Feets of Magic

    Out on the streets, I am known as "Barefoot Magic Man" for my "feets" of magic. I have never actually heard anyone call me that, but I am fairly certain that's what onlookers are thinking when they see me sprinting down the street in my barefeet. My impromptu audience is amazed when they see me running sprints with nothing up my sleeves or on my feet except, well, nothing. That's right, barefoot sprinting in public conjures up an audience of disbelievers every time. "And now ladies and gentlemen, for my next feat of magic I will run on hard pavement in my barefeet." And just like ordinary folks being amazed by magician David Blaine creating magic on the streets, my audience will challenge me with the usual, “WOW, how do you do that?... that’s impossible!...doesn't that hurt?...and Wow, that’s unbelievable!” I am actually amazed by my audience that they can magically pull all those words out of their empty little hats and make them appear in one breathtaking non-stop sentence -- that is magic to me, how do they do it?!

I used to get asked those very same questions when I was a young magician performing feats of magic at clubs, restaurants, and parties. But now, I am no longer a magician of magic tricks, I just take my “feets” of magic out onto the streets and sprint barefoot. When asked by astonished onlookers where my running shoes are, I say I am a “street-feet” magician and I made my shoes disappear from my feet and then reappear way over there on that squirrel. I confidently exclaim this miracle while looking and pointing behind them in the distance using the magic of misdirection to make everyone look the other way. While they are still looking for the angry squirrel wearing my running shoes, I slip away quietly, no shoes/no sound, and when their blank stares return to where I had just been, I too have now disappeared. “WOW, where did he go?... that’s impossible!...and Wow, that’s unbelievable, how did he do that!” - but that squirrel would never tell.

And just like that squirrel, I would never divulge the secrets of how my illusions worked because it took me many hours of practice to learn how to perform them convincingly. So what’s the secret to sprinting barefoot I have been asked. Practice I will say. Like magicians have said for millennia, “Practice makes perfect.” If you are a beginner barefooter, practice padding around on the tiled flooring in your house in your barefeet until they become comfortable with all of the dirt, critter hair, sticky stuff, and crumbs now stuck to the bottom of your feet. Then stride on into the living room and share all of those goodies with the rugs in your house. Once you feel comfortable dragging all of that debris around on your soles, and you no longer cry out in pain if you step on a cornflake, then you are ready for steppin' on out.

It's time now to take your bare dogs for a walk outside when you walk your other dogs, you know the ones with fur on them. And if fur on them applies to your feet as well, you might consider a different lifestyle other than barefoot. Outside is where you will encounter the real world of barefooting adventure. This is where the magic happens. The more you practice going barefoot outside, the less you will notice when stepping on things like small rocks and pebbles, sticks, glass, screws, bugs, amphibians, reptiles, dog poop, snot rockets (more about those in an upcoming post), acorns, squirrels that are angry because you’ve stepped on their acorns, and any other lumpy, hard, sharp thing that you might encounter with each timid step taken.

It’s actually not that bad. I have stepped on just a few small rocks, and several large acorns, but that is it, and I have never been injured. Your feet will use the magic of proprioception which will minimize any pain or injury to the foot. And like a mind-reader, I know what you are thinking right now. You are wondering how does that proprio-something-or-other word help me survive being barefoot out here in the wild. A simple explanation of that term goes something like this: the nerves on the bottom of your feet will alert your brain instantly that you have stepped on something that might cause injury. As soon as your brain receives that message, it will instantly "tweet" the foot in imminent danger instructing it to perform a "Houdini" to escape from stepping hard on the object. This all happens in the blink of an eye.

Here’s another secret I will share with you. The best places to walk outside barefoot is on sidewalks or streets. Concrete and asphalt is actually friendlier to your feet than walking on grassy fields or lawns that can conceal many of those previously mentioned impediments to your bare-bipedal movement.

It doesn’t take too long (several weeks to a month) before your feet begin to toughen up to the terrain, they grow stronger as they build some solid muscle, and they become more desensitized to the rubble in the road. You will know when the time is right to take that first test run, and like the great shoe-guru says, “Just do it!”. Start with a short warm-up by walking the path you are going to sprint on, and check for any debris that can be moved. Stretch your leg muscles a little, and then start out with a slow jog until your stride feels easy. Be careful not to start out too fast and overdo it until your body becomes accustomed to running shoeless. Before you know it, you will be sprinting faster than you can say abracadabra! Now get out there and conjure up your own audience of disbelievers to perform your “feets of magic for. How do you do it?! Now you know.