Toe shoes

So I’ve been on this long process of weaning myself off of orthotics that I’d started wearing in 7th grade. For quite a while, I’d found them helpful, but over time they’d started to become less effective and weren’t magically solving my postural problems like in the early days.

The initial problems, starting near the end of high school, was that when I was scheduled to get my gait checked and my feet molded for orthotics, I had to make sure my body was in the best condition possible. So I’d always visited my chiropractor the day before I went to my podiatrist. I also had to make sure I had a relatively new pair of shoes.

The reason I did these things is because I wanted to make sure the only thing the orthotic was going to correct was my arches. If I’d gone in with something else wrong, but the podiatrist addressed the problem via my feet, then if I later corrected the problem, the orthotics would no longer be helpful. In other words, they would only help me if I were in the state I was in when I was being fitted for them. Anything I were to do to correct my posture on my own would change my state and the orthotics would then be working against me.

To deal with this, I later (shortly after graduating college) switched to another kind of orthotic. It was one by Neo Vita. These orthotics weren’t from a mold of your foot, but rather had your foot mold to them. This was better because any improvements I made to my posture made the orthotics easier to wear.

However, these orthotics were quite aggressive; giving me spider veins in my feet, pain in my neck as well as headaches, plus it was difficult finding shoes to accommodate them.

But more than that, I’d gotten these orthotics not too long before leaving for Japan to live and work for a couple years. Within a few months, I got sick of transferring the orthotics from my outdoor shoes to my indoor shoes...or the fact that I couldn’t bring my indoor shoes with me to every place I would go (restaurants, friends’ houses) where I needed to take off my shoes.

So I stopped wearing the orthotics. It just wasn’t practical to use them. I’d like to tell you things got better not wearing the orthotics (or that walking in people’s houses barefoot got me thinking about different shoes), but, no. It would still be another seven years before I started thinking about minimalist shoes.

But, yes, living in Asia and being in bear feet while indoors did eventually get me to realize that I was more comfortable barefoot and really wanted a shoe that let me walk as though I were barefoot. But I didn’t know such a shoe existed until about a year ago.

Before that, I’d passed those seven years between losing the orthotics to my recent purchase by wearing shoes from Merrell which had good arch support and a strong sole. The Pulse II (discontinued), and Chameleon (II and III) were my shoes of choice.

But as I started becoming more involved in postural exercises, I found that my shoes (like my orthotics before) were working against improving my condition. And I started realizing that I could stand up straighter when I was barefoot. If only I had a pair of shoes that just wrapped around my feet.

Then I saw them. On the subway in Seoul, a girl got off the train and she was wearing these... foot...glove..things. They had toes. They looked a little strange and even then, I didn’t quite consider them to be the answer I was looking for. But when I told my chiropractor about wanting shoes that fit around my feet, he said, “You should try those Vibram Five Fingers.” I said, “I think I saw those the other day.”

Did I rush out and buy some? No. I was a little apprehensive about buying shoes with toes. I thought there were probably other options. Plus, buying shoes in Asia can be challenging. It was really difficult finding shoes that ran in my size, much less fit comfortably.

Fast forward to about two weeks ago, I asked my cousin about these toe shoes and other similar shoes. He briefed me and I came to know the terms “zero drop” and “minimalist”. I did some research of the shoes out there and determined the Vibram Five Fingers were the ones I wanted.

So, one week ago, I went to REI and bought a pair of KSO Treks. After wearing them a few days, I can say that I’m now uncomfortable walking in my Chameleons.

But I’ll talk more about these shoes and their hype in another post. This one’s long enough and it’s about 2 AM. The take home for this post is just the process I went through to move away from crutches for my feet.