It's finally out - a retrospective study comparing injury rates among 16 forefoot (not necessarily barefoot) runners and 36 rearfoot runners by Daniel Lieberman. Lieberman's conclusion was that rearfoot runners have more problems with "repetitive stress injury" than forefoot runners. Since I'm not a doctor I don't have access to the full article yet. I, for one, would like to know what "repetitive stress injury" is. Also, a retrospective study isn't, I think, as definitive as other types...again, it's not my field, so I just nod and say. Okay...more please?
The first thing I did was go searching for the name of the article to see what was being said. I saw, as usual, that all the pro-barefoot running sites were kvelling...honestly, I'm not sure it's time for that yet.
This one was where I felt I got the most information. I've found it before and it's always interesting. It's an international crowd of English-speaking podiatrists who all gripe at each other more or less constantly, some of whom have a clue and some who don't. At least one of them is fairly curmudgeonly about barefoot running with just as much or more bias that the most zealous barefoot running advocates. On the other hand, they are doctors and they have access to a wide range of studies and (presumably) know what they're looking at when they read them.
As someone who has run barefoot and minimally shod now for over a year, I can say that you do trade one set of possible injuries for another, especially as you make the transition. I don't hear much about that from the BF advocates, although you see it constantly on the BF running forums. I also hear constantly about the horrible injuries that rearfoot, thickly shod runners regularly experience. I can say from experience that my pain from running (and living) in shoes was much greater than any discomfort I've had from running barefoot.
What I don't see anywhere is the idea that transitioning from shod to barefoot running requires any kind of lifestyle change, which it does. The assumption is that when you transition to BF or minimal running that a runner will once again work competitively and repetitively to conquer miles upon miles of terrain with their feet.
Bare feet don't necessarily do that without a fuss, especially those that belong to someone who drives, sits and has worn supportive shoes all day most of their lives.
Barefoot work requires a certain amount of reverence for the earth and for our bodies. If that reverent attitude takes you miles on foot, then there you go, but my sense is that people follow trends more than they listen to their bodies. We are a culture that believes in conquests instead of experiences. History is ignored - if we paid attention to it there would probably be fewer wars and running injuries.
Being barefoot is a metaphor for the larger changes we need to make in how we live in the world. Maybe this is an unpopular attitude, but I think that we need to ditch the start and finishing lines and just get out there with our feet on the ground for a while, stop when we're tired, skip when we feel like it and use our senses to experience what we've been missing.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Kids are making their own moccasins!
There's just nothing like a bunch of preteens making their own shoes, not to mention their own shoelaces and a license to have their own bootstraps and a connection with the ground that is their own, dare I say (to stretch a metaphor beyond what it normally can stand).
The seventh graders at our daughter's school made these beautiful moccasins after the winter break. (Photo by Elias Feldman.)
The seventh graders at our daughter's school made these beautiful moccasins after the winter break. (Photo by Elias Feldman.)
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Anna Halprin's "Movement Ritual and Dance Explorations"
This morning I began studying with Anna Halprin, the great-grandmother of West Coast U.S. contemporary dance. She is simply amazing. I've heard her say that aging is hard and I have heard that she has been ill, but she looked beautiful today, her movement supple and easeful.
I was floored (yes, that is a pun) to find that she does a long series of barefoot warm-ups. One of her first lessons to us was that wearing shoes and even socks is a bit like wearing a muffler on our feet. I wanted to jump up and down and scream "yes!" but I didn't, which was good, because we got to jump up and down in the next exercise...and skip and run. Ms. Halprin told us to let our shoulders move, to feel it coming from the feet and the floor. Before I knew it, I was doing the same thing that I usually do when I take a run through the Presidio, except that it included going in all directions, not just forward. It was great - both good for the brain and nicely tiring for the body. I can't wait for next week!
In fact, Ms. Halprin is so foot-centric in class that she asks all of her students to take off everything from the ankles down, including socks, and asks for pant cuffs to be rolled. I was excited to see that because I have, for a long time, gone completely barefoot in rehearsals, even in cold weather, simply because anything that separated me from the ground or the floor was too much.
So this brings me to a new point.
One of the first things that drew me to barefoot running was a video of a runner who was running a long race at a track with a bunch of other folks. The camera shot pictures of him running. His movements were light - not a prance, exactly, more like a sort of weighty skittering. His head never changed levels, his legs were very quick. Compared to the shod runners he looked incredibly graceful. One of the shots was of him and several other barefoot runners keeping him company as he circled the track over and over again. During the interview he said that he didn't feel as if he were running. To him it felt more like dancing.
My sense is that when I take my shoes off and move, that I am dancing, not just covering distance between point A and point B. Or even if I am simply going from one place to another, when it's skin to the ground it becomes more than the sum of its parts. Although it's usually in minimal shoes, Parkour is one of the most elegant, efficient types of dance I've ever seen (not counting the egregious use of acrobatics, which is like putting cheap corn syrup frosting on the finest cream cake in the world). Another thing that I remember and again, I can't at this moment find the video - is an interview with Parkour expert David Belle who says that the less shoe on the foot of a freerunner the better. (I will do some searches and if I can find it again will link, I promise!)
Dance is just another way to get from point A to point B, to get that journey to mean more than the sum of its parts. This is why I tend to start from ideas rather than any particular dance vocabulary. To me, the definition of dance is just to engage ground reaction force, to see where it goes, and where it came from. It's one of the most beautiful forces in the universe, its four-dimensionality poetic in its complexity and perfection.
When your feet talk to the earth in a way that allows the forces of gravity to spread up into the body, that's a dance. If you were lying down, on your knees or sitzbones it would be possible to find this same play of weight and rebound.
I think that people need to ground themselves and dancing does that. It's also a deep human need that like everything else, modern humans have compartmentalized and reserved for specific circumstances only to be done by specially talented and trained people.
That's certainly not true. Everyone can dance, which means that everyone can run. Which means that everyone can dance. Of course.
I was floored (yes, that is a pun) to find that she does a long series of barefoot warm-ups. One of her first lessons to us was that wearing shoes and even socks is a bit like wearing a muffler on our feet. I wanted to jump up and down and scream "yes!" but I didn't, which was good, because we got to jump up and down in the next exercise...and skip and run. Ms. Halprin told us to let our shoulders move, to feel it coming from the feet and the floor. Before I knew it, I was doing the same thing that I usually do when I take a run through the Presidio, except that it included going in all directions, not just forward. It was great - both good for the brain and nicely tiring for the body. I can't wait for next week!
In fact, Ms. Halprin is so foot-centric in class that she asks all of her students to take off everything from the ankles down, including socks, and asks for pant cuffs to be rolled. I was excited to see that because I have, for a long time, gone completely barefoot in rehearsals, even in cold weather, simply because anything that separated me from the ground or the floor was too much.
So this brings me to a new point.
One of the first things that drew me to barefoot running was a video of a runner who was running a long race at a track with a bunch of other folks. The camera shot pictures of him running. His movements were light - not a prance, exactly, more like a sort of weighty skittering. His head never changed levels, his legs were very quick. Compared to the shod runners he looked incredibly graceful. One of the shots was of him and several other barefoot runners keeping him company as he circled the track over and over again. During the interview he said that he didn't feel as if he were running. To him it felt more like dancing.
My sense is that when I take my shoes off and move, that I am dancing, not just covering distance between point A and point B. Or even if I am simply going from one place to another, when it's skin to the ground it becomes more than the sum of its parts. Although it's usually in minimal shoes, Parkour is one of the most elegant, efficient types of dance I've ever seen (not counting the egregious use of acrobatics, which is like putting cheap corn syrup frosting on the finest cream cake in the world). Another thing that I remember and again, I can't at this moment find the video - is an interview with Parkour expert David Belle who says that the less shoe on the foot of a freerunner the better. (I will do some searches and if I can find it again will link, I promise!)
Dance is just another way to get from point A to point B, to get that journey to mean more than the sum of its parts. This is why I tend to start from ideas rather than any particular dance vocabulary. To me, the definition of dance is just to engage ground reaction force, to see where it goes, and where it came from. It's one of the most beautiful forces in the universe, its four-dimensionality poetic in its complexity and perfection.
When your feet talk to the earth in a way that allows the forces of gravity to spread up into the body, that's a dance. If you were lying down, on your knees or sitzbones it would be possible to find this same play of weight and rebound.
I think that people need to ground themselves and dancing does that. It's also a deep human need that like everything else, modern humans have compartmentalized and reserved for specific circumstances only to be done by specially talented and trained people.
That's certainly not true. Everyone can dance, which means that everyone can run. Which means that everyone can dance. Of course.
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