#turnshoes

In the end however I succumbed to the siren song of a new crafty hobby.

The shoes turned and well but before I added the laces and the sneaky rubber sole.

Myself perched on a stack of books like the gremlin child I am to provide proper pressure to glue my cheaty cheater rubber soles in the hope it will make my turnshoes last a bit longer

My new turnshoes with laces and soles, finally on my feet only to discover that in my fear of making them too small I actually made them a bit too big... but they fit well enough to not be too much of a bother so I wore them yesterday at the midwinter Fair.

Which immediately became a true stress test since while immensely fun the midwinter Fair was muddy and later rainy as well.

I discovered that the next generation of turnshoe really needed to fit well and snugly at the heel and ankle since my turnshoes like to droop there and if I was not careful I occasionally would end up walking on the thinner upper leather and not the ticker, rubber covered sole. I also discovered I need to find better glue to glue the rubber sole because after even one day in the wet, the rubber sole already wants to detach a bit.

In the 1500's in Western Europe, shoes were different. People wore “turn shoes”, leather shoes that were made inside out then reversed for wear. This was likely the beginning of the use of molds to make shoes, carpenters up until the twentieth century would carve a wooden foot model of various sizes to model the process and standardize it.

These "Turn Shoes" were replaced by shoes with a frame construction as shoes changed to adapt to different environments, as streets changed.

The Turn shoes were basically a slip on or lace up thick leather sock. Thus, they were zero drop, soft, and provided much "feel" for the ground. Proprioception was obviously well appreciated.

We have spoken about the difference between heel strike and heel contact in walking. One can safely heel strike if barefoot on soft grass, but one cannot on the hard concrete or asphalt that we have covered much of our world with. Thus, if one were to wear "turn shoes" in our modern era, one would be forced to adapt to a heel contact or "heel kiss" on the ground, meaning, a more predominant forefoot loading style as described in this video.

What he describes, is largely not a choice, it was because they were in soft thin leather sock all day long, and even on wood or hard dirt packed floors and cart paths all day long, the heels would want some reprieve from heel "strike".

Another way around this, to reduce heel strike, is to do it more naturally, by shortening the step and stride lengths a little, by keeping the body mass over the foot strike. "Chi Running" and "Chi walking" are based off of this principle. By moving the body mass forward with the foot, one has to naturally reduce heel strike. If one lags the body mass behind the foot, the foot moves out in front, and heel strike begins to naturally (or shall we say, unnaturally) out in front, more heavily.

He gets a few things wrong in the video, in terms of "ease" of walking, but largely it is decently done. One has to be careful if they perch the foot out in front like he does in the slower demonstration, in a plantarflexed ankle and foot, one can easily begin to lock up the knees. We often see this in teenagers in flip-flops.