Archive for the ‘Bare Feet and Society’ Category
Injuries While Barefoot: The Elephant in the Room
Okay, everybody. Bring it back in for a minute. We need to talk candidly about something.
For as much as many others and I promote the barefoot lifestyle and talk about how low-risk it is, a very real possibility is that we willactually get hurt because we’re not wearing protective shoes.
We can even get hurt wearing minimalist footwear when something might have protected us better. The general public believes that catastrophic injuries to bare feet are waiting in every aisle of every store and under every table of every restaurant. We know that’s not true, but injury risks still exist. It sucks.
A visit to Kettle Cave
The Kettle Cave video was filmed in early April of 2010. It was a cold day and the snow had just melted. If you look carefully at the barefoot walking scenes around 0:55 you can see ice and frost on the ground still.
My goal was to find this cave known as “Kettle Cave” located in Niagara-on-the-lake. I filmed a good percentage of this video barefoot, but if you look closely around 1:38 of the video, you will see me descend the rock face wearing black Vibram Fivefingers. The reason I was wearing them was because there were ice deposits in the leaves still from winter. The Fiverfingers did not last long before I threw them in my back and went the rest of the day barefoot.
A Backwards Look at Liability
I’ve been told on several occasions to be careful how I promote barefoot activity. The concerned persons say I might end up liable if people end up hurting themselves. This is a completely backwards and thoroughly confusing concept to me.
How is it that our society’s collective thinking has gotten so twisted that we now believe that I could be liable if people use their feet as nature intended and that shoe companies are free from liability for weakness, stiffness, skin conditions and other ailments that are caused or exacerbated by their products? Do you see how topsy turvy that thinking is?
Things That Make You Go Hmm…: The Barefoot Edition
One of the most frustrating things for me as a barefooter is that so many of the claims criticizing barefoot activity are made without the critics giving any thought to what they are actually saying. I know that the following observations are a bit snarky and pointed, but they’re worth thinking about:
Lots of people have told me that they successfully went barefoot “all the time” as a kid, playing on rocks and gravel, in dirt, and around all kinds of dangerous things. Then they insinuate that the flat, smooth surfaces of the adult world (e.g. concrete, asphalt, tile, linolium and carpet) are too dangerous for going barefoot.
Hmm…
Inspiring Video “Barfuss Blues” – all the way from Germany!
This has been around for a while but it remains current for all of us barefooters. Hope we can all be inspired by it.
video courtesy of bar-fuss.net
