Get A Wiggle On . . . Takes A Barefoot Experiment.

Thanks to the amazing and enthusiastic fitness and nutrition coach, Kate Fischer, managing owner of Edge Performance Fitness, I am on the roster of speakers for a workshop on transitioning to barefoot or minimal shoes for running or walking. This Natural Movement Workshop will feature the author of The Barefoot Book, Daniel Howell, and the authors of Barefoot Running, Michael Sandler and Jessica Lee. In addition, several local experts such as Dr. Ray McClanahan, Dr. Suzanne Lady, and Leif Rustvold, who are all barefoot or minimal runners, will speak. The purpose of the workshop is to prepare a person who wants to run or walk barefoot for doing so. It is not a good idea to simply change shoe types or forego shoes and go run, though plenty of people will do so and then tell you how unsuccessful it was. Honestly, transitions of any kind take time, that’s why it’s called a transition. (To sign up for the workshop, call Edge 503.265.8685 or email info@edgeperformancefitness.com. Attendance is limited, so sign up now.)

My role in the workshop is to give some hands-on strategies for increasing flexibility and resilience of the bones and muscles of the feet using Awareness Through Movement® lessons of the Feldenkrais Method® in a workshop titled Feet So Flexible, Feet So Fast. I’m excited to be part of this adventure and feel honored that Kate has included my profession as part of the mix.

I decided that a part of my preparation for the workshop would be a description of my experience while making my own shift as toward being barefoot or minimal during the month preceding the workshop. My motivation to make this change is that I have a hard time finding shoes that fit well or support the freedom of movement I know is possible in my human foot, the kind I see in my cat’s foot or my dog’s paw. That’s what I want, the resilience that comes from being close to the ground and un-mummified as so many shoe/sock combinations effectively do.

Note: I have NOT read either of the books I mentioned above, on purpose. My experiment here is to track my sensations and kinesthetic awareness of the shifts and changes in my gait as I work toward longer and longer periods in minimal shoes and I wanted to do this without prior knowledge of what it should be like. I have purchased a pair of Vibram Five Fingers, October 11, 2010, so I’m a newby just like all the folks who’ll be attending our workshop. Well, I’m not entirely a newby. My job is to teach attention skills and help others build awareness and I am well-trained to tune in to the shifts and changes in my own organization. But it will be fun to approach the workshop from this place of curiosity. A curious mind is an open mind. I invite you to comment, ask questions, share your own experience.

So, to begin . . . Experiment 1

A few weeks ago, Ray (McClanahan), podiatrist, handed me a pair of Correct Toes, his invention and his contribution to the health and wellness of anyone’s feet. I went home and put them on and wore them around the house for a while and got used to them. He had warned, and the warning on the package says, that you should build up the amount of time you wear them very slowly. Toes that have been crammed inside shoes for decades aren’t used to being spread apart. I’ve witnessed that in my own movement practice that many people have difficulty spreading their toes apart without pain.

I experienced little discomfort with the Correct Toes, likely because I’ve been moving and plying my feet and toes for years. So, I decided to go out for a walk.

I wore my Correct Toes with a pair of socks over the top of them and put on a pair of Crocs. These are the only shoes I own that the Correct Toes would fit inside and I wanted to transition, not go cold turkey to barefoot. I headed out with my dogs, a perfect constraint in that walking my dogs forces me to stop and start and go slow while they sniff their way though the neighborhood.

The first and most important thing I noted when walking with my toes spaced apart is that my sacrum was moving. A lot. I’ve had some tensions in my sacrum likely from all the sitting while blogging and writing. Wow. I mean wow. I could feel all kinds of tensions releasing. Wild to notice it as if something was dissolving. And, my sacrum became warm, my pelvis became free and the dogs and I practically skipped along.

Nice experiment for a first go round……..I kept wearing the Correct Toes at night for a few more days and occasionally during the day time. I made a point to work with my own feet and their grasping and bending capabilities over the next week.

Experiment 2:

A couple of days later, I went out walking with the dogs, minus the Correct Toes. I wore a pair of Merrill’s that were flat, no lift in the heel and no curl up of the toes. The top of the Merrill is mesh so even though the toe box isn’t wide, there was a lot of give. I had hiked in them several weeks earlier and found that my feet and ankles felt great, better than almost any other shoe I had hiked in.

Without really considering what I was doing, I began to experiment with just thinking about walking with toes spread wide. I could feel a bit of actual widening of my toes, but I focused more on holding the intention of having a wide spread foot. I shifted back and forth between holding the intention and letting it go.

After a few minutes of directing my attention and intention, I felt the same sensation that I’d felt when I had the Correct Toes on. My sacrum shifted and I felt more movement as I walked. Whoo hoo……this was becoming fun.

Now, as I’m experimenting with using a widespread toes intention in any shoe that I wear, I am noticing how tense my foot gets when my toes come close together and how much the focal point of force into the ground gets narrowed down to that place on the ball of my foot, roughly between my second and third toes. No wonder I used to have a callus on that part of my foot. When I intend to walk with widespread toes, I am noticing how much more evenly distributed the force is with each step.

In the next blog post, I’ll write about Experiment 3, getting my Vibram Five Fingers and going for my first outside walk. Another wow experience.

Flat Half on Sauvie Island is FULL

Wow, Sean Rivers, owner-manager of Foot Traffic shoe store, sponsor of the Sauvie Island Flat Half Marathon on July 4, says the race is full. No more room. Overflowing. Satiated. Complete. Sounds like some of us late bloomers will miss out.

It’s a good thing, because the island isn’t very big. It fills up with a thousand cars and you can imagine how the traffic jam doesn’t please the locals much. Never mind that by noon the cars are gone and the berry pickers show up to spend their money. Seems like a win-win to me.

I’m not planning to do the Flat this year, despite my many hours getting ready. When I walked the second and third 8-miler this year, I knew this was my year to kick back and enjoy my coffee. Oh, I’ll be out there again, and I’m still walking. But, my walking is taking many other forms. Up hills, over dales, staircases, neighborhood walks. Tomorrow I’m walking our extinct volcano with my littlest dog.

How did it go for you? This readiness? How are you feeling? So what if you “only” walked 10 miles. That’s a huge distance and nothing to be sneezed at, is it? If you walked 5 and then ended your training, that’s 5 more miles of distance and how many miles logged on your feet? It all adds up.

No matter what, you’ve become a person who walks.

Get a Wiggle On . . . revisits old injuries and pacing.

Most of us have some ache or pain that was there before we began our walking practice. Maybe it was a sprained ankle in our teens or 20’s, maybe it was a series of sprains. Maybe we’ve had a broken bone or accident that shifted the way we move and use our skeletal system. Always, there are ways to work around these issues. But, not if we ignore them and push on.

Pushing through the pain is disrespectful and detrimental to our goals and our well-being. However, regardless of how much we are aware that we’ll get farther if we take it easier, it’s irresistible to push. We’ve been conditioned and taught to not pay attention to the physical self. Often, we are dissociated and not in touch with our own experience.

Pushing through pain is compulsive.

In my worldview, pushing is over-rated. We’ve pushed ourselves our whole lives and where did it get us? We need to ease off and back up to get where we want to go. We need to find the respect for ourselves that lies hidden behind the history of our actions. Dust it off and come at the project from a place of paying attention, having fun, and relaxing.

Who cares how fast you walk? Who cares how much you weigh? Neither of these things makes or breaks a walker. I’ve seen skinny walkers drop out, I’ve seen heavy walkers sail through, I’ve seen fast walkers get injured and slow walkers surprise themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I’m speaking in generalities. There are thoughtful, fast, skinny people, and checked-out, slow, and heavy people. Slow people can be skinny. Fast people can be heavy.

What is most important is that the tactics match and support the goal of being out there for the distance and for completing the event. If that is the goal, then everything else becomes secondary and respect for the self becomes primary.

Get a Wiggle On . . . teacher relearns to wiggle.

I just posted this to my A Healthy Stepmother blog, but realized it’s just as pertinent for this column.

A couple of months ago, I started having pain in my left ankle when I took a step. It wasn’t too annoying and I carried on with my half-marathon training walks. I got tired after a walk, but recovered quickly. Gradually, over the weeks and as the mileage increased, the pain intensified and it didn’t go away so quickly. My ankle began to hurt when I wasn’t walking. I began to wince when I took a step.

Then, two weeks ago, I realized my world had reduced to thinking of my ankle. It bothered me and I iced. I took an anti-inflammatory and iced again. I walked and iced. I iced and rested. Still I hurt. I iced. My ankle winced.

Yesterday, I went to the chiropractor and she looked at my foot and ankle and decided they were a little off, but mostly she was impressed by how twisted my sacrum was. After she did some gentle manipulations, I left the office feeling like something was really different.

As I walked the dogs this morning without a limp, I recognized that I had over-focused on my ankle. So much so that I hadn’t noticed that I’d quit moving my hip when I took a step. On the right side, my hip swayed when I took a step and on the left it was as if I had a leg that didn’t bend. With my sacrum untwisted, I could step down and sway to the left when I stepped on that foot.

The experience made me think of being in a stepfamily when things aren’t going right. Naturally, I focused on the  stuff that irritated. Often, I’d try to see if I could better the situation. Nothing changed. In fact, it often got worse. I hurt. I winced. It was not fun.

My world narrowed down to focusing on the irritations. They seemed huge and painful and they grew more and more irritating. Thinking of ways to make irritating things better took up a lot of time in my life. I became exhausted and unhappy. When I finally let go of even thinking of those things as irritating, when I finally paid attention to the other equally important things in my life, especially the ones I had control over, the pain went away. Almost overnight.

That was the same story with my ankle. When I stopped holding my left leg still when I took a step, my hip swayed and the pressure on my ankle decreased. I’m not as uncomfortable. I can feel the looseness and flexibility in my gait. There’s still a twinge or ache as the new pattern settles in to something more familiar, but the pain is about ten percent of what it was.

It was a good reminder for me to hold things gently, including the pain, especially the irritations.

Get a Wiggle On . . . in the redwoods.

Every once in a while, you get in your car and drive out of town and wind up in a place you never thought you’d find yourself. It all starts with a certain degree of familiarity, but soon enough you’re on a path you couldn’t have imagined or known

It’s when you get out of the car and stand and walk among the giants that live along Northern California’s coastal mountains that you find trees that make everything else seem minute and meaningless. They tower up to 350 feet tall and they shelter up to 1700 species. They hover and they protect. They aspire and they drink. They stand tall with integrity, until they can’t any more.

The trunk of a redwood is made to withstand the wind, until it’s roots give way. They don’t have a deep root structure, but the roots can spread 100 feet. Thus, they have a good center of gravity, remaining stable and sturdy until they can’t drink more and their roots become weak. Then, they lose hold of the ground and their grip falters. The next high wind catches their top and pushes them into another tree, or another tree falls taking them down with it.

A tree only partially fallen will still survive and continue growing out of the part of itself that has fallen. It is so filled with tannins that the insects can’t and don’t eat it. The great trees drink and drink and drink, up to 100 gallons per day. And, then they turn around and give back up to 500 gallons of water into the atmosphere. They withstand an incredible amount of abuse, even extensive fires. They stay focused on the sky.

They don’t lean on another tree unless they are injured. What looks like dereliction and waste is aging and decaying and breaking down. It is a dynamic process. What is left is used and reused and incorporated with the next need. There is nothing wasted, nothing is left out of the process.

In comparison to the redwoods and the animals we’ve observed along our journey, we’ve seen places where humans have altered, meddled, muttered, sold, twisted, shaped, extracted, taken, bought, owned, parlayed, and moved, all in the name of progress.

And, what of our human-ness, or our role in the family, is there something we can learn about sustaining it? How can we go about our day, our life, our humanity, with some sense of using and replacing and symbiosis, so that there is some sense of the ebb and flow that naturally to this life?

For my own part, I had no idea I was raised by a conservationist until we drove down the northern California coast right into the Mendocino Headlands, saved in 1971 by two women who knew that if the area wasn’t protected it would be built on by an overly eager developer who saw a chance to make a dollar. Thinking back, I remember my father preaching the rules of being in the out of doors. He said we should not litter, that we should take things out with us even if we didn’t bring them in, and we should always, always, always leave a place better than when we found it. Hmmm, could that be my penchant for picking up the litter and organizing a clean-up in my business neighborhood?

And as the road winds up and down over the mountains and valleys, my thoughts follow in their own up and down pattern. Connecting this to that and the other thing to that thing from long, long ago. Such is the way of learning. We see, we observe, we take in, we incorporate, assimilate, integrate. And, somehow, if we’re lucky, something in our pattern changes and we find ourselves more comfortable, with less struggling, less of whatever is too much and more of what is not enough. Here’s to the learning.

Foot Traffic walkers enjoy the sun . . . and some coffee.

What a blast today. A nice 4 mile jaunt north to Fernhill Park, return to Foot Traffic along various routes. I think my group didn’t exactly follow the route in it’s completeness, but what the hey, we had a really good time. Alice, Debbie, Pam, and Alicia, you are wonderful walking companions. Thanks for the cheery questions and inquisitive nature. It will do you good.

After the walk, a couple of veterans and I headed to Aliviar Coffee on 42nd Ave, just south of Sandy Blvd. They make the greatest cappuccino in Hollywood, bar none! Get on over here and join us next time we’re in NE.

Get a Wiggle On gets a coffee.

Steady as she goes for this week. Two or three 30-minute walks are a great way to keep your endurance up. And, if you can ride a bike in the sunshine or take a spin on an elliptical. Cross training, cross braining . . . literally, what’s going on is that you’re using a different set of muscles and you’ll be stronger and ready for more other kinds of activity. It all helps, it all gets you ready for the endurance of the 13.1 miles on July 4.

And, stay tuned this next week for info about GEAR, it’s time to talk shoes. Also, I’ll be adding more movement lessons as the weeks go along. If you take a few minutes and experiment with the ideas of moving in non-habitual ways, you may find the mileage doesn’t affect you so severely.

And now, to the walk . . .

Wiggle or no Wiggle, Why Walk?

I’ll never understand why walking is such a poorly respected and under-noticed part of the fitness food chain. When runners pull a hamstring or blow their knees out, they walk. When swimmers cannot swing their arms overhead due to bursitis, they walk. When the hill gets too steep, the exhausted runner walks.

Walking the beach of Orcas Island, Washington

In my mind, the beauty and simplicity of walking is obvious and we are all walkers. You get out of bed in the morning and unless your day is spent in your wheelchair, you’re a walker. Actually, even my wheelchair-bound client refers to himself as a walker, i.e. we walked home after the concert.

Walking is a part of our human experience, no matter what. We do not need to be taught to walk, unless we’ve had a stroke or brain injury, we just KNOW how to move one foot in front of another. The picture in our head is so strong, we don’t need to think about it for a second. We simply go out and . . . walk.

You know you’re a walker if:

• You refuse to wear short shorts.
• You enjoy having at least one foot on the ground at all times.
• You scoff at the big rush everyone is in, content to move at a steady and energizing pace while still carrying on a conversation.
• You think pain is not a pre-requisite for doing something good for yourself.
• You understand that your mental and emotional health are better when you move at a pace that allows you to keep up with yourself.
• You realize you can walk at any time, at any place, and without any preparation.
• You keep coming back to walking as a reliable and extremely portable activity.
• You’re just as likely to walk to coffee or groceries as you are to walk for exercise.
• Your dog jumps all over you when you come home because she associates you with long sessions of nose-sniffing all over town.
• You routinely look for events that are walker-friendly and participate in several local fund-raisers and community walks a year.

Are you a walker? Do you want to be?

And now, to the walk . . .

The Big Decision . . . to walk or not to walk.

You’ve decided to walk a half-marathon.

Seek out fun and inspiring places to do your walks.

Congratulations, you’ve just oriented your attention and dedicated some time to yourself. That’s the first step, followed by the second step of showing up at the organized group walks, or if you’re doing this training solo, getting yourself out the door.

Showing up is at least 80% of what needs to happen for you to be successful at this new goal you’ve set. Showing up is also the 3rd, 4th, and 5th steps of completing a half-marathon. When you show up, there is no obligation to be la-la happy. I’ve seen grumpy walkers dragging themselves into the store at 7:50am for the lecture and check-in before the group walks, largely because they knew their fellow walkers were waiting. But, before the morning’s walking adventures were complete, nearly all of those grumpy walkers were feeling a little lighter, a litte prouder, a little more self-confident. They showed up and the walking shifted something in their experience, cleared out a few cobwebs, so to speak.

Showing up does not mean you need to be first. You can walk in the middle of the pack, you can limp, you can trudge slowly, you can speedwalk, you can sing and holler. You can do whatever you want to get yourself the distance, but if you don’t show up, guaranteed not as much fun.

Showing up does not mean you can’t miss an organized walk. It only means that when you do miss the organized group walk, you find a way to get your time in at a distance similar to the one you missed. If you like to walk with others, speak up, ask for the company.

And, congratulations again! You’re on your way to having a life-changing experience.

And now, to the walk . . .