Barefoot for Life

It seems that my four weeks of barefoot experimentation is coming to a close as of today. If I remember correctly, the whole reason I started this project was because my sandals chafed my feet and I had freed myself of them in a spontaneous moment of independence. Now, four weeks later, those same sandals are lost to me. I left them last night in the film editing lab, a room where neither me nor my sandals belong, in a building that I don't even have access to. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, there is no such thing as omens or mystical signs; they only have importance if I interpret them to be important. At the moment, I feel like my missing sandals can be loosely interpreted as an encouraging gesture to continue my barefoot journal, which I will resolutely continue.

Barefoot Adventure: 11.12.2010

Ran (barefoot) from the library back to Del Rey South at 6am to catch the sunrise and somehow got to watch the sunrise with all my friends on my birthday :)
Thank you guys.

After-Sunrise-Walk Playlist

Barefoot Dancing the Sublime

Lately, I’ve caught myself salsa dancing on the way to Spanish class. Sometimes I two-step on the way to Introductory Business. I don’t know what it is – there is something about going barefoot that makes me want to dance. One thing I’ve noticed about dancing with my bare feet is that I become aware of every step and every movement: sometimes you can just be walking and because you feel your feet touch the floor, you’re inclined to make your feet touch the floor in a very special way.

 Where our feet touch the floor and how our feet touch the floor are incredibly monumental parts of our lives, but it’s something that usually goes unnoticed because we’re usually wearing shoes. However, let us not be ignorant of the benefits of shoes: as poignantly stated by the character Phil DeVoss in Cameron Crowe’s movie Elizabethtown, “a shoe is not just a shoe; it connects us to the earth.” (Crowe). But what if the shoe wasn’t a connection, but rather, a barrier? This character, Phil DeVoss as played by Alec Baldwin, essentially could be described as the Steve Jobs of the shoe industry. Representing the head of the most prosperous multimillion dollar shoe company in the world, DeVoss was responsible for only two meaningful things: the pithy quote, “I’m ill-equipped in the philosophies of failure”, and the firing of the movie’s protagonist, Drew Baylor as played by Orlando Bloom, who saw DeVoss in a simultaneously sincere and sarcastic sort of awe. You see, DeVoss was brilliant, but his entire empire was built upon shoes. As Baylor thoughtfully points out, “can you imagine an entire life wrapped up in a shoe?” (Crowe.) Now, what if we removed the shoe, removed the shoe as a foundation for our economic empire, removed the shoe as a barrier? What if we could go barefoot and what if there was nothing dividing us from the earth? What if we were truly connected?

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            For some reason, there are few published books written explicitly about barefooted-ness, but there are hundreds of books written about shoes. There must be some innate tendency of humans to write books about things instead of the absence of things, but occasionally a book on shoes will feature an essay on such a paradoxical concept as “no shoes”, and in the midst of all this existence – all these shoes that exist and are real and are tangible, there appears a fluttering attempt at capturing that which is not tangible and that which does not exist: the absence of shoes, i.e. bare feet. And just what do bare feet have to do with shoes, anyways? Are shoes and bare feet just two completely disparate and separate concepts? Or in their world of opposites are they, as Heidegger might say, inherently connected in coexistence in that feet could never be considered “bare” if we did not have shoes to cover them up in the first place? (Guignon.) This view makes going barefoot into an “anti-shoe” movement, and accurately so: in going barefoot, one makes a statement against all the confinements of shoes and popular culture, and what more vibrant way to defy the shoe-status-quo than through dance? According to Gerri Reaves’ article “The Slip in the Ballet Slipper: The Illusion and the Naked Foot”, the techniques of the barefoot Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, the two most important early-twentieth-century modern dancers, utilized barefoot dancing to “offer a sensual counterpoint to the masochism of the ballet slipper” that was predominant in the ballet dancing characteristic to that era. (Reaves 264.) These two women were making a statement against the contorted positions of ballet dancers. Choosing more comfortable and sensual poses, Graham and Duncan 

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opted to focus not on how high a dancer could jump, but on how eloquently her feet could sink into the ground. In Graham’s dance “Satyric Festival Song” (see picture 3), she utilizes gravity in such a way that “the energy surges from her arched bare foot through the lines of her body, traverses the horizontal lines of her dress, and continues even to the tips of her flying hair” (Reaves 264.) Graham’s bare feet allow her to really feel the floor, making her more aware of her surroundings, which creates that “connection” I mentioned before between the barefoot dancer and the earth.

            One does not even need to be standing on the ground to be aware of one’s surroundings via feet. The husband and wife dancing couple, C. Derrick Jones and Nehara Kalev of Catch Me Bird, utilize their feet and their legs to look completely natural while perpetually hanging in an overhead apparatus. 

Notice their slow awakening as demonstrated through the tender movement of their feet and legs, while still balanced precariously ten feet over a concrete stage. See how her foot slides up the circle gently while his feet remain poised in midair as he descends to the lower rung. In this performance Silk, the dancer couple celebrates their third anniversary by working out all their marital issues on stage in a combination of aggressive and tender dance sequences that at times resemble the foreplay to lovemaking, and at other times, resemble fist fights. No matter what sequence they were doing, it was fascinating and precious, but in a way that was really indescribable by words and uncapturable by camera. I saw this performance many years ago, in a time where I did not yet walk without shoes, but upon seeing them dance and live vivaciously on stage, I could not help but dance through the parking lot as well. But big boots are too cumbersome to dance in, and I tripped myself in the cold.

            The cold is the one thing from which bare feet cannot save you, even when you’re hot-blooded from dancing. You’re still dancing in the cold November winds with the wind whipping through your hair and the crisp sunlight taunting you with the pretense of heat. But that doesn’t stop barefoot dancers. Not me. Not my friends.
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In a time where man and woman feel most isolated, all you need to do is take off your shoes, stand firmly on the ground and realize that every other man and woman on Earth is standing on this ground, too. Take off your shoes and feel the interconnectedness of every human being, a slow awakening that spreads upwards from your feet into your chest like soft warmth. Realize that you are not alone. Realize it, and with this realization even if you were not inclined to dance before, you should be inclined to dance now.

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Works Cited

634.x600.dance.gift.graham.jpg. Photograph. Zap 2 It. Web. [picture 2]

Elizabethtown. By Cameron Crowe. Dir. Cameron Crowe. Perf. Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. Paramount, 2005. DVD.

Guignon, Charles B., and Derk Pereboom. Existentialism: Basic Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001. Print.

Morgan, Barbara. Satyric Festival Song. 1935. Photograph. Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA. Chrysler.org. Web. [picture 3]

Reaves, Gerri. "The Slip in the Ballet Slipper: Illusion and the Naket Foot." Footnotes: on Shoes. By Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2001. 251-71. Print.

Twin Rings. Perf. C. Derrick Jones and Nehara Kalev. YouTube. 06 Nov. 2008. Web. 2 Nov. 2010. 


pictures 1, 4, 5, 6 were taken by me, Jasmine Dahilig.
friends Amanda Goad and Victoria Rocha modeled for pictures 4, 5, 6 

Eighth Foot Walk 10.26.2010

 Today, I am a hopeless frazzled mess and I broke the number 1 rule of barefoot walking: look clean. You see, to me there are a certain number of rules that you must obey if you are walking barefoot because you still exist within society and you need to make barefoot walking plausible to the non-barefoot-goers.

My rules are as thus:

1.       Look clean
2.               Don’t put your feet on the table
3.       Dance

That last on is less of a rule than it is a side effect, as going barefoot increases the likelihood of one wanting to dance. Anyways, the first one (“look clean”) is a necessity to barefoot walking – that is, if you don’t want people to think you’re a complete slob. If you have the mindset of not caring at all what people think, then you essentially have no rules for barefoot walking and that would be a different case altogether. However, my purpose is to explore the benefits of barefoot walking and to make it appealing to all the N.B.F.s (non-barefoot-walkers). In barefoot walking, one needs to be clean in order to dispel the myths that walking without shoes is “dirty”. The social stigma of walking barefoot is most likely based in the fact that people can get many infections from walking barefoot. 

Question: Can you still have cute feet if you walk barefoot?

My Instructions for Clean Barefoot Walking:

1.     Shower regularly

2.     Paint and maintain toenails

3.     Use lotion on top of feet

4.     Dress nicely, not slovenly

5.     Wash your hair so it looks nice

6.     Use deodorant so you smell decent

       According to The Dancer's Survival Manual by Marian Horosko and Judith F. Kupersmith, M.D., there is a set of other instructions specifically for dancers who get nasty callused feet:

1.   "Manicures and Pedicures: A weekly manicure can keep your nails trimmed enough not to scratch a partner, and a pedicure can keep your feet relatively soft and pain-free or with the calluses in the right place with sufficient flexibility.

2. "Foot Odor and Fungus Infection: For a foot odor problem caused by... perspiration, use an antibacterial soap.  A fungus infection can be treated orally or externally. Beware of showers in public gyms and even in studios. Infected nails become thick and discolored, break, and fall off easily.
3. "Splinters: Gently open the skin with a cauterized point (such as a sanitized needle) and remove the splinter with tweezers.
4. "Blisters: Puncture the blister with a sterilized needle to drain, but do not remove the blister cap. Apply Neosporin and a loose bandage. Air to heal faster.
5. "Calluses: Rub with a pumice stone, sea salt, or a motorized slough machine. Cut out an adhesive pad to fit around the joint of the big toe to remove pressure along the side and bottom. Bunions are where most calluses occur."(Horosko 80-83.)

Even though the list above was designed specifically for dancers, we as barefoot walkers can take the basics of foot care and treatment and apply it to our own feet. Now, that we've gone over the proper foot care, please remember to always take good care of your feet!




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Works Cited
Horosko, Marian, and Judith R. F. Kupersmith. The Dancer's Survival Manual: Everything You Need to Know from the First Class to Career Change. Gainesville: University of Florida, 2009. Print.

INTERIM GAP PERIOD OF BAREFOOT WALKS 10.25.2010

Day 3 Hurt like hell.

Day 4 Rained and I slipped and fell comically in the mud in front of a line of umbrellaed viewers.

Day 5 I brought socks to University Hall because it was cold.

Day 6 Glass shattered in the Honors Annex. Dangerous.

Second Foot Walk 10.18.2010

A whole day of walking barefoot and I have so many questions!

Is the old wives’ tale about getting cold if your feet are cold tru?

If so, why the hell did I start this barefoot walk in October?

How easy is it to get tapeworms and what does that look like?

What does walking on mushrooms do to your sole/soul?

Who else walks barefoot? Who walked barefoot in history?

How do you properly care for callused feet? Barefoot feet?

A record of the day:

• I painted my toenails today!
• And I had to roll my pants up because walking without shoes makes me that much shorter.
• My feet were a little cold today but a long-sleeve and thin cardigan made me warm enough overall.
• I stepped on a snail.

First Foot Walk 10.14.2010

I don't know if my feet have feelings, but I think they felt relief today. Earlier today I had taken off my sandals – surreptitiously dubbed “Gladiators” by some pretentious hipster somewhere – because my calves hurt so much from running last night. The irony is that I took off my shoes to ease leg pain only to discover that the floor hurt so much more! I'm realizing how tender my bourgeois feet are, and I'm anticipating with great anxiety the development of strong calluses on my feet - anything to make the pain go away! There’s this one spot, a path rather, in front of the College of Business Administration building that is made up of sharp rocks that cut into your feet a little bit more with every step forward. This building, this path, is supposed to represent the path I follow to my future because I am a Business major. If I were to walk this path without calluses, I don’t know if I could stand the pain without giving up. 


After walking on concrete and jagged rock for few hours, I was able to walk on carpet in the library, which resulted in a peculiar sort of ecstasy, as I could still feel the dull throbbing from the walk before, but only realized how much pain I was in  when I stood on the spongy surface of the library carpet and the intense pain subsided momentarily. When I dared to look at the bottom of my feet, they were red and raw from the hot pavement and the skin was dry and cracking and my feet all over were covered in dirt. Needless to say, I was a little freaked out, and for good reason too. According to an article in the New York Times, walking barefoot with a cut or crack on the bottom of my foot makes me much more vulnerable to infection. (Hartocollis.) Also, walking on wet grass - even though it feels SO GOOD -  "can damage the skin's natural barrier, allowing infections to take hold, said Dr. Giuseppe Militello, an assistant professor of clinical dermatology at Columbia University." (Hartocollis.) Walking barefoot in the grass, I'm likely to catch a couple different infections like athlete's foot, or plantar warts. Additionally, I am likely to get infected with hookworms if "bare areas of skins such as bare feet or the torso come in contact with soil contaminated with [hookworm] larvae", which is shed in the feces of infected dogs or cats. (Marx, abstract.) Apparently, the right conditions for a nasty infection can be found in "many manicured city parks... where the grass is moist and shaded, well-watered by automatic sprinkler systems, and well-trampled by thousands of feet, shod and unshod, human and animal, carrying countless infectious organisms." (Hartocollis.) So if anything, my lesson learned is to avoid damp soil and grass! That's just as well because walking on wet surfaces softens my feet, which makes it hurt even more when I start to walk on concrete again.




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Works Cited 

Hartocollis, By Anemona. "Barefoot in the Park? Watch Your Step - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 26 May 2008. Web. 16 Oct. 2010. . 

Marx, M B. "Parasites, Pets, and People." Prim Care 18.1 (1991 Mar): 153-65. MEDLINE. Web. 15 Oct. 2010.