerves which generally travel slower. Our feet are the furthest point from our central nervous system so it's the ideal place to start feeling the difference between these nerves. If we can learn this process in our feet then we can certainly continue to expand your awareness around our nervous system further and further up the spine. Once I learn to separate pain from pressure I realized that while I was flooded with much more sensation little of it was pain. Adjusting my body around objects that were causing me pain became more manageable.  

Once we become more attuned to our sensory neurons we need to gain greater control of our motor neurons One exercise I find helpful to wake up motor nerves in the feet is feet is to walk placing the ball of the foot down first. Place it precisely with intention in an exact spot of your choosing. Don’t drop it, make sure the other leg can support you without compromising your pose in the slightest. Pretend where you step is unstable. It’s good to expand your stance and challenge your balance, but do not compromise your control. Walking barefoot requires us to make last-minute foot placement changes as it’s easy to step in an unaccommodating spot.  When placing the foot down Try to have the heel as close to the ground without actually touching. This will allow the most efficient way we can transfer weight on this leg. Before we place the heel down we relax our toes and let then drop to the earth. If we are on a flat surface our big and small toe should hit the ground simultaneously. Our big toe has its own flexor and extensor muscles while our 4 smaller toes share am extensor muscles and flexor muscles. It is common for our toes to be working out of synch with each other. Perhaps one group of toes never fully extends or flexes. Practicing integrating these two toe muscles will help to align our skeletal. If we are on a natural surface with bumps we can either still try to let both toes drop at the same rate. This can allow us to cultivate our awareness around the shape of the ground under us allowing us to make subtle changes to the way we pace our weight. Conversely, if we can see the shape of the ground we are stepping on we can hone our motor nerves to place one side of the foot down faster as to allow a more fluid motion to the walk. Both are great practices for engaging our nervous system. 
As soon as our toes are grounded. We place the heel down with intentional. We want to ensure the foot is stable and then we transfer our weight to this leg to begin the process over again.