'Running barefoot' vs 'Wearing high-tech running shoes' ...

A few months ago, while reading an article titled 'Your Feet, Your Shoes, Your Choices' on the IDEA Fitness Journal, I got amazed by the story of a Californian chiropractor whose client was getting repetitive injuries while wearing 3,000 US$ running shoes. He jokingly advised his client to buy cheap basic running shoes at the outlet store next door, which the client did (as a joke too), coming to train the next day with a 20 US$ pair of sport shoes. A few weeks later, the client's injuries problems had disappeared.

The first though coming through my mind reading this paragraph was actually, "Well, weren't Native American Indians running barefoot on the North America plains before their genocide? What's the need of spending millions researching & manufacturing high priced running shoes, advertising them, building the industrial machinery to measure the impact of the foot on earth, while destroying Mother Earth's resources along the way? All this in the name of progress..." It seemed to me that this discovery of the fact that running barefoot was healthier than wearing hyper protective expensive shoes is a huge step forward showing us how futile the

notion of progress is. We are fighting against Mother Nature instead of living in communion with it. No wonder we aren't in touch with ourselves and the energies around us.

An anecdote about barefoot running: Adidas, the shoe sponsor at the Rome 1960 Summer Olympics, had few shoes left when Abebe Bikila (who had been added to the Ethiopian Olympic team only at the last moment) went to try out shoes. He ended up with a pair that didn’t fit comfortably, so he couldn't use them. A couple of hours before the race, Bikila decided to run barefoot, the way he'd trained for the race. Abebe Bikila won the gold medal while running barefoot at the Rome 1960 Olympics Marathon.