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So a while back in this thread,, I had a bit of a set-to with a young man who felt I disrespected him. That wasn’t my intention, though I have to admit that I was probably using him as the designated chew toy that day.I’d like to apologize for hurting his feelings, though not at all for what I said-though I will explain it, and perhaps offer a more measured, temperate answer.
First off, though, one has to ask: why do we train in bare feet? Most of us, most of the time, wear shoes. We should train in shoes. My students and I do-and more on that later-but we also train in bare feet.
Why do we train in bare feet?
Well, we train in bare feet because that's the way it's always been done...:lfao:
(I hate that answer.)
Seriously, we train in bare feet because in Okinawa and Japan, it's customary to remove footwear when going inside. Period. End of story, mostly.....though I've always presented the idea that when you remove those shoes in the dojo vestibule, you're leaving your day's attitude, and your outside attitude behind with them, and starting fresh for the day's training. In fact, I used to have a sign in that vestibule in my dojo, right over the shoe racks. You can find that sign here. :lfao: May have to put it back up.......
Training in bare feet also gives us an opportunity to develop muscles in the feet that otherwise are not used, and a level of sensitivity to the ground/floor that's harder to develop with footwear. As an instructor, it affords me the opportunity to observe that a student’s feet are correctly oriented for kicks: ball of foot for mae geri, ball of foot or instep for mawashi geri, edge of foot or heel for yoko geri, or correctly positioned on the ground-rear heel flat in front stance, toes pointed just so, etc.
So, yeah, while I'll get back to the whole "shoes method of training" in a minute, we go bare foot because.......well, that's the way we've always done it.
In any case, most Japanese and Okinawan martial arts are practiced on wood floors, and calluses will develop over time. This is, for most of us, simply the best course of action for training: wait for the calluses, and doctor the feet in the meantime, with moleskin and tape for blisters. For the few students who have conditions that preclude their training in barefeet: diabetics, and others with possible peripheral circulatory problems, or those prone to infections for other reasons, there are a few options. In the few instances I've encountered, I've had students wear really cheap sneakers from WalMart, or these, which come in "real men's sizes," and have the advantage of being cheap, and looking sort of like the shoes Bruce Lee wore in "Enter the Dragon," so,silly as it may seem, they're aesthetically acceptable-to me/
In fact, I wear them a lot-to the gym, to drive, for shorter walks, because they're close to barefoot, and they're cheap and comfortable, and what others have posted elsewhere is true: shoes aren't really the best thing for our feet.
Granted, we have to wear them, in a variety of situations: those of us who work in an industrial setting have to wear one kind of shoe, and those of us who work in law enforcement have to wear another, cross country skiing and snowshoeing require others, hiking, boating, golfing, running, etc., etc., etc. In the meantime, we're messing our feet up, and need to get as close to bare footed as often as possible. When I run, most of the time I use the Merrell Barefoot Trail Glove, because it ....well, because-unlike Nike- it comes in real men's sizes. :lfao:
But, you may ask, shouldn’t we train in shoes if we wear shoes? And my answer would be “yes.” In fact, given the way some infections like staph can get spread, training with shoes all the time might be considered more sanitary than bare feet. After my students have trained for a while, though, I kit them up with a “street clothes” workout set, and, if they’re cops or security people, a “training uniform,” complete with duty belt. Both kits come with shoes. While it’s not a stretch for most to figure out how to position their feet when kicking in shoes, there are adjustments that should be made depending upon the shoe, whether it’s a sneaker, steel-toed work boot, hiking shoe, or dress shoe; women students even learn to kick in (moderate) high heels.
Speaking of women students, my senior most "non-family" student, Barb (Barb is "family," now, but she's Greek-no relative :lfao: ), has two seven inch rods in her spine-she had severe curvature, scoliosis, in her youth, and the rods correct it. She has what I can only judge to be tremendous back pain, and learning to roll and fall was an effort for her-in fact, at some point, I’d have let her take a pass on them if she’d only asked. She never did-nor did she complain. I have made accommodations for her along the way, but she’s never shirked at just about anything.
Of course, at 53 now, she isn’t really my “senior” most student-that honor actually belonged to a man who only trained with me for 3 years, Mr. Charles Sillivent. He was 86 when he started, and, as important as learning to fall is, it became clear pretty early on that too much of it wasn’t going to be good for him-accommodations were made for him,.
I had another woman student who’d been nastily brutalized by her ex-husband. She was an emotional wreck, and it took a lot to get her to even keep her eyes open when someone was acting as though they were going to strike her. It took a fair amount of patience on both of our parts, and will and desire on hers, to get her to train properly and actually enjoy it.
Me, I’ve mentioned elsewhere how sickly I was as a child: I wasn’t supposed to live to be 11, the age at which I began formal martial arts training. Looking back at those early years, when there were no children’s classes for the thin, frail, asthmatic, anemic child that I was, I can’t help but think that accommodations were made, but I couldn’t say what they were-only that by the time I was 14, there really weren’t any, and I was giving most of the men at my rank a real run for their money. Later, in college, I worked with an Isshin ryu guy named Tony Schifano, who ran something called the Wheelchair Karate League (this was in the late 70’s and early 80’s, and if anyone knows what happened to Tony, I’d like to know!) Anyway, I wanted to learn to teach people with special needs, which he knew more than a little about, and I also got to ref for these maniacs in wheelchairs and on crutches, amputees and paraplegics, going at it to about kill each other.
And , while I’ve never had a truly blind student, I have had a legally blind one-guy had to hold a page right against his face to read it. And I once lost a judo match to a blind guy from Florida…..:lfao:
Diabetes? Scoliosis with steel rods in the back? Wheelchairs, crutches, blindness? Old age? Emotional trauma? I've seen them all over the last 40 years. They can be serious impediments to training, and, if the desire’s really there, accommodations should be made.
Blisters? I'e seen lots more of those, and, accomodations?Not so much…..
First off, though, one has to ask: why do we train in bare feet? Most of us, most of the time, wear shoes. We should train in shoes. My students and I do-and more on that later-but we also train in bare feet.
Why do we train in bare feet?
Well, we train in bare feet because that's the way it's always been done...:lfao:
(I hate that answer.)
Seriously, we train in bare feet because in Okinawa and Japan, it's customary to remove footwear when going inside. Period. End of story, mostly.....though I've always presented the idea that when you remove those shoes in the dojo vestibule, you're leaving your day's attitude, and your outside attitude behind with them, and starting fresh for the day's training. In fact, I used to have a sign in that vestibule in my dojo, right over the shoe racks. You can find that sign here. :lfao: May have to put it back up.......
Training in bare feet also gives us an opportunity to develop muscles in the feet that otherwise are not used, and a level of sensitivity to the ground/floor that's harder to develop with footwear. As an instructor, it affords me the opportunity to observe that a student’s feet are correctly oriented for kicks: ball of foot for mae geri, ball of foot or instep for mawashi geri, edge of foot or heel for yoko geri, or correctly positioned on the ground-rear heel flat in front stance, toes pointed just so, etc.
So, yeah, while I'll get back to the whole "shoes method of training" in a minute, we go bare foot because.......well, that's the way we've always done it.
In any case, most Japanese and Okinawan martial arts are practiced on wood floors, and calluses will develop over time. This is, for most of us, simply the best course of action for training: wait for the calluses, and doctor the feet in the meantime, with moleskin and tape for blisters. For the few students who have conditions that preclude their training in barefeet: diabetics, and others with possible peripheral circulatory problems, or those prone to infections for other reasons, there are a few options. In the few instances I've encountered, I've had students wear really cheap sneakers from WalMart, or these, which come in "real men's sizes," and have the advantage of being cheap, and looking sort of like the shoes Bruce Lee wore in "Enter the Dragon," so,silly as it may seem, they're aesthetically acceptable-to me/
In fact, I wear them a lot-to the gym, to drive, for shorter walks, because they're close to barefoot, and they're cheap and comfortable, and what others have posted elsewhere is true: shoes aren't really the best thing for our feet.
Granted, we have to wear them, in a variety of situations: those of us who work in an industrial setting have to wear one kind of shoe, and those of us who work in law enforcement have to wear another, cross country skiing and snowshoeing require others, hiking, boating, golfing, running, etc., etc., etc. In the meantime, we're messing our feet up, and need to get as close to bare footed as often as possible. When I run, most of the time I use the Merrell Barefoot Trail Glove, because it ....well, because-unlike Nike- it comes in real men's sizes. :lfao:
But, you may ask, shouldn’t we train in shoes if we wear shoes? And my answer would be “yes.” In fact, given the way some infections like staph can get spread, training with shoes all the time might be considered more sanitary than bare feet. After my students have trained for a while, though, I kit them up with a “street clothes” workout set, and, if they’re cops or security people, a “training uniform,” complete with duty belt. Both kits come with shoes. While it’s not a stretch for most to figure out how to position their feet when kicking in shoes, there are adjustments that should be made depending upon the shoe, whether it’s a sneaker, steel-toed work boot, hiking shoe, or dress shoe; women students even learn to kick in (moderate) high heels.
Speaking of women students, my senior most "non-family" student, Barb (Barb is "family," now, but she's Greek-no relative :lfao: ), has two seven inch rods in her spine-she had severe curvature, scoliosis, in her youth, and the rods correct it. She has what I can only judge to be tremendous back pain, and learning to roll and fall was an effort for her-in fact, at some point, I’d have let her take a pass on them if she’d only asked. She never did-nor did she complain. I have made accommodations for her along the way, but she’s never shirked at just about anything.
Of course, at 53 now, she isn’t really my “senior” most student-that honor actually belonged to a man who only trained with me for 3 years, Mr. Charles Sillivent. He was 86 when he started, and, as important as learning to fall is, it became clear pretty early on that too much of it wasn’t going to be good for him-accommodations were made for him,.
I had another woman student who’d been nastily brutalized by her ex-husband. She was an emotional wreck, and it took a lot to get her to even keep her eyes open when someone was acting as though they were going to strike her. It took a fair amount of patience on both of our parts, and will and desire on hers, to get her to train properly and actually enjoy it.
Me, I’ve mentioned elsewhere how sickly I was as a child: I wasn’t supposed to live to be 11, the age at which I began formal martial arts training. Looking back at those early years, when there were no children’s classes for the thin, frail, asthmatic, anemic child that I was, I can’t help but think that accommodations were made, but I couldn’t say what they were-only that by the time I was 14, there really weren’t any, and I was giving most of the men at my rank a real run for their money. Later, in college, I worked with an Isshin ryu guy named Tony Schifano, who ran something called the Wheelchair Karate League (this was in the late 70’s and early 80’s, and if anyone knows what happened to Tony, I’d like to know!) Anyway, I wanted to learn to teach people with special needs, which he knew more than a little about, and I also got to ref for these maniacs in wheelchairs and on crutches, amputees and paraplegics, going at it to about kill each other.
And , while I’ve never had a truly blind student, I have had a legally blind one-guy had to hold a page right against his face to read it. And I once lost a judo match to a blind guy from Florida…..:lfao:
Diabetes? Scoliosis with steel rods in the back? Wheelchairs, crutches, blindness? Old age? Emotional trauma? I've seen them all over the last 40 years. They can be serious impediments to training, and, if the desire’s really there, accommodations should be made.
Blisters? I'e seen lots more of those, and, accomodations?Not so much…..
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