Footwear musings....

Since moving as much as possible from 'conventional' Western footwear toward things like Vibram Five Fingers and tabi I've noticed a couple of things which are interesting at least to me. Foremost, the change in posture they engender- it's significantly forward from where it is in other shoes. Particularly for someone who tended to be a heel-strike walker, this is significant. Now, instead of my heels hitting the ground first, my weight gets initially distributed between the toes and ball of the foot.

Secondarily- and directly contingent to the first- this is why the ninja evolved the reputation for being so damned stealthy. It doesn't take any particular amount of grace- I can do it, and I think I've something less than the median- to move reasonably rapidly and fairly quietly when you change the physiological perspective in such a minor yet significant manner (minor, in that on my foot, we're talking a change of under 20cm; significant in that the change is from a significant heel-strike to plausibly no heel contact at all).