Can we learn to love our feet?

Feet are loved and hated. In the west especially, they spend most of their time away in shoes or confined in leather, plastic or various other shoe materials!

But how can learning more about our feet, help us feel more grounded in yoga and achieve stronger and deeper poses?

Strap yourself in, as we are about to be taken on whistle stop tour of the most beautiful, strong and stable area of the body!

What’s in a foot? Are they the same all over the world?

Each one of our feet is made up of 26 bones, 30 joints and more than 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments, all of which work together to provide support, balance and mobility.

After spending a lot of time in other countries, I have become quite fascinated with the feet in different cultures and places. I have noticed a bit of a pattern. Cultures and countries that tend to have warmer climates and therefore wear more open toed shoes, walk barefoot or flip-flops, have stronger, wider and more spread out feet. Cultures and countries where closed toe shoes, slippers, heels or boots are the norm tend to have narrower feet and show complaints such as bunions, hammer toes and painful walking. I am no expert and these are just my general findings, but surely, it makes sense. If we put our feet in shoes as soon as we can walk, our feet are being manipulated away from their normal and natural development. By putting a closed and sturdy shoe around the foot, it limits its spread and therefore reduces our contact with the earth. (Maybe this is why I am challenged in the balancing department!)     

The more narrow and ill fitting shoes we can sometimes wear, the less space our feet have to spread on the floor, therefore making walking, balancing, running, hopping, skipping, tree pose, dancer pose, warrior pose (the list goes on) harder and trickier. I would even go as far as to say, the more physically balanced we are, perhaps the more mentally balanced we may be able to feel as well.

After all, our feet have over 200,000 nerve endings per sole. By wearing shoes all the time, we are cutting off and numbing this incredible network. The less we use of something in out bodies, the more it will be forgotten. I am here to petition for you not to forget your feet!

So what can we all do to promote healthy and happy feet? 

• Take those shoes off!
• Attend a Yoga class and spread, spread, spread those toes!
• Look at your feet everyday, learn to love them.
• Practise lifting your toes up and spreading them down 5 times each day.
• Be wild and walk outside with no shoes!

There is a fantastic resource online if you want to learn more about foot health and its impact on your overall wellbeing. I can highly recommend this website to further your knowledge and understanding.

https://www.thefootcollective.com/

I look forward to hearing all about your incredible feet

All the best,

Charlotte – Founder of Antara Yoga