I’ve decided - for no particular reason, just because - to write about the weekend just passed in terms of footwear. If you object to this… well I won’t actually change it back, so there’s probably no point complaining about it.
Folk dancers use a range of different shoes, generally based on the style they do most or that first introduced them to dancing. Scottish and Irish soft dancing shoes are exceedingly common, swing dancing shoes as well, Irish hard shoes less so. I’m possibly unique and certainly rare, in that I dance wearing hiking sandals. Essentially the sole of a hiking boot held on with a few straps instead of leather and laces (straps, leather and lace… somewhere along the way this post took a turn for the strange). They’re heavy, the grip’s all wrong for dancing and they look bizarre, but they’re also extremely comfortable. I’ve learned to work around the rest. That said, I still dance barefoot half the time because it’s even more comfortable. That’s how I spent Friday night, dancing barefoot through a few hours of Irish and folk dancing.
Saturday morning brought a new challenge. Riding uses particular footwear as well, but I normally ride wearing work shoes because that’s where I’m going to or from. So when I go mountain biking, I don’t have any special riding shoes to wear. Though it makes people wince to see all the exposed skin, I often ride wearing my hiking sandals (look, they’re
really comfortable!). I deviated from that this weekend by using some high-top volleys. The track was pretty narrow and I didn’t want my feet getting too shredded by passing shrubbery. As it was, I should have worried more about my hands and face, which both sustained injuries when falling in the line of duty.
I’ve done very little climbing over the years and have no fancy climbing shoes either. So I stuck with the volleys on Saturday arvo, figuring that the grip they gave would be good. Wrong, very wrong. The toe on a pair of volleys is a soft thing that bends easily, regardless of how your toes are positioned. Trying to maintain a grip on a precarious toehold proved nigh on impossible. I also wore half the remaining tread off the soles trying to use their grip on the weathered dolerite. If you’ve not spent much time in Tas, it’s entirely possible you haven’t studied this rock up close. Freshly cut, it’s a mottled grey and can be quite smooth. It weathers to an ochre hue with a texture like grit 1 sandpaper, if there is such a thing. Nice and grippy, but death for any soft-soled shoes.
Sunday morning was an easy choice. Making cheese requires no special footwear, so I could wear my hiking sandals! Alas, some exercises in the afternoon required some creative thought. The soles of my volleys were already worn thin by a couple of the exercises at Hell Night in Wellington, and the climbing had nearly finished them off. They wouldn’t give me any good grip. A discussion at Hell Night had me tempted to just go barefoot. The guy running it mentioned that cushioned modern shoes encourage really bad practices when running, which cause a lot of additional wear on the joints. He had us practice a running style that avoids those problems and mentioned that it was almost instinctive whenever running barefoot. I’ve tried and I think he’s right. Unfortunately I’m less inclined to run around in the dark barefoot, lest some unkind person leaves glass strewn amid the concealing grass. So I needed a thin but tough sole, with no padding… Something I had already considered for the next time I go rockclimbing is my old pair of rafting shoes. Turns out five fingers are pretty much ideal, with a tough grippy sole and absolutely no padding. I’ll give them a try next time I go climbing as well, though I’m told I will soon have to try climbing in walking boots.
(I actually have some photos, and not all of shoes! For the sake of not delaying this any longer, I'll post this now and upload the photos in an edit later.)
EDIT: See, one of them was of people who'd just donned their shoes!
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