19 September

I looked at 'barefoot shoes' a few times. The idea is deceptively appealing. Shoes that allow your feet to act as if they're barefoot, while giving you protection from dirt and cuts etc. But experience and some thought makes me question these now. A well-fitted shoe is not a container for your foot to move inside. It's more like a wrapping of your foot, a snug fit that becomes like an extra layer on the outside of your foot. For a while I thought arch support was a silly thing, your arches work fine without support. But support is the wrong word, it's a molding of the shoe to match your foot shape, and an elasticity of the whole material to allow the shoe to bend and twist as you walk. That way your foot can act as if barefoot, just with this extra elastic layer fitted to it. Barefoot shoes on the other hand seem more about letting the foot move inside the shoe. I think that's the worst of all worlds. The movement will be restricted no matter what you do, causing all sorts of problems.