Flexible Sole Shoes

I have never liked shoes. They always felt constraining and odd. As a younger man whenever I had the opportunity I would go barefoot or wear flip-flops.

But as time wears on more and more people expect me to wear shoes, and like most folk I've spent more and more on shoes, and the more I've spent the more unhappy I've been.

Some shoes look like jet fighters, and others like elegant horse drawn carriages, and still others like small cars. But no matter what they looked like they all seemed to strait-jacket my feet, separate me from the earth, and most of all make me walk even funnier than I usually walk.

Many years ago a shoe even crippled me for a time. It was a black business shoe with a square heel. The heel caught on a crack in the sidewalk and turned my ankle so violently that it snapped 3 bones in my right foot and left me on crutches for a month. Twenty years later that foot still aches from time to time.

But more than that, in recent years my feet have begun to complain bitterly about shoes. Any shoes. And my knees too sometimes. I've begun to walk slowly, gingerly, to deal with those complaints. And that's not good for the rest of me either. I'm only in my 40s - who wants to walk like an old man?

A few months ago I was having a conversation with the estimable PeteMelov? at the wonderful SuveranCafe? in Sydney and he tipped me to flexible soled shoes. Suveran sells FiveFingers? running shoes. Which sound great but holy crap are they ugly. And that's a lot to pay for ugly.

I went looking for some simpler alternative. I tried on Merrell mocassins but while comfortable they're not flexible enough. Then some Sebargo dress shoes that have individually hand-sewn pieces of sole with just leather in between them. Flexible but they don't wear well and I couldn't find a pair in a great size for me. Then I spent a couple weeks in Speedo Reefwalkers - very flexible soles but they're not intended for regular use and they don't look good enough for business at all.

Finally I found Vivo Barefoot shoes and ordered a pair. They arrived today. I'm wearing 'em now and ... my feet are in heaven! More than that, having gone for a walk my knees and even my hips feel a lot happier with the world. Rather than walking gingerly and slowly I think I want to try running on some rough ground and see how that goes.

Anyway the point isn't the brand. It's the flexible soles. If your feet are bothering you, see what you can find. And please report your experiences here - because most WikiZens got feet.

There are a lot of different conditions and situations that affect what kind of shoe works best for whom. The above sounds like a case of flat-feet, or maybe a long arch. For me, I need a ridged sole and rather stable heel, because of multiple back surgeries and ongoing related problems. I have noticed that, over-all as the years have gone by, the quality of shoes, how they fit, how they last, and do they protect the body (back, hips, knees, ankles and the bones of the foot) has gone down steadily. Everyone I know has a difficult time finding shoes that work well for them, and most settle for something that is nowhere near ideal. It seems, that if one wants to bring back the good ol' days, then going to a highly skilled cobbler and paying a mighty fortune is about the only solution. When we find shoes that fit well, we usually wear them long past their prime, and that in itself can be bad for body parts because of unevenly worn shoe components. We too tend to go barefoot and wear flip-flops more and more as time goes by. Used to be that a lot of well made shoes came out of Poland, and that seems to have gone away. Going way back, I remember Polish people being expert at shoe making. Everything became much worse with all of the mad-cow disease that hit the UK, after that I think good shoe leather became much more scarce.

I like my sneakers, thank you very much. They don't need to be air-inflated, spring-loaded, or all that aerodynamic. I personally can't stand walking around barefoot -- it's incredibly painful for me to do so, because of all the sharp cruft on the ground. It seems like I can't walk three steps without stepping on something that feels like a needle. The only exceptions are at home and on the aikido mat.

Real mocassins are right out for me to, since they are so flexible as to offer no real advantage over going barefoot, and fail utterly to protect the foot from the elements.