
People Walked Differently in Medieval Times - kawera
http://mentalfloss.com/article/505105/why-people-walked-differently-medieval-times
======
devinl
Some interesting arguments suggesting what he is saying is at least partially
wrong:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/74penu/walki...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/74penu/walkin_medieval_did_people_walk_on_heels_first/)

~~~
dominotw
Gait is Def cultural. My gait changed from living in America for decades. I
can tell who is Indian vs American Indian just by the gait.

~~~
Nomentatus
I'm Canadian. You wouldn't think that would be very different from the U.S.,
but... when I first visited the U.S. as an adult (Boston), I had to change my
gait IMMEDIATELY. I was a fast walker, and had been trained as an actor to hit
toe first "for better energy" \- that is, to appear more energetic on stage.
Trouble is, that makes you quieter, and Americans in the Eastern US back then
simply assumed that anyone gaining on them quickly and quietly from behind was
probably a mugger. Pedestrian after pedestrian after pedestrian would whirl
around to look at me in a startled way, even during the day, nevermind at
night. So I learned to thump my heels down noisily for my stay and that
eliminated the problem. I could walk fast without frightening anybody, as long
as I was conspicuously loud about it.

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im3w1l
I kick gravel or scrape the ground with my shoe every once in a while at night
to make my presence known.

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thinkingemote
Have you noticed others scuffing their shoes in response? I do. I'm almost
sure it's some kind of unconscious communication going on.

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dspig
Maybe there is something similar with coughing. There definitely is with
yawning.

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avalys
Is there any evidence for this other than a YouTube video from some guy
claiming it’s true?

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rangibaby
I walked barefoot until I was about 10 (New Zealand lol). Toe-walking helped
me avoid various hazards on the ground like prickles and stones.

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jgibson
I did the same as kid in NZ. No snakes or spiders to worry about, weather is
mild, why not?

Now I heel-toe as I'm a dancer, but running is another story

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gnat
We moved back to NZ where I grew up, and our kids went to a 50-person primary
school with not a pair of shoes in sight. You learn where the patches of
prickles are and avoid those bits of the grass. (Data point: the prickles are
in the same places at the beach and community hall as they were 40 years ago
when I were a lad)

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matt_the_bass
I switched from “normal” western shoes to minimalist “barefoot” shoes about 4
months ago. My motivation was to mitigate some pain I had in the balls of my
feet.

Since then my gate has changed from heel to toe walking. The reason is that
heel walking hurts when walking (nearly) brarefoot. However the change is
subtle.

The guy in the video is anything but subtle. Based on my recent experience I
strongly doubt people walked that way.

Since switching, my feet feel better, my knees feel better and my back feel
better.

I’ve bee wearing xero brand shoes. They are super comfortable but I’ve been
disappointed in their quality. Can anyone recommend “minimalist” shoes they
like?

~~~
grzm
I wear sandals as much as possible. When I need something that covers my foot,
I've been getting Converse All Star Slim Ox and stripping out the insoles. One
aspect of minimalist shoes is that there's not a lot there: they're generally
not really built to last. The Slim Ox are pretty cheap (when they're
available: they aren't always) and are a good compromise in my experience.

~~~
jacobolus
Instead of the Converse shoes, which have a somewhat rigid rubber bottom
outsole, consider buying some plain canvas-bottomed shoes. You will wear
through all of the layers of canvas within a few months, but if you get them
from China (e.g. on Taobao) they only cost like $5–$10 per pair.

Alternately, thin leather moccasins can also often be pretty cheap (or can be
made yourself).

If you want something a bit more durable, I find that most styles of Vibram’s
finger shoes last a fair while, but plenty of people seem to dislike their
appearance.

~~~
grzm
Sure, there are alternatives. The Cons run about $45 a pair, last about a
year, and don't call undue attention to themselves. I find they strike a
pretty good balance. Plus, they're Cons :)

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jacobolus
I have spent a few years mostly walking around either in Vibrams or in canvas
shoes I bought for $10/pair in China, and frequently walk like this.

The guy in the video is exaggerating his motions a lot though (could explain
part of why he finds it takes so much work for his calves). In particular, my
steps end up being small, with my feet staying under my center of mass, my
stepping leg is bent, my steps are almost directly in line, and I find that my
torso moves very smoothly without bouncing up and down or stopping and
starting.

~~~
inciampati
I have spent a decade walking like this, and I agree with you.

It seems that he wants to make his movements clear to the audience, but in
practice I would expect he is walking with short balanced steps.

I walk like you describe you do, but in the end I also developed calves like
those you see on the folks in paintings from the 1400-1500s!

A parenting aside: I want to make sure that my daughter grows up walking the
way she already naturally does, but it is hard to find good footwear for it in
kids. The materials are all heavy relative to the size of the shoes and so it
is hard to find a shoe that is both flexible and resistent to the weather. I'd
love to hear any suggestions.

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thraxil
Vivo Barefoot has a kids' range:
[https://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/kids](https://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/kids)

Not too cheap though.

I can't really speak to the quality of the kids shoes, but I own quite a few
pairs of their adult shoes and am very happy with them.

~~~
meneame2
I'm not so happy with their adult shoes. Some are good, like Gobi. Others are
pretty bad, and they change their designs pretty radically so they never
improve their weak points.

For example, I spent a few hundred on the first Porto iteration, and it fell
apart in less than 2 months. Their German shop refused to honor the guarantee.

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b0rsuk
Yes it is possible to change your gait, even through exercise. I do wall-
facing squats. It's the kind of squat that makes it impossible to cheat and
use bad form, but it's quite a bit harder. The last time I did 131 total,
including 40 in the last set. I'm aiming for 200 or 300.

I noticed differences in how I walk, especially on incline, decline, and
walking up/down stairs. These squats teach you better balance and strengthen
more muscles. My range of motion is also fuller when biking, instead of the
newbie's typical "pedal pushing".

Running barefoot and dancing also affects gait, so why not type of shoes ?

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callesgg
That dude has an anterior pelvic tilt so him talking about having good posture
makes me think this is BS about how they walked in the past.

But i agree that shoes are terrible for your posture but not if you walk like
he describes

And personally i believe that a full foot strike is better than heel/forefoot
strike.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
It all smells like invented folklore like the YouTube ninjers.

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marcus_holmes
I did re-enactment for 20 years in the UK, and you wouldn't believe how much
of this sort of shite goes round in those circles.

And I wore "leather socks" for the events, not modern shoes, and my gait
didn't change at all. Unless I was walking on wet stone, grass or concrete.
Leather is really, really, slippery when wet.

~~~
jacobolus
It takes months if not years of frequent deliberate practice to change your
unconscious gait as an adult (or at least it took a year or two for me; maybe
some people are prodigy athletes and can master new physical skills faster).
Just switching shoes won’t do anything by itself or overnight.

This is sort of like saying “I’m used to using a fork, and I couldn’t pick up
anything when I tried chopsticks a few times. There’s no way people actually
eat with a pair of these, I’m sure they actually just stab their food with it
like a skewer.”

If you want to learn, I recommend you try switching to walking entirely
barefoot all the time for a month or two, including while walking on hard
surfaces (e.g. concrete sidewalk). You’ll be forced into a dramatically
shorter more balanced stride irrespective of which bit of your foot touches
down first, because a long straight-legged stride will be painful for all of
your joints. It will be even more dramatic if you try walking very fast or
running. Frankly the difference between forefoot striking and heel striking
when walking is relatively minor, compared to the difference between a long
bouncy straight-legged stride and a short balanced bent-leg stride.

Walking on rough surfaces (e.g. loose gravel, trails strewn with twigs and
small rocks, ..) and warm or cold surfaces (within reason; don’t burn your
skin off) will also be instructive – after a lifetime of walking in protective
shoes which prevent you from feeling the ground this will seem very painful on
your sensitive nerves/skin, but within a few months you will become
desensitized and tougher and be able to handle walking barefoot in a much
wider variety of conditions.

It’s also fun (feels nice) to walk barefoot in the grass, in the mud, in the
rain, climbing up trees or over rocks, on cobblestones, ...

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qubyte
I do this when I'm walking around the house (no shoes allowed), partly because
my heels eventually hurt when walking on hard surfaces with no padding, but
mostly so I avoid treading on a lego brick or a type G (UK) power plug (though
this is the first time I've thought about it, so these are assumptions).

I also run on the balls of my feet, but I never thought about why I might do
that until I read an article about it a few years back.

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ChrisClark
I think I do a lot of toe first walking around the house. My wife complains
it's so quiet I'm like a ghost always suddenly appearing and startling her.

~~~
emmelaich
My martial arts sensei walks like this. Smooth as a cat. He has done Ninjutsu
and traditional Jujutsu training in Japan.

See also
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Across_the_Nightingale_Floor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Across_the_Nightingale_Floor)

But it's partly out of taking short steps - to maintain balance. If your feet
are too far apart you're vulnerable to tripping and leg sweeps and getting
unbalanced by being hit in general.

I find it impossible to do toe first if my step is the usual length.

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WA
There’s a German barefoot shoe manufacturer called Leguano. They swear by the
toes-first walk. I think it’s a bit silly to walk this way.

But I got a pair of Leguanos anyways (for the barefoot shoe experience) and I
definitely walk different in these shoes. Before, my stride was quite far. Too
far for my body height. Now I take smaller steps, there’s less pressure on my
heel. Overall, I can say that barefoot shoes are great. First shoe that I
actually enjoy wearing.

So I guess going toes-first could make sense, but simply taking smaller steps
with less pressure on the heels could have a similar healthy effect.

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drdeadringer
One of my cousins naturally toe-walked similar to the video at least into his
teens. Of course his mother wondered out loud "What type of sport is that good
for?", and at the time I didn't have an answer ready to fire at a moment's
notice.

Myself, I naturally heel-walk and rather heavily as well. You can imagine the
wear-pattern on my shoe soles.

~~~
mhalle
Shoe wear is an interesting investigate tool. The most easily observed wear,
sole wear, is the result of friction due to foot motion relative to the
ground, not force.

Midsole compression and heel counter distortion better correspond to force
pattern, but they are integrative and themselves affect gait.

Seems like you'd want both for a good model.

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yeukhon
Women in ancient China had their feet bound [1]. There were rules on how to
walk properly as ladies. Court women had stricter walking rules; those in Qing
Dynasty (the last in China) wore high-heel shoes, which made walking more
difficult and painful so the women must take very small steps. Men back then
had sexual fetish for small feet. I am so glad foot binding is illegal and no
longer practiced in China.

Warning: "foot binding" on the Internet may contain disturbing images
(including on Wikipedia). You may not like what you see, so I recommend just
watch [2].

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding)

[2]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOSmGBL33yk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOSmGBL33yk)

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hammock
Many years ago I remember seeing a little girl about 6 or 7 who was the
daughter of a friend. She walked around on her toes. I asked why, they said it
was a disorder (learned/self-taught behavior) they were trying to correct.

~~~
jdietrich
Toe walking is often idiopathic, but it's also a symptom of autism, cerebral
palsy and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_walking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_walking)

~~~
Cthulhu_
I have that (toe walking), went to a physical therapist for it and everything.
nowadays it just looks weird and my shoes wear in the front instead of the
heel. The doctor (rightfully) said that the passive standing on toes (for
whatever reason I did that) would pass on its own as I gained weight (it did),
but the gait never really changed. It did mean things like squats are more
difficult, ankle flexiblity was a bit shit. It's a bit better now though, but
it takes active effort to stretch and whatnot.

I don't have cerebral palsy or Duchenne, but not sure about autism :p.

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fpoling
My personal experience matches what the article suggests. After I started to
use barefoot shoes not just for running, but for all daily activities, I
noticed few things. I walk slower, like 15%. I do strike more with the toe
than with with heel, but this is very surface-dependence. My balance improved.
Barefoot shoes in general have less traction, but I have found that walking on
icy pavement became easier. The most puzzling aspect was that I get tired less
at least subjectively. The last summer I was able to walk non-stop 40
kilometers, when previously I restricted my daily hiking tours to 15-20 km.

~~~
jacobolus
Which “barefoot shoes” are you talking about? Most of the styles of e.g.
Vibram shoes have rubber soles (and in particular you end up being able to
shape your foot to the surface) so there is relatively good traction compared
to other shoes. Leather moccasins and especially canvas shoes can have
relatively poor traction. When walking entirely barefoot, skin has very good
traction.

Either way, walking with a forefoot strike (or even walking with a heel strike
in unpadded flexible shoes) generally implies keeping your steps small and
your feet directly under your center of mass. If you are on ice, the more you
keep your center of mass over your feet, the less sliding you’ll do.

~~~
fpoling
I use Vibram for running and vivobarefoot.com as daily shoes. My experience
with both as on slippery surfaces like rocks after rain when hiking and on icy
pavement was that traction was definitely worse compared with good ordinary
hiking or winter shoes/boots. But as it was much easier to keep balance, the
net result was improvement.

I suspect with barefoot shoes even those with a rubber sole with a pattern the
depth of the pattern is just too shallow. So effectively the weight is
distributed over the whole surface of the foot. With ordinary shoes pattern on
the soles and heels make the contact surface much smaller and pressure higher
improving traction.

~~~
jacobolus
I guess I haven't walked much on ice. There the standard bearer is probably
something with metal spikes. I found vibrams pretty good for e.g. climbing
around tide pools.

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jamesjyu
I've been a toe walker my entire life, so this is fascinating. Sometimes, this
is indicative of cerebral palsy, but this isn't true for me. I'm not sure why
I started to do it, but my parents said that ever since I was a toddler I have
always toe walked—perhaps I simply like the feeling of my toe alighting on the
ground first. Curious enough, my toddler now toe walks as well.

And I can confirm: my calves are huge, especially relative to my skinny frame.
I also find sprint sports easier, like tennis and soccer.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Same aaand same. Started toewalking not long after I was able to walk, and I'd
unconsciously stand on my toes when just standing idle for some reason. I
replied in another comment chain, there was a link to wikipedia [1] that also
linked to autism. I'm fairly sure that it's just one of those things that
doesn't need to have a medical reason though. Especially not when hipsters do
it due to barefoot walking shoes and such :p

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_walking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_walking)

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hprotagonist
ive spent more than a few summers in turn-shoes, which were a dominant
construction method of footwear in medieval europe. mine are modern
recreations made in as correct a way as seems feasible.

you absolutely cease to heel-strike in about a day. your gait shifts. when
fighting, you take many quick short steps. hills and slick grass are
interesting.

i haven’t tried hobnailed boots but my friends who have think they improve
traction at the cost of some comfort — you’re basically walking on permanent
cobbles. they absolutely destroy flooring.

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TulliusCicero
> when fighting, you take many quick short steps

Wait what

> hprotagonist

Ohhhhh

~~~
hprotagonist
my namesake does this too, but i do it in maille and i use a spear not a chunk
of rebar.

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jaclaz
Maybe the pattens made for a particular step:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patten_(shoe)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patten_\(shoe\))

but the rich (which more or less represent the whole lot of people found in
portraits and paintings) seemingly used them commonly when outside,
particularly in cities, while the rest of the people would probably have gone
barefoot or had anyway wooden sandals or similar.

~~~
greglindahl
Most medieval pattens bend near the ball of the foot, and you can heel-walk or
toe-walk in them just fine.

I own a pair of modern hiking boots that bend in pretty much the same way as
pattens -- they have a huge shank that keeps the arch stiff.

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LordHumungous
I'm pretty sure that guy got his theories from the the Born to Run/barefoot
running crowd. Scientific validity is suspect.

~~~
greglindahl
Both heel-running and toe-running are a thing. It gets suspect when someone
claims one of the two is more natural.

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AstroJetson
This makes sense to me. If you watch babies learning to walk, they often walk
on their toes first, vs heels. He mentions that you are leaning forward, that
keeps the momentum up to make it easier.

So if it wasn't for Buster Brown, we would all be able to toe walk easily.

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trophycase
Not sure if this is true, but I walked solely barefoot for a few months and
definitely noticed changes in my gait. Rather than just dropping my foot onto
the ground, I almost gently slid the foot to the ground to minimize impact,
and walked more toe forward.

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pentae
I remember when learning to scuba dive we were told to walk a similar same way
when doing a shore dive - slide your feet forward and explore with your toes
so you don't step on something you shouldn't like coral, sharp rocks or a ray.

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duality
I recall hearing that some American Indians were noted to have a similar
stride. If the thin leather shoes in Medieval Europe were like moccasins some
tribes wore that might lend weight to this claims made here.

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mruniverse
I hate this repackaging of content that just pads with filler pretending to be
an article. The mentalfloss article I mean.

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mjohnre
Just curious. If that's the way they walk, how do they run?

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greglindahl
This is BS. I walk around in medieval-style shoes for a couple of weeks per
year, 20+ years, and I still heel walk in them.

And that's despite the fact that I do two styles of dance that toe-walk (15th
and 16th century Italian) during those 2 weeks.

~~~
wolco
The author was talking about a time before that where people didn't wear
shoes. He focuses on Germany. The shoes you wore is from a later time and
different place.

~~~
greglindahl
I'm familiar with the era, and Germany in that era, and no, I wasn't wearing
shoes from a later time and a different place.

In fact I don't own any "structured shoes" like the article mentions as
leading to heel-walking, although I do wear wood patten overshoes when it's
muddy.

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gnl
Just because walking a certain way makes sense under some conditions does not
mean it's the one true way under all conditions. When walking on uneven
terrain or moving surfaces, in bad visibility, when trying to walk quietly,
when fighting, generally when there is a greater requirement for stability and
control, humans (especially when barefoot or wearing minimal footwear) tend to
instinctively adopt a fore-/midfoot first strike.

When walking on solid, even terrain in good visibility and without imminent
danger, most people would naturally use a heel-first strike, as it's a lot
more economical in terms of muscle/energy usage. In that sense - if you're
looking to build your calves, I have little doubt that consciously walking
with a forefoot strike all the time might just do the trick, especially
considering that calf muscles have a larger percentage of slow-twitch muscle
fibres responding to a larger volume of submaximal loads.

You just have to make sure to take smaller steps, bend your knees a bit more
than people generally do and fix your anterior pelvic tilt if you have it so
as not to look too awkward (that is, if you care about the social aspect of
it.)

When running barefoot or in minimal shoes on a hard surface almost everyone
trying to use a heel-strike will quickly and painfully realise what a terrible
idea it is and would naturally revert to a fore-/midfoot strike in order to
take advantage of the body's natural shock-absorption mechanisms. Only modern
thick-soled shoes make heel-first running possible, as they absorb a lot of
the shock at the heel so no pain is immediately felt there.

They also make it feel somewhat natural, as when the feet are isolated from
the natural ground sensation by centimetres of padding, there's somewhat of an
instinct towards a stronger impact to regain that sensation. There's a reason
for the extremely high number of nerve endings in the feet. Unfortunately the
result is a running mechanic to which we are simply not physically adapted and
a huge amount of preventable injuries, which are largely unknown in parts of
the world where shoes aren't a big thing.

Feet in the western world are so universally deformed by the continuous usage
of modern shoes from a very young age, that I would speculate there aren't
many present day podiatrists who've ever seen a healthy real-life foot with
naturally spread-out toes and a strong, healthy arch.

Big, strong supportive shoes (especially ones with pointy/compressive toe
boxes) are really bad for you, unless you're walking in very dangerous terrain
with lots of sharp pointy things, in which case they're great for you. Not the
pointy toe boxes, those are always bad for you, but they look better, so you
know. Pick your poison.

While biomechanically we're certainly screwed up quite a bit, I would say the
solution is retraining according to an intuitive understanding of natural
basic movement principles and their application to each specific situation,
rather than blindly following a single recipe no matter what.

I don't believe for a second that people walked forefoot-first all the time at
any point in human history, although without modern perfectly even roads and
thick-soled shoes, they probably did it quite a bit more often. Just check out
any video of indigenous people online, they walk heel-first all the time.

Source - lots of personal research, observation, experimentation and some
application of common sense. I am not a professional in any related area.

~~~
jacobolus
Some further advantages of forefoot walking: it is much quieter; it is easier
to precisely place your feet (e.g. 10 people can all walk in the same
footprints and hide their numbers); you can very quickly and easily transition
between walk and run or other types of motions (jumping, climbing, backing up,
scooting sideways, crouching, diving to the floor, ...); it is more stable /
easier to recover from sudden forces if e.g. the ground gives way or someone
shoves you; your torso bounces around a lot less, which can make carrying
certain kinds of loads or wearing some types of clothing easier, and also
really helps if you are trying to aim a video camera while walking.

~~~
gnl
Absolutely. In terms of effective, controlled movement, it's better in pretty
much every single way, except that it costs more energy, which is why it's
generally not a particularly natural, intuitive thing to do all the time. Like
probably every living organism, we're not generally programmed for unnecessary
exertion.

EDIT: That being said, a lot can be improved in most people's heel-first gait,
among other things - taking smaller steps, pushing the pelvis slightly forward
into a neutral tilt, staying a bit closer to the ground (slightly more bent
knees), making contact with the ground before shifting the whole weight, not
throwing the legs forward and letting the heels slam on the ground. Getting
all of that right makes heel-walking a lot more controlled and less bouncy. It
also feels great.

------
titanix2
Japan has its medieval way of walking too: [http://asaikarate.com/what-is-
nanba-walking-ナンバ歩きとは何ぞや？/](http://asaikarate.com/what-is-nanba-walking-
ナンバ歩きとは何ぞや？/)

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megaman22
The bit about developing bigger calf muscles from walking on the toe rings
true for me. I always ran on the balls of my feet, with my heel almost never
hitting the ground - I played a lot of basketball, and you're always moving
forward and back, side to side, rarely in a straight line more than a couple
dozen yards at most. It's common to say you got "caught flat-footed" if
somebody blows by you when playing defense, and we routinely did a drill we
called "foot fires," where you step in place on the balls of your feet as fast
as possible, keeping balance.

I still have to be careful buying pants; I've blown the inseam out of a few
pairs of slim-leg jeans below the knee pulling them on too quickly.

~~~
greglindahl
The muscles you use to stand up on your toes are quite distinctive, if I dance
on-your-toes enough I end up with a bulge in my calf similar to women who
frequently wear high heels.

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junkscience2017
somewhere out there, one brave last LifeHacker is combining this with the
Power Pose just because

