No. 4483Anonymous 8th April 2018 Sunday 11:30 am4483Going barefoot - Some thoughts from an armchair anthropologist
This thread isn't meant to be an argument for or against barefoot running or walking, or whatever associated footwear is best.There are already a million and one youtuibe videos, forums posts, blogs etc. all covering the exact same arguments.
I made this thread because of a shower thought I had that I wanted to write down somewhere.
So the preamble; giving people padded heels generally fucks up their posture. You can slouch, your bum sticks out, your shoulders hunch up, you walk by swinging your legs and your head bobs up and down. It's awful and if you start walking like that it takes a lot of effort to retrain yourself to walk upright with a good posture.
When you walk or run barefoot, (or in minimalist shoes which meet all the criteria, and very few truly do), it's nearly impossible to walk with bad posture (at least for any significant distance). You have to forefoot strike, which forces you to walk upright, shoulders back, and you have to use your whole body which means moving your hips and core muscles.
So then, people ask if barefoot is so amazing, why did people ever start to wear modern-style shoes to begin with?
The reasoning that pretty much everyone always makes is along the lines of "it's more comfortable" or "you can run faster and not hurt as much" or things along those lines.
The arguments never quite add up, and this adds fuel to the arguments and cunt-offs that surround the subject.
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Finally this leads to the point of this thread. I am a convert to minimalist running and walking, but my argument is nevertheless against it. And as far as I can remember, it's a reason that I haven't seen anywhere else.
The reason that our ancestors started wearing shoes with heels, and partly why people still do today, has little to do with comfort or fashion or sporting performance, even though these are the conscious reasons that everyone believes in.
The real reason:
Swagger.
When you put a heel on your shoe, and you avoid falling into the trap of slouching, you can walk with a swagger much more easily than you can barefoot. Your body language when you walk like that says "big strong and important", and peoples brains pick up on that in a way that they don't really consciously recognise, and this is the reason why modern shoes are made the way they are.
There's an obvious utility there in protecting your skin against the floor and the elements, but you may be right about the addition of heels being mainly an aesthetic thing.
The introduction of running shoes, on the other hand, seems to be an outgrowth of the idea that more cushioning must be better for the joints. Interestingly, sprinters have seemed to know better since at least the late 60s, with most using very low-profile shoes and spikes.
>>4483 I think our environment has become a lot tamer since the shoe was originally invented in a way that you don't give credit. I go mountaineering and if you attempted some of the stuff I've done barefooted your foot would either get cut off or fall off. To me the necessity of shoes feels self-evident from what I expect of them.
I would have presumed the increased thickness of the heel would have come from a pure mechanical position. either based on that that is the area that would wear down quickest so making it thicker would mean you could go longer without replacing shoes or that if you step on something you put your full weight on your heel so if you don't want things going through the shoe and into your foot you need to make it thicker.
I'm not a shoe historian or whatever but I can imagine the first shoe a hunter-gatherer wanting would just be a leather wrap, essentially - offering a bit of protection but still the 'feel' of the land, which would have been useful.
Thus something like those weird Vibrams would probably be pretty close.
My theory on prominent heels is because they'd have been useful for horseback riding, to keep your feet in stirrups - so a relatively modern invention, but a practical one at first. The fact they make you look taller and the shoes last longer probably helped make them the status quo, rather than people wanting that 16th century shwagga.
It's amazing how hard wearing your feet get if you let them - I've worked on my feet for most of my life, in shite, tough boots, so my feet are hard as fuck on the bottom. I actually can stand on glass without it piercing my foot, so I can only imagine what someone who goes barefoot running or indeed the tribal folk who have never worn shoes must be able to handle.
>>4488 Heh, I've got a pair of those pictured (I use them as slippers). If you can stomach wearing five-fingers in public they might serve, but as comfortable as they are they do look like you wrapped your feet in rags. The "Icon" version, on the other hand, is comparatively stealthy. They look like trainers at the front (give or take being thin material, so if you wiggle your toes you can see it). I've worn the latter in public and have not yet drawn any comments from friends and colleagues.
