Collection of Foot Stuff
When I was in middle school, a friend told me that my hips swayed really far side to side when I walked. Being in middle school, and something about me standing out, I took it self-consciously and immediately tried to squash it.
I know that there are lots of ways expert gait people say we should be walking, and I have managed to avoid absorbing any of them very much.
Little tidbits that I’ve tucked away for winter that for some reason live inside my head with easy access include:
Outside edge of heel diagonally-ish to big toe is how our locomotion forward is supposed to travel through our feet. The bending of the big toe engages the main arch (of 3) of our foot and is called the Windlass Effect. You might be interested in my friend Jenn Pillotti’s new book with Adarian Barr if you’re into this nerd stuff.
Your head is supposed to travel over your foot when you step, according to the Weck Method and probably other people.
Your hips should move in a figure-8 when you walk (high school science video? I remember a rear view of African women with gorgeous hips walking with big pots balanced on their heads)
When you step your right leg forward, it rotates the femur externally relative to the pelvis. As your body passes over the leg and it becomes the trail leg, the femur will be internally rotated relative to the pelvis. If you don’t have enough rotation available in your connective tissues, something else will compensate for it up or downstream as your body achieves the goal of moving you forward. Most people are lacking internal rotation and it helps with a lot of back pain to restore it. Here is my entire list of hip assessment videos from my mobility membership. My best friend also designed a foot course for the membership. You can access just the foot course for free on samanthafaulhaber.com
When I tried to stop moving my hips in a swaying motion, I started walking like a stiff dude. Or at least that what I’ve noticed it feels like when I don’t let myself sway my hips womanly from side to side. There’s definitely less head over foot action going on. And the swaying is mighty pleasurable and luxurious and feels like a perpetual motion machine rather than a robotic attempt to get to my destination rapidly. I’ve been feeling frumpy lately so I’m tuning into this. It also happens to naturally correspond with feeling my foot go from the outside of my heel over to the big toe, which then upstream makes me use and engage my adductors (inner thigh) during my gait cycle which I don’t at all on my left side otherwise and I probably need to see a PRI practitioner to help all of that out. All of this to say, it can be interesting to pay attention to your gait. And your feet. And how it feels to walk. And how you feel walking. And how walking differently can change how you feel.
Other things I’ve gotten into recently include something called Foot Reading, which is different than reflexology, which I’ve mentioned in other newsletters. But hey, here:
Foot reading includes way more details about your toes and reading them based on where they’re pointing and other things. I started desperately looking because at the end of my relationship with Robert I was having the strangest left foot pain and two of my toes started pointing in strange directions. Nothing I knew to do was helping for very long, so I began looking for energetic or spiritual answers, and of course there were some.
I found a bunch of articles, books, and practitioners, which I sent several of to my friends that are into this sort of shit, and that was one of the better summary websites. I’m on a foot reading newsletter now that doesn’t provide much info at all.
An excerpt from the page on the button above:
What Are Your Toes Trying to Tell You?
Toes bent towards the big toe: You're holding on to the past.
Toes bent towards the little toe: You're rushing to the future.
Crooked toes: You modify your thinking to please others.
Bent toes: You're self-conscious; you may fear failure or responsibility.
Twisted toes: You look to others for reassurance and may shy away from acknowledging the truth.
Vertical ridges on the toenails: You're stubbornly protective of your views
Horizontal ridges on the nails: You're insecure and emotionally unstable; you may not stand up for your views.
As in all things telling you about yourself, if something hits you as an “oh shit” moment, go with it. If you’re trying to convince yourself that your horoscope fits you today, maybe consider letting go.
In trying to straighten out my toes, which suffered from my thrift bestowed to me from my mother, who knew where every clearance rack was in every store, and my belief that a pair of sneakers on clearance would “eventually stretch out,” I have looked at buying toe spreaders a bunch of times. Turns out my flexible foot is more likely to acquiese than the sneakers, deforming and offering a smaller and more painful base of support beneath me. I used to give out those pedicure things and a lacrosse ball to every Thai Massage client to encourage them to begin rolling their feet and spreading their toes. Correct Toes brand seems to be the one more of my friends use, and I discovered by accident that a balled up piece of athletic tape was a great option for me. Stuck to the toes, was a customizable size, stayed on way longer than you’d think.
What else.
The PRI people make a good point that maybe minimalist shoes aren’t made for flat, hard surfaces like 90% of the modern world is. They have a website I hate with their “approved footwear.” My acceptance of their point is begrudging. I still wear minimalist almost all of the time and hate not being able to feel the ground. Barefoot is so much better. The textures! The sensuality! The different temperatures of surfaces!
If you want to notice how different the variables are you can literally just walk on a sidewalk (shod or barefoot, or ideally - try both) that has grass next to it and take a few strides in slow motion. The more varied the terrain is next to the sidewalk the better to notice, but this works with any natural surface. Is mowed grass a natural surface? I digress. You will feel, if you try, so many different things up your body on the uneven, not hard-and-flat surface than you do on the flat-and-hard one. I am convinced that humans could not possibly have the joint problems they do if we hadn’t smoothed-and-hardened the world, because loads would be distributed across their bodies so much differently with so much variation it would be impossible to have the same overuse injuries we have now. TL;DR: Go hiking and climb over some shit. It’s better for you.
anyasreviews.com is the best website for minimalist footwear reviews and how to even measure your feet. I never thought about measuring how vertically full my foot was before her. She has a fabulous instagram.
That’s about all my brain has spilling out of it at the moment.
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I feel like I just took one of those confetti blasters and pointed it squarely at your face.
I’d like to get my subscriber numbers up. Especially paid subscribers. If you know someone that would be down for this, ask them to join the party (free or paid)!
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