Feet and Hands

I always assumed that having painful knees was just a manifestation of achieving a certain age. I recently learned (from our daughter) that having painful knees is a manifestation (whoa--what a good word for this post!) of wearing rigid shoes that discourage your toes from having the feeling of contact with the ground when you walk.

Michael and I are in the process of getting rid of shoes that we thought were good for our feet (like Dansko clogs), and are replacing them with shoes that are wide enough in the toebox for our toes to move, and narrow enough (and nicely padded) in the heel to stay put while walking. The basic idea is to feel as comfortable in shoes as you would be without shoes. And the solution to knee pain, at least for me, is involving my toes in the way I walk, so that my big toe is the last thing to leave the ground. Zero drop "barefoot" style shoes make it possible for me to feel the way my toes interact with the ground.

Now that I am paying so much attention to my feet, I have been wondering if the parts of the brain that are allowing me to focus on my feet and toes might also be helping my hands and fingers as I navigate my way around the fingerboard and the keyboard. Since paying attention to my feet when I walk (and when I sit, and when I stand) I feel that I have more connection with my hands and fingers when I play.

I have never been comfortable wearing heels, and have been particularly uncomfortable wearing heels for concerts, because the idea of carrying my instrument while standing on my tiptoes has always been frightening.

I remember watching Yura Lee play in the Indianapolis Competition in 2006, and noticed that she wore slippers. They were elegant slippers (not fuzzy ones), and they allowed her total freedom of movement. Not wearing high heels for women is not new, but until only recently it was not considered a possibility for being "properly dressed." High heels are so often associated with female power, but they are, as far as I'm concerned, a tool of oppression. If your feet hurt but you think they make your legs look good, you give a lot of mental energy to ignoring your feet while you are in the process of "looking good." Combine this with using your hands, arms, and back to play an instrument, and you are giving your body mixed messages.

Since I have spent a lot of time online looking at Zero-drop shoes, ads for shoes that fit into the comfort profile have been popping up in my email, and in my Facebook and Instagram feeds. You can get inexpensive sneaker-like shoes that resemble the PF flyer sneakers I wore as a little kid:

I remember when "girl's" PF Flyers started getting more narrow. Big kids (like the five-year-old me and my seven-year-old big brother) didn't wear round-toed shoes (like our three-year-old little brother). Sneakers for "big" girls were narrow, to mimic the narrowness of the 1960s adult woman's shod foot, and I remember that sneakers for "big" boys were called "basketball shoes," and had a more pointed toe than the sneakers that little kids wore. All of them gave you blisters, and there was nothing you could do about it except develop callouses.

The new era of healthy adult shoes are designed for adult feet (more in the way of laces and nice padding at the heel so that you don't get blisters).

These are considered "beginner" shoes, which I think means that they are inexpensive, but they will draw you into a world of higher-end barefoot shoes, and can send eventually lead you to briefly consider the idea of spending hundreds of dollars on hand-made vegetable leather shoes made by shoe artists in remote villages in Sweden.

I wonder if wearing high heeled shoes will eventually become a thing of the past, like the way foot binding fell out of fashion in China.