Zen Foot Philosopher - Bare Feet Running and Loving It.

There are a million and one different ways to have a bare feet running session. There can be tons of different goals in mind whether its health, competition, length of run, distance ran, etc. I've observed that the mental game of bare feet running can cause a lot of stress to the runner causing them to not being able to enjoy their experience as much as they could be enjoying it. I just wanted to give a little background on what I do to stay present when running. As a lot of people that bare feet run know, that when you plug yourself into the world, most times it isn't really about the run itself (sometimes it definitely is) but the ability to enjoy the trail, to see new sites, or things that you may of not picked up last time on the trail that you enjoy running when you go out. When I first started running trails in my home town, it was only about the health and competition aspect and I always timed my runs and tried to beat them, which gave a small flake of accomplishment but it felt almost painful to go through this process. I was so caught up in trying to do better that I was never able to fully enjoy everything that goes into bare feet running. That's when I changed my view on what bare feet running means to me that saved me.

Mind over Matter

I learned more and more it wasn't the run itself that was bothering me, but the need to reach some goal. Having my watch there timing me as well as trying to track how far I've run seemed to really distract me from what was physically going on around me. This is where I picked up the philosophy of, "why not just run to run, no goal set in stone." I guess of course you can argue that in itself is a goal, but my stresses began to melt away. The less I was worried about how long I had to run or how far I had to run, the more I could enjoy the different beauties of the run itself: the aesthetics of the trail, the movements of the body and being more in tune with it, and also in my case the wonderful music I filled my mp3 with.

image courtesy of austin360.com

By dropping the other goals, I was able to see other things which lightened my runs up tenfold. It also allowed me to just let those thoughts of, "you can't do this." wither and die. We have to keep in mind that those things are only thoughts, it has nothing to do with the bodies ability to do or not do, and having picked up a better sense of the body allows you to check with reality if it can actually do it rather than having to be troubled by thoughts.

Vibram KSO

The first review that I'm going to do are on the first pair of bare feet running shoes that I every owned. They are known as the Vibram Five Fingers KSO (Keep Stuff Out). These were an exciting new endeavor for me when I first started running bare foot and it was all thanks to a video that I saw from Tim Ferris' blog. He was wearing these slightly goofy looking shoes and was talking about how they strengthen the bones in your feet and legs and well... pretty much your whole posture given you were them often.

Image courtesy of Vibram FiveFingers.

I put these bare feet running shoes to the test not by first running but by walking around my college campus in them. My pair were blue at the time and they got looks and questions but they seemed to be working. My feet got sore but not without reason, they were strengthening my toes and legs and my arches became more arch worthy. I wore them out needless to say as I wore these awesome bare feet running shoes out within several months and here are some things to look for when looking at these:

Barefooting and Minimalism

Welcome to the Barefoot Philosopher experience. I hope you've become comfortable in your nice comfy chair while reading this. I'm going to make my purpose short and sweet, and give you my best intentions in the next couple of paragraphs for this first post. Firstly I want to thank you for visiting, you are obviously here for a reason, whether you were looking for some feedback on the barefeet shoes of your choice, life suggestions, or perhaps just for the pure enjoyment of the content that I have and will continue to have up on this blog. All of these are splendid reasons for why you've come. My intentions are going to be simple:

Freedom Starts With Mastering the Mind

Now this is the philosophy part of it, first everything inside needs to be freed up to see with the utmost clarity. Some people call the mind the monkey mind because it always seems to be going. There is no way in which we can control these thoughts from happening as their job is to compete for attention through circumstance and reaction. Their reason for existence is to dominate their world, their reality. So to free this space up is to have no-mind which I think we can agree on to some extent. This doesn't mean to veg out and not do anything, if anything it is freeing. It frees you up to not be carried along by the demands of the thoughts. Let us face it, thoughts are like parasites, there are what could be considered good or bad thought but given that a competing thought is endagered of losing its dominance it will have no qualms with causing damage to the host (thats you) and thats where fear comes in and restricts us in life. It keeps many people from rising up over their fears and doing what they honestly love doing and creating their own name instead of walking in the shadows of other great minds. Why not be your own light and walk in your own light where shadow cannot pray and control your every move? WHY NOT? It first comes like releasing an addiction from your body, and it isn't easy, its almost like erasing everything that you've come to learn about yourself to see that all of that stuff wasn't really true, and to find out what you really are and always have been; A beacon of light.