Phil Campbell's Sprint 8

There are so many days when I go out and run and realize that although my heart and lungs would like to speed on ahead much faster than my little sprints I enjoy, that the overall constitution of my feet and legs aren't quite ready for that burst of speed that I'd really like to take.

Running well, at least in my world, is to run like a child. When children run and play, they don't run solidly at a low to middle speed for hours with padded shoes. Our daughter and her friends run as fast as they can for short bursts with as little on their feet as they can get away with. When they stop running, they are thoroughly present, playing, imagining, looking and listening. Then they sprint again. I remember doing things like that as a kid.

Recently I received an interesting mailing from Mercola.com about a conditioning program called Peak 8 or Sprint 8 created by Phil Campbell. It's all about working the anaerobic muscles of the heart, as well as setting up the body to burn fat during rest. It encourages production of human growth hormone (or as Campbell describes it, "fitness hormone"). All of these happy things especially support middle-aged folks, like me and many people I know. When we reach the middle of our lives, our growth hormone production slows and it's harder to maintain fitness levels. According to Dr. Mercola this slow-down has a lot to do with increasingly sedentary lifestyles, and is completely avoidable.

As a barefoot runner who is always working on form and avoiding too-much-too-soon injuries, the Sprint 8 sounds like a nice way to work in between runs so that when it's time to put my feet down on the pavement, it's easier to maintain form without feeling the need to run too fast and hard - at least until my constitution is ready to run with that intensity...that's something I look forward to!

It's surprisingly simple. A person sets themselves up to sprint as fast as they can for eight 30-second periods, each followed by 90 seconds of rest. Campbell suggests a stationary recumbent bicycle. Now, if only I can get over my dislike of pedaling in place...

Here is a page about the program as well as two very informative videos.

Judith Aston's Bicycle Dance

Here she is...the lady who came up with the Aston technique, using ground reaction force to dance on a stationary bicycle! 

She does have her shoes on, but she's got a sense of the earth, even balancing with one hand on the handlebar and one foot on the pedal. 

Thoughts on flat feet

On the bus to the studio...

The tibialis posterior has been on my mind these days, although that could be said to be an irony, considering the distance between those two parts. I mentioned before that I struggled with flat feet much of my life. Whenever I restart running after a long break I inevitably strain the tissues around the posterior arch and up deep in the calf. After berating myself for not taking my own advice, I slow down for a while to strengthen that line.  The tibialis posterior supports the posterior arch. It extends deeply up the back of the lower leg, through a notch at the calcaneus, opening into a sort of supportive hammock for the arch. It makes connections up the deep line that includes leg adductors and inner unit. When it goes on strike, so does the core. Spotting a person with weak tib posteriors is easy. Look for ankle pronation, and slack inner leg line, possibly with nocked knees. The big giveaway is the inability to access the core when standing, especially in a person who can find it when seated, kneeling or lying down.

The bus ride to the new Body Gallery is almost done. Over and out...

Hills, shmils!

Another Sausalito run. This time I went up farther.


Same view as before...
Here it is again.

Here it is again, but a little higher up.

And a little higher!

I got almost all the way to the top, when my alarm went off to say that it was time to go back and get ready to go pick up our daughter at school. It was actually getting foggy up there. Here's a cool house I saw.

Here's a cute little street I found as I descended. That big flowering vine is all jasmine. It smelled amazing. Honestly, I'll put up with all kinds of hilly terrain if it means I get to smell jasmine on the way down. :) 

Sausalito Studio and a hilly run

For the last two weeks I've spent my Tuesdays taking clients at a tiny, beautiful studio in downtown Sausalito. It's a gorgeous situation. I spend my morning rushing my child and the rest of our carpool to school, packing lunches and stuffing my work supplies and whatever she needs for school into the car. Then I get to the studio a short drive away. I park up one of the twisty streets and walk down. As I walk I can feel my breath starting to return.

There's no sign, just a quiet stairway decked with flowers. 

Go up those stairs and you'll see a lovely rooftop porch with flowers and a nice place to sit and read or sip tea. 

There are other quiet businesses on the second floor as well. Turn right and there's an unmarked screen door that is always locked. I've so far asked my clients to call or text me so that I can let them in. Beyond that door is another one, this time brown and also unmarked.

Here it is... Cute, huh? -->

 Afterwards I took a run...I forgot one major detail, though. Sausalito is basically a series of steep hills and I'm on my second week of training from a three month break. I took it slow and let myself rest when necessary. I spent as short of a time as I could on Bridgeway with its constant crowds. I turned off towards the Bay and ran for a while along the path there and the parking lots. Not too pleasant, though. Too much construction, and did I mention that the way by the Bay is entirely made up of parking lots?

I turned off and started to go up for a while. Here I am, nearly at the top of one hill...whew.

Here's my foot and a nice view. <grin>

This is, believe it or not, about half way down the hill from the last image.

Pilates Developments

I forgot to mention that not only am I back at The Body Gallery, but I'm also teaching for most of the day on Tuesdays up in Sausalito at a sweet little private studio on Princess Street.

The Body Gallery will also be moving to 47 Kearny Street in November. More on that as it happens...

Returning to Running

I'm back. It feels good, but boy, what a rude awakening it is when you're able to pretty easily run for an hour or so barefoot or minimally shod and then stop running for three months, then the first time back I started to feel that telltale foot-slap after about 10 minutes or so. By foot-slap, I mean when my shock absorbers seem to fail and my feet slap down onto the ground - not a great thing to do when you're barefoot on concrete!

I've been taking it slow and gentle, resting whenever necessary and keeping it short. I actually started the week before I went to the doctor's, (yeah, I know-but I was tired of chewing the furniture,) so i've run about three times since then. My first run was about 5 minutes. For my last run I cut myself off at 30 minutes, still focusing on form and footfall, barely challenging my lungs. It's a bit frustrating, but I'll be much better off later. At least on that last run I felt a little more elastic. 

All in all, though, it's not as bad as I thought it would be. It took me about a year to get the conditioning in my legs and feet just to BE barefoot, then to walk and run. That didn't actually go away. I'm still able to run without pain, but I can sense that the strength in my legs is just not what it was. My center is stronger now that the umbilical hernia is repaired, even after only 3 months, so in some ways running is actually easier. 

Here's a picture from September 26th, pausing on one of those crosswalk inclines to get a little SFMTA-sourced reflexology. :) I love those things. 

On Walking

Today I walked again.

It's not like I've not been on my feet and getting from one place to another. I've done that, with relatively little pain, but enough to know that I shouldn't do it for too long.

Today I rediscovered how to walk without a pronounced heel strike. I went for a barefoot walk to our neighborhood library, stopping and starting occasionally when my rhythm broke or when I lost my feeling of gravity. (It's possible to do that, especially when you're small!)

Something I've noticed is that even people who run barefooted still heel-strike when walking. I think it's because we've made assumptions about what walking means, what it looks and feels like. I remember reading posts by bf runners talking about how they were trying to learn forefoot or midfoot striking for walking gait and how hard it was.

So here's something to try today:

Take off your shoes and stand with one foot slightly behind the other. Don't try to point your toes straight ahead. Shift your weight onto the front foot and see if you can drop the back knee so that the hip releases and the foot glides forward slightly. You may find that it doesn't go anywhere at all, or you may find that the free leg's foot doesn't know how to leave the ground. When I first tried this walk, I couldn't get the leg through to the front without tucking the toe off the floor, tightening the ankle flexors and then the hip flexors (which may be in very different places but have a pretty strong connection, don't they?). Don't let the foot flex. Just keep releasing that femur down from the hip joint and allow it to slide it through by responding to gravity through both sides. Let the standing ankle really soften as the body moves forward, although it's easier said than done. The key is both ground reaction force and core work, of course - not clenching, gripping, six-packy wackiness, but motion all through the center of the body from ground to head that encourages the glide of the hip joint, softening of the knee and ankle joint. When it's right, the foot is just slightly plantarflexed as it passes through, with the ankle joint blissfully relaxed, toes rising just enough to clear the ground.

It started off mentally difficult with not much forward motion. It was very hard to get my working leg through without grazing the ground with the bottom of the foot, which is generally something to avoid when barefoot. I'm sure that many a motorist was wondering what the slow-moving, tiny barefoot lady was doing with her stop-and-start progress towards some good books and a turn around the neighborhood. (Do I dare wonder what kinds of comments I'd have gotten outside of the Bay Area?) They can think what they like.

Yet another tidbit...

This just landed in my inbox. The Word of the Day is "talus."

http://wordsmith.org/words/talus.html

Ways to subvert traditional seating...

...sitting lotus-style on a classic wooden chair
...using the top of a rolltop desk to stand while you type
...sit on a ball instead of a chair to use a traditional table
...move around
...instead of "multitasking" on the computer, really multitask - partly on and off the computer, standing, sitting on knees and seat, lying down.
...take breaks

Cogito Ergo(nomics) Sum (part 2)

So, there I was, with my little diagram, my measuring tapes, clipboard and the orders to get everyone ergonomically satisfied as quickly as possible. According to this model it should easy to put a worker's body into correct positions and have everything fall into place!

Nothing in my paperwork prepared me for how little my evaluations would be appreciated. One of the guys in the office started calling me "The Posture Nazi" by the time I returned from the ergonomics orientation. The manager told me to get it done and over with. I realized that I'd been handed this duty because the manager didn't want an outsider coming in and making any big changes.

The first odd thing that I found was that just about everyone had pain, even though, for the most part, they already sat at the perfect combination of ergonomic angles. Everyone sat for their entire day, both for work, then for commuting and for relaxing at home. I measured their workstations and ordered tray tables. Someone needed their screen raised. Another person needed it lowered for their bifocals. We got a roller mouse for one woman and a wrist rest for someone else. The guy who called me "The Posture Nazi" refused any changes at all, but I suppose that was his choice, despite the fact that he suffered from more pain than anyone in the office. I started to teach some of the Pilates basics to one woman with back pain. After about a month sneaking in workstation alterations here and there, the only person with improvement in their pain was the one who started to take short breaks to do the very easy Pilates I showed her - constructive rest, pelvic clocks, bridges, upper abdominal curls and prone extensions. Something clicked. It was the way they worked, not the sitting position.

Then there's this obsession with chairs. I did an image search for "ergonomics" to see what came up and noticed that most of them were of people or stylized models of a human form in a chair. Everything in the office happens in chairs, and as work hours grow and personal time shrinks, more and more time is spent folded in ninety degree angles.

It made me think of something that both one of my art teachers and a dance composition teacher said about the image of a chair being a stand-in for a person. The image is potent even without a person in the frame. Chairs are a way to think of and contain the idea of a person, which has its good and bad points.

Enter any office first thing in the morning and there will be rows or cubicles of empty chairs. The worker chooses their station and sits, conforming to the shape of the chair. Each worker has identical working arrangements.

Imagine, then, what it means to see all these empty chairs at silent desks. It's probably a familiar image. I've always had this feeling that a bunch of empty chairs is almost haunted.

Then try this image on for size:

Imagine if offices had different areas and ways to work. The worker enters and sees two areas: a bright, open place where thinking on foot is encouraged and another section with seating and tables at different levels reserved for quiet activities. Balls are available, especially in the open area. In the quiet section stations with low tables which requires that people sit on the floor would be surrounded by low pads for knee and lotus-style sitting. A series of recliners where workers could read, view images or rest during breaks could be to the far side of the quiet area. There would be some ninety degree tables with chairs and some stations with tall tables for people who are standing. There might even be a platform and an adjustable table on a tall platform for those individuals who think best up high! Computing would be mobile, either with laptops or interchangeable drives so that a person could work in various places throughout the day.

The second office seems like a more natural place for free-flowing ideas to me, partly because people can simply be mobile and also because they can sit or stand in ways that support them as productive workers.

During that same year that I started on ergonomics I found an amazing book by Galen Cranz, called The Chair, which says that human beings are not ninety degree animals. Human bodies were meant for squatting and perching, and not designed to sit for long periods. She talks about the larger cultural picture of how and why people sit the way that they do. Ironically, she teaches in the Department of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley.

Here's a terrific interview with her:
http://bodyconsciousdesign.com/uploads/interview_galen_cranz_portland.pdf

I began to rethink the idea of the seated workplace, in what now seems like a very unnatural position. We sit at computers for so long when we work. Our minds, forearms and hands are so active that it's as if all of our surface consciousness moves into those places. When we think hard for a long time we fall into gestures and patterns that come from a very deep place, like a favorite sleeping position that we only find when we are completely unconscious. Heads cock to the side, feet leave the ground and find perches under chairs or tables, or get propped up on the desk so that the chair gets pushed back into a lounging position. Our weight shifts to one sitzbone, causing us to curve to one side. We slouch, or we lean forward. I have caught myself in a twisted position with left foot tucked under the chair leg, toes turned under, the right leg straddling the corner of the chair, foot braced to the side as if I were trying to escape, all my weight on my right sitzbone, leaning forward into the computer as I typed, as if my body were making subconscious commentary on my commitment to a particular task.

Ergonomics, at least the flavor of it that was handed to me in that folder, had very little to do with the rightness of the body. It had everything to do with wringing the most efficient work out of a body in the shortest possible time with as little kvetching from the body's owner as possible. It was a way to conform the human being to their task instead of adapting the job to the person. "Posture Nazi," indeed.

Cranz talks about how the active body should lean forward, while the passive one leans back. My later training in Judith Aston's work also confirmed that, as did what I found over years of working with clients and myself. A slouch is not only a natural position, but also a correct one for certain tasks and states of mind. The problem is that the seated worker who uses a computer is a strange mixture of passive and active. "Sitting up straight," then, does not solve the issue and potentially creates more problems. Many of the other peculiar habits that show up are also important to a person's physical and mental function. In some ways those habits are ways to adapt to the unnatural position that the ninety degree chair forces the body to take, as well as the long hours spent in it. 

No matter what a person does, their body is along for the ride and is constantly in some sort of motion. Even asleep, every part of the body continues to move, down to the smallest fascial cells. If there is an answer to the question of how we change our working culture it may be to honor the human need to move and rest according to the needs of the body and mind. We need to get up, to think on our feet, to sit low and relearn how to squat or sit on the floor, to shake it out and bounce on a ball or to pace.

Another way to think of a chair (at least on this blog!) is as a platform for our sitzbones to be the primary receptors of gravity instead of our feet. (See? I did get there eventually!) In this case, a "supportive" chair is as misguided as "supportive" shoes.

Throwing away our ninety-degree office chairs is very much like getting rid of our shoes and touching the ground once more with our feet. It's another way to say that the ground is, in some ways, all we need to define who we are and where we stand...or sit.

(Chair image by Quinn Dombrowski.)

Cogito ergo(nomics) sum...(Part 1)

Or not, as the case may be. 

It's taken me a few days to get the time to finally write this post. It's stewed a bit. Slow-cooked ideas work for me, on the whole, so it's probably a good thing.

A little history is necessary first.

I have taught Pilates since 2003. Before that I had a whole other life.  Several, actually. I performed with ballet companies from the late 80s until 1992. I was a graduate student in 1995-1997. I started to make performance art and experimental choreography during my graduate degree, and still do so. I stumbled into on-line journalism from 1997 until 1998 and then wound up as web designer/programmer/analyst for The Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley from 1998 until 2003. 

It's the last job that gave me the most food for thought, actually. I was working at UC during the tech boom, and then during the beginning of the bust. I was there on September 11, 2001 and experienced the first Bush II administration through the lens of the university system. 

Initially there was a lot of money for technology and the people who specialized in it. Then as the national mood soured, the administration began budget cuts. Then came the hiring freeze. (I hesitate to say the year - 2001? 2002? Some time around then.) Finally they announced "Tidal Wave I and II." In polite language, the administration intended to bring in an extra large student body to be matriculated in two enormous stages, but had no plans to hire more support staff to take care of the extra work that would result. Although nothing was mentioned, everyone knew that the tuition would also be hiked hugely and the teachers' assistants would be used even more for extensive but underpaid work. 

So there we were, with no extra personnel, exploding inboxes and job description mission creep. Like many workers there I took on a couple of extra assignments, the biggest one being "Ergonomics Evaluator." 

"Ergonomics Evaluators" were a new thing at UC. Our offices and what was in them often dated back to the thirties or before - unadjustable boxy desks from long before the computer age and old swivel or heavy wooden classroom chairs in various states of dilapidation. The hours that people were required to work meant that injuries were a constant presence. Even as a part-timer I often packed 30-40 hours into three days of work. That was when my ten-year back injury started and when it got unmanageable. 

By 2002, though, I'd healed quite a bit from my injury through bodywork and taking Pilates lessons. I also began a certification program in Pilates. When the manager, who knew about my work with my own injuries, heard that I was learning to be a Pilates teacher she gave me a bunch of documents to read and told me to start evaluating peoples' workstations.

(more to come...)

Toenails - windows into health

Now, this is interesting. If you have a weak stomach for gory photos, or tend to freak out when you read about diseases, click on the links with caution.

http://www.aafp.org/afp/2004/0315/p1417.html
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/nails/WO00055

Both in the article and in the slide show the doctors are looking at fingernails, which grow faster than toenails, but toenails can also be a way to get a picture of overall health. Considering that toenails do grow so slowly, it can be a bit like looking at trunk rings to get an idea of the health history of a tree.

What an amazing tool!

Not to mention that the shape of the feet say so much about a person, their health, their state of mind and what kinds of footwear they choose.

Daily dance

I was told once by a client that I was "The Mary Poppins of Pilates Instructors." I never quite got what she meant by that until now. As a teacher I give exercises and workouts, but my idea of a lesson learned is one that's internalized. You take it home, you play with it, you make it fun.

Now I get a dose of my own lesson, hopefully with a little something sweet to make the medicine go down.

I went back to the doctor a few days ago. He and his assistant seemed very surprised at my recovery so far. I think that it's partly that I'm a trainer, so I tend to be fit. I've also learned a decent amount about nutrition, cook and eat well (for more on that, check out my other blog!). I am a novice in the art of homeopathics, but am discovering that they are potent and useful. In addition to all that, I am into gravity. It's my friend and I use it. I don't fight it. There's nothing that can get a person to stand up better than being on speaking terms with what my daughter calls "the force that makes you fall down and go boom on your tushy."

This is how I got both of my drains out after only one week out of surgery, I think. I am still extremely limited in what I'm allowed to do, but I did discover that I can sweep the floor thanks to a little footwork.

(Yes, if you were wondering, I am standing on one foot while taking this pic with one hand. That's just how stable I feel now without the extra hole in my middle!)

So, the thought for the day is to check out gravity and how it works with the body. You don't have to be an athlete or even especially fit, and although it's a nice thing to do, you don't even have to make a special time or space for it. Gravity is everywhere and suffuses everything we are and do. See what it does and play a little. 

Feet from square one

http://uvaendurosport.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/less-from-your-shoes-more-from-your-feet/

This is what I work on with people. We isolate all the muscles that mobilize the toes, especially the big one, and trace them up the arch. Then we go through the joints of the forefoot into the ankle. We explore how the ankle works, then we get it to move. We find the calcaneous, the bone that drops down to make the heel and we release the stored up tension that builds there from heel striking. Then we build strength throughout the foot, and up into the body so the client can go out and have fun on their feet without pain.

I will be back at The Body Gallery starting at the end of August. Just drop me an e-mail if you are interested in working on your foundations.

As I feel more human I think more about my feet. Even at this stage of healing I seem to be able to stand very steadily on one foot without the usual wiggle up top. Even on my weak side! Good sign.

For those of you who are just tuning in - last week I had long-awaited surgery to stitch up an umbilical hernia and rectus diastasis. In other words, like many older women who have had kids, my body didn't bounce back and instead got a hole in it where none should be. See yesterday's post for more on that.

I can't use my abdominals for anything...I can carry only up to 10 lbs, which is less than my knitting, so this is good. Meanwhile, I've discovered that snagging clean laundry between (clean) toes and tossing it up on the bed makes it possible for me to fold clothes. I can now officially say that child-proof drawer-locks are completely accessible by foot. :-)

Bit by bit.

New Chapter

Last Wednesday I finally went in to get my umbilical hernia fixed after about 2.5 years of waiting.

When our daughter was two, I had trouble with pain in my middle and couldn't recover my abdominal muscles, which is a big deal for a dancer, runner or Pilates instructor. I visited a doctor who told me that I still had a split and that I should see a plastic surgeon. I visited one who told me that not only did I have a big diastasis split but that I had an actual hernia in my belly button. It was small, but still it was there. She thought that the hernia was the cause of my discomfort. The surgery was extensive with a long recovery and I needed to not be nursing anymore. So I waited.

Then during a rehearsal last year I suddenly came down with a bout of nausea. I ran to the mirror. Something was pushing out of the skin of by belly button. Ugh. So I pushed it back in and felt better almost immediately. Time to get this fixed. But there was no time for a 2 month break. So I continued to wait.

Our daughter is about to start kindergarten this August and will be five. Most of my clients are taking some kind of break in July and our friends will be around to have our daughter over for playdates. My parents booked a flight and a long stay. We found a nanny.

The repair of my umbilical hernia and rectal diastasis was done last week. Insane. Intense. I hope never to have to do this again and I just can't believe that some women do this simply for aesthetic reasons. That's some dedication to the mirror.

Now it's not quite a week later and I can nearly stand up again. When the doctor stitches up the two split halves of the rectus, not to mention the hernia repair, you wind up curled like a shrimp. Ow. I won't go into the more gory aspects of it, but the first week is nasty. I heal pretty quickly, so although it's not quite been a week, the first drain came out yesterday and I feel more human. Yesterday's visit included to the doctor's instructions to "start standing up." Easy enough for him to say. So that's what I've been doing all day yesterday and today - putting my hands to the sides of my ribs and trying to stand, breathe and think all at the same time. That's about all I can cover with my available brainpower.

Starting from scratch.

I'm dreaming of the day I can lay down, do some deep core work, warm up my legs and then get outside to feel the ground with my feet again. The doctor assured me that in three months that my abdominal muscles will work so much better that I won't need the extensive preparation I've had to use for the last 5 years to avoid hurting myself. I hope so.

Today I skirted the "no lift, no push, no pull, no carry" clause by tossing clean laundry onto the bed with my toes. Ha. I did fold with my hands, though.

One step at a time.

More on the effects of commercial shoes on children

Basically, that the arch is decreased, that range of motion lengthwise is decreased, and tibio-talar range of motion is changed in the shoe.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17353125

Someone finally did a study on kids and what happens when they wear shoes

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3031211/

It has officially been found that the speed of a child's gait decreases, they tend to heel-strike, their stride length increases and they lose motion in their feet and efficiency in their gait when they wear shoes.

More goodness in there - they noticed that increased cushioning doesn't necessarily decrease shock absorption.

Human Impact

Just a quick post before I go back to my evening chores to mention 350.org. A while back I started seeing interesting Facebook posts and tweets from one of my favorite political and cultural thinkers, Naomi Klein, who is a board member of this group. Now, to be honest, I don't know much about them yet, but the videos of their past actions and their promotional pieces were just amazing. The basic message is that the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million. We are now currently at 392 ppm and have work to do. Clear. Concrete. Succinct.

What I really like is that they've gone local by empowering people to start their own chapters and create changes where they live. Now let's see where it goes.

So go look at their web site. Read about their next action on September 24, which they're calling "Moving Planet." If it makes sense to you, go for it.

The meaning of being barefoot.

We feel all the bumps and sharp edges of the ground under our feet. Things stick to our soles. Our skin is permeable - we sweat through our feet and the substances we encounter on the ground move through our feet into our bodies, for good or ill. We have to watch our step. At the same time, the sensual feeling of the ground is unlike anything else. Bare feet rely on strong muscles in the legs to work well so that we can fully feel the adaptive surfaces of our foundation.

Our feet connect us to the ground. They are our portal to the earth and all that's in it, which has pros and cons. One of the nicest places to step are the bumpy ramps at crosswalks. They're almost like reflexology patches provided by the city. Sunwarmed earth or asphalt are lovely surfaces, but in the cracks and on the edges, shards of glass from past auto accidents cluster. Being barefoot requires that I get to know my surroundings intimately. I've seen lines of dying rats trailing away from buildings into the gutters. That is one stretch of street where I always wear shoes. I also know where the fun hill is that's completely smooth and warmed whenever the sun is out.

I'd much prefer to dodge obstacles and to carry a first aid kit with me than to have my old back pain return, a sign that I've again lost my sense of gravity. I prefer to know, to be connected.

We live in a world in which our experiences are constantly mediated, no matter what our class, race or age. Most people I know were brought up to feel that any unmediated experience was uncomfortable or even dangerous. Removing your shoes is a gesture of humility and even poverty. In a yoga or dance studio being barefoot is a way to give respect to the earth and to the practice. A person whose shoes are off seems immediately more human, more intimate and physical.

When experience is mediated we lose touch with cause and effect in the world. The softness of our structured, corrective, padded shoes doesn't let us feel the impact of our bodies on the earth. For me, removing them is a small way of taking responsibility for what my presence does to the world.

A new blog. A new post.

This blog goes along with a journey I've taken over the last year or so when I started to take off my shoes. I was one of those kids who was taken to what my mother called "The Orthopod" at a young age. The doctor always looked alarmed before he prescribed some correction - bars for my turned-in legs, big, clunky, protective clown shoes for my very flat, pronated feet. As a result, my legs and feet did not develop correctly. I found some help through ballet and eventually danced professionally, even after arthroscopic surgery on a chronic sprain which probably could have been avoided with better foot and leg development.

When I went back to school and stopped dancing constantly I had foot pain again. I visited Dr. Valmassy, a podiatrist at St. Francis Sportsmedicine. His response was to laugh at my feet and exclaim,

"You're a dancer?"

He made what he called my "skis," which cost about $300, then clapped my feet into supportive, cushioned sneakers that cost about $100. As a result, my feet hurt even worse whenever I'd take my shoes off.

I developed a long term back injury that lasted about a decade, which I can now directly trace to a lack of tone and efficiency in my foundation - my feet and lower legs. My knees always felt like they were on the verge of pain because my lower legs would go into spasm.

I became a Pilates instructor in 2003 because it was the only thing that seemed to help my pain. I continued to dance and choreograph.

Pregnancy and motherhood are always big shifts in mindset, I think. In my case I believe that I became a more independent thinker. I've always been a problem-solver, but felt as if I had to keep up with what everyone else was doing around me. In the isolation of early motherhood groupthink became much less important to me. It's never something I've been good at, anyway. So why bother?

Way back in the early years of my back injury, my first Pilates instructor, Elizabeth Larkam, gave me a series of exercises that mobilized my ankle joints. Back then it made no sense to me to connect my core and spinal functionality to how my feet worked, but after watching how my feet loosened and became stable, adaptive platforms during pregnancy, I took another look at those ideas. It was especially interesting to me because all my back pain actually disappeared during those nine months, while the ligaments and muscles release to accommodate the changes that happen during gestation.

Five years later, I've left all my supportive shoes behind and spend a lot of time toning and releasing my feet, ankles and lower legs. After years of hearing doctors say that my flatfootedness and pronation were irreversible, I now have strong, flexible arches on feet that stand securely in neutral.

I am creating a movement practice that connects the feet and how they interact with gravity and the ground to the core and the rest of the body. I recently completed a mentorship with Elizabeth which explored training people out of their shoes, and into a healthier gait. Workshops and writings to come...here's where I intend to think out loud and perhaps to hear what other people are thinking about. It's an odd feeling to go off on my own and to find out that plenty of other people are now on that same path.

I'm also a barefoot/minimal shoe runner, which is another amazing topic for another time.

So, welcome.

If there is anyone out there interested in this same topic, who manages to find this quiet place in the din of the blogosphere, please feel free to share your own experiences here.