- Wee, wee, wee,
Wee, wee, wee,
Wee, wee--
- Wake your ass up, (gasping)
You still dreaming about feet?
- What the hell were you thinking?
- I'm tired of you having these dreams,
Do you have a foot fetish or somethin'?
- No, no I don't,
- Well, I think you do,
Maybe you should go out and find the perfect set of feet,
- Well, maybe I will,
- Do it, (cup thudding)
- Now, I know what you're thinking,
Who the hell is this guy?
Laying around dreaming about feet,
Well, I'm Calvin Dwight Harris,
a Bahamian filmmaker who lives in Denver, Colorado,
As a track and field runner in college,
my feet meant everything to me,
But it's more than that, I just really like feet,
So join me on my quest to find the perfect set of feet,
- I hope you find what you're looking for,
(door slamming)
(gate creaking)
♪ We're gonna walk these streets with funky feet ♪
♪ We're gonna walk these streets with stinky feet ♪
♪ We're gonna walk these streets with perfect feet ♪
♪ We're gonna walk ♪
♪ So callused, I need a foot stylist ♪
♪ Walking in the wonderland like my name's Alice ♪
♪ No malice, spinning on my two feet ♪
♪ Staying mentally aware is a true feat ♪
♪ Only down by those who oppose change ♪
♪ The main thing is to maintain things ♪
♪ So go toe-to-toe and let your heart heal ♪
♪ Get your high heels out like your boy Peele ♪
♪ For real, we're gonna walk these streets ♪
♪ Like, a break dance, freelance with the bass right ♪
♪ It just might be the road less traveled on ♪
♪ But walk a mile in my shoes before the dawn breaks ♪
♪ Step by step to the top ♪
♪ Once we get started, can't stop ♪
♪ We're gonna walk these streets with funky feet ♪
♪ We're gonna walk these streets with stinky feet ♪
♪ We're gonna walk these streets with perfect feet ♪
♪ We're gonna walk ♪
- There are some feet that we've encountered that
I think would be able to get everyone in Guantanamo
to give up every secret they've ever had,
plus ones they just make up,
- Hardened criminals would confess to crimes they
didn't even commit if they were exposed to that smell,
- Don't keep the stinky socks and shoes on all the time,
It's not cool, man,
- And when someone says, oh, sorry, my feet must smell,
You go, no, no, no, they're fine,
Oh,
- Make sure there's not all that
stinky crud up underneath your toe nails,
- It was like week old roadkill on a hot summer day,
- Um, there's some really smelly feet out there,
♪ We're gonna walk these streets with perfect feet ♪
♪ We're gonna walk ♪
♪ Shout out to the warriors and all those with exposed toes ♪
♪ You're victorious ♪
♪ We just wanna raise awareness ♪
♪ Your preparedness allowed you to maintain ♪
♪ You began this journey unsure ♪
♪ Of what was in store for ya ♪
♪ Through this film we hope to give support to ya ♪
♪ So keep walking these streets with your feet ♪
♪ Never accept in defeat, come on ♪
♪ We're gonna walk these streets with funky feet ♪
♪ We're gonna walk these streets with stinky feet ♪
♪ We're gonna walk these streets with perfect feet ♪
♪ We're gonna walk ♪
- The first stop on my journey was
to the Colorado Ballet Company, because if anyone would need
to have perfect feet, it would have to be a ballet dancer,
So, Sarah, let's get to the heart of the matter,
Let's talk about the challenges with your feet,
How did you get so good at standing on your toes
and being able to perform as a ballerina?
- You're trained to do that from a young age,
- Okay, - So, there's a certain age
or a certain strength level where they
start putting you into pointe classes,
They have your first pair of pointe shoes and when you're
that young, it's not so much like you
see us on stage nowadays,
where we're just dancing in our pointe shoes all the time,
It's more just about exercises and strengthening your
feet in the pointe shoes because
if you're not strong enough, you will injure yourself,
When you get older, you do some variation,
so that's when you see somebody doing a dance on their own,
and then when you get a little bit older,
you start doing partnering work,
It evolves and everybody is very different,
There's some girls who naturally have stronger muscles
or the muscles take to it very easily,
and that they'll get a lot stronger quicker,
and then you have people where you're a professional
and you still struggle with weakness of your feet
because it's just like you're more flexible,
So it just takes more effort and coordination
and work to make your body do what it needs to do,
- Do you folks do certain exercises
or certain things to continue to strengthen your feet?
- I do, I do some like TheraBand exercises or I'll wear
my pointe shoes in ballet class and jump in them,
just 'cause they're harder so it takes more work
for you to use your feet while you're jumping,
- What is it about ballet that keeps
driving you to continue in this profession?
- 'Cause you can never reach perfection with ballet,
(light music)
- I see,
So if I can never reach perfection,
I figure why not give it a try myself,
Who knows, I may actually have a second career ahead of me,
So let's see what you normally would do,
- I could show you how we start class everyday,
- Okay, - Get plie's in first,
- Oh, my gosh,
You're gonna kill me here,
That and that, - Yeah,
- That's as far as I'm gonna go,
("Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" by Tchaikovsky)
Woo, wow,
Yeah, I can see how this profession,
you have to be versatile and very fit,
- Mm hm, - And I do not meet
either of those requirements unfortunately,
(laughing)
(light music)
Okay, I'll admit, that was a lot harder than I expected,
I guess that second career will have to wait a while,
since I'm headed to the Bahamas to visit someone
who truly has been hard on their feet,
But nobody ever said winning Olympic medals was easy,
- My name is Jackie Edwards,
I went to Stanford University on a track
and field scholarship, did well at Stanford,
I won NCAA championships twice and that launched me into
a professional track and field career and so I went
into five different Olympic games consecutively; 1992,
'96, 2000, 2004 and then 2008 was my last one in Beijing,
I trained five to six days a week
depending on the coach I had,
Four to five hours a day,
10 1/2 months a year, for 17 years,
and now that I'm retired I look back,
I'm like, how did I do that for so long?
One thing that you do a lot as a jumper or a sprinter
is you roll your ankles, twist your ankles all the time
running through the sand because the sand is so uneven,
So I would have to specifically do exercises
to strengthen my feet and ankles,
So I would run barefoot on the grass,
We would do high knees in the sand,
All these things to strengthen my actual feet without
my shoes on, so that when my shoes were on,
my foot itself was stable and then
the shoe was just extra support,
So these are a pair of my long jump shoes
that I never got to wear,
You can see they're still brand new,
You can look at the bottom, see how beautiful they are,
They're pretty gold,
I guess they were hoping that I would win
a gold medal if I had these gold shoes,
Specifically in long jumping, you want your shoe
to be as snug as possible without being tight,
because when you hit the board with all that force,
you don't want your foot to slide in the shoe,
So they really just want your foot to be in place,
There's not a lot of torque,
Like a running shoe you could probably bend it,
A long jump shoe is stiff, there's no bending of the shoe,
you cannot do that, which is good,
But there was a period of time when,
sometimes I walk with my feet out like this and they wanted
my foot to be more flat, so I had these orthotics,
I was just trying to be, listening to my coach,
and wearing the thing, but when he was unaware
I would just 'em out because I just didn't like,
it made my shoes so tight and as
I said before the long jump shoe, it's so snug already,
to put that thing in there and then try to fit my foot,
I felt like it was gonna explode,
It was not comfortable,
If you wanna do a sport for a living,
make sure you take care of what you need to do that sport,
and for me, if my feet were no good, I could do nothing,
- You know, you go to the gym and you watch people work out,
They work out every muscle in their body, right?
They're working on their arms, their legs, you know,
even their lips sometimes right when they're talking, right?
But the one part of their body I've never seen
anybody in the gym workout is their feet,
- My name is Kara Dawdy, I am 44 years old,
I grew up in Colorado,
I am married and I have three children,
I've always been interested in figure,
I've always been active in fitness,
I am what you would consider a gym rat,
The difference between what I do and a fitness model,
is I'm actually a figure competitor,
I go and I compete against other women
in my same height class or age class,
I get up on stage and we do various poses,
These are your typical competition shoes,
These are what the judges expect to see you on stage,
There are different versions of this;
some have the strap, some have the one band across,
but they do have to be this plexiglass,
stripper looking shoe and I'm not exactly
sure why the judges want this,
But this is the typical height,
You do not see usually any other competitor
with a larger heel or a smaller heel,
This is what they want you wearing on stage,
and they're uncomfortable and they hurt,
and your feet swell up in 'em and you've got your tan,
and you've got your oil on top of that,
and so you're sliding around on the stage and in your shoes,
and you're afraid you're gonna fall off,
So, yeah, these are your typical competition shoes,
I used to train in the most expensive gym shoe
like everybody else had,
My arches would kill me by the end of the day
and I could not figure out why,
And finally I was talking to one of my coaches,
I said, you know, my feet hurt all the time,
And what he said to me was that your feet
have a natural arch in them and so to train,
you put your foot in a shoe that has an arch already in it,
you're breaking down that natural arch in your foot,
So he said, go find the flattest shoes that you can find,
I found that my feet stopped hurting and I enjoyed
wearing them so much, that I wear 'em all the time,
Cardio and weight training is a big important
part of the figure fitness community,
If your feet are giving you any problems during that time,
you're not gonna be able to reach your competition goals,
- In the same way that somebody does their work to build
their body up and to work on their core strength,
and to work on their arms
or their quads or their hamstrings,
people need to train their feet too,
And what that means is you have
to put the miles on your feet,
- My name's Marshall Ulrich
and I've been running since 1978,
First I started doing marathons,
then jumped into ultra marathons in 1986,
Then it just progressed on and on so I have run over
125 ultra marathons that average over 125 miles,
My wife and I added it up, about 90,000 miles of running,
One of the places that I made a name for myself was running
across Death Valley from Badwater, which is minus 282 feet
to the top of Mount Whitney, it's 146 miles,
I set the speed record for that back in 1992,
and no one's come within 6 hours of it,
My longest run was across the United States
and it was 3,064 miles in 52 days,
So I was averaging just under 60 miles per day
for 52 days straight,
It was a labor of love,
For marathoning, ultra marathoning, even walking,
feet are just essential,
If you don't take care of your feet when you're running,
you're toast,
As far as my toenails are concerned,
that's been a topic of conversation and what I did
is I voluntarily had them surgically removed
because I was running so many miles,
I'd get what is called black toe
and it would raise up and fall off eventually,
and I was having such a hard time keeping my toenails
on that finally I just had 'em removed,
So, I don't have 'em, they don't grow back anymore
and I did that about 20 years ago,
The shoes I'm currently running in are called
HOKA ONE ONE shoes and I like these shoes
because they have a lot of cushioning,
So they're sort of the opposite of a minimalistic shoe,
There's a lot of cushioning here,
There's a lot of beef to it,
And so I prefer these shoes and then what I do
is I pull the liner out and I do wear an orthotic,
and that provides arch support,
It was very painful when I was running across
the United States because I didn't have the arch support
that I really needed and what I developed was
a plantar fasciitis about 1,000 miles into the run,
So for 2,000 more miles I was running
with a plantar fasciitis and I still have,
you know, effects of that,
I've got a big lump in there right now,
- Plantar fasciitis is an inflammation in the band of
connective tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot,
So the band of connective tissue,
it's basically this pink band,
It connects heel to forefoot,
With lack of support in this area,
it's collapsing down and overexerting similar
to a rubber band that you stretch and stretch and stretch
until the point where it develops little micro tears,
So, internally it's yanking on the heel,
- What amazes me about the feet is how durable they are,
how much impact they can take,
how they can keep going mile after mile, year after year,
To not take care of 'em is, you know,
it's not a smart thing to do because, you know,
we'll have 'em the rest of our life and good golly,
they've served me well,
- Well, your feet are obviously very important
when you're running those kinds of distances
and you can deal with a lot of issues,
When you have a good pair of socks,
you have a good pair of shoes,
the running is good and you don't have to worry
about what's going to be happening with your feet,
- When your feet hurt in a race, it affects your overall
attitude and can really hinder your ability to continue,
Every step you take your foot hurts and so you've got
to take care of your feet right from the start,
and a lot of people fail to do that,
They come into a run and they have old shoes or they have
socks that unfortunately have holes in 'em,
or their insoles inside of the shoe are paper thin
and they don't provide the support,
So, going into an event, you've got to figure out
what my feet need,
- My name is Nickodemus Hollon, I'm from San Diego,
California, and I've been doing ultra marathons,
extreme endurance events for the last six years of my life,
Back in 2009, I did no foot maintenance,
I had no idea feet are something that I run on, you know,
I mean obviously you gotta have 'em to run,
but other than that, you know, whatever,
I ran Badwater in a pair of ASICS from Walmart
and a couple pairs of cotton socks from Walmart
and consequently I had huge blisters
by the time I got to mile 70,
So, Injinji's been a sock that I've been wearing
personally for the last three, four years,
- So prior to wearing Injinji toe socks, you know,
wearing what might be considered conventional socks,
you know, I would continuously get severe blisters
between my toes,
- The Injinji socks, I became familiar with them about eight
or 10 years ago and I believe it was out in Death Valley
before one of the runs and I was looking for something
because I was getting blisters around my toes
and I was looking for a sock that would isolate the toes
and keep them from rubbing against each other,
- Once I started wearing Injinji socks
I literally fell in love with them,
and as silly as it may sound that a male would become
so passionate about an article of clothing,
I told all of my friends about it, anybody who would listen,
I became truly what was considered a raving fan,
- [Calvin] Wow, with so many people in love
with these socks, I just had to go see
what they were all about,
Off to San Diego to find out if foot gloves
are really the future for our feet,
Hi, Christine,
- Hey, Calvin, welcome to Injinji,
home of the original performance toe sock,
(light music)
- So, Christine, tell me what was the inspiration
behind the Injinji original performance toe sock,
- Well, really athletes and runners specifically,
and the anatomical design of the human foot,
You know, we were given toes for a reason,
Toes help us to distribute our weight,
they help us with balance and propel us forward,
and we didn't feel like there was a performance sock
in the marketplace that truly addressed the toes
and the feet and allowed the toes to splay out
and function as they were designed do,
When we first came on the scene,
there was nobody else doing performance socks with toes,
We did not invent the concept of a toe sock,
they definitely have been cotton toe
socks available in Asia,
but we were the first company to get out there and say,
no, this is gonna help you reach
the peak of your performance,
These are better for your feet and they are really going
to work in running and athletics in general,
We've gained a lot of traction in the last,
you know, 10 to 12 years in the running market,
We still think that running
is the ultimate testing ground for our products,
I've seen our sock work in some
of the toughest foot races in the world,
135 miles with one or possibly two at the most sock changes
and that's pretty much unheard of,
- I know several people who have to change their socks
mid run, several times during a run,
Treat different feet issues, hot spots, blisters,
I don't have any of those problems,
- You think of these ultra's as something,
oh, you're out there for 24 hours,
but those minutes that you spend at aid stations
and stuff like that, that stuff can add up over time,
The minutes you might spend, you know,
slipping on a sock or something like that,
- They feel weird at first,
The first wear is kind like uh, this feels weird,
it looks weird, but after three wears,
most people are totally sold,
- The last thing we wanna do
is get any type of water buildup on your feet,
You don't want 'em to be too moist
where they start macerating,
Anything that wicks the moisture from the skin is great,
- How do you guys normally encourage folks to try those on?
(laughing)
They look great,
I love the colors and it has definitely
that orange flair to it,
- [Christine] Yeah,
- Great,
- You know, ultimately what we're trying to do is to change
people's mind is about how they should wear a sock,
and it is still a pioneering type of product where you
do have to go out there and enlighten people to,
you know, why do I wanna wear a glove on my feet?
I mean, even if you don't run,
having your toes separated will provide the best foundation
for doing whatever it is that you love to do,
Our feet are like the root on a tree of our whole body,
So, anybody that comes to our socks,
I usually feel are somebody that are kind of looking
for a better way, a healthier way to wear a sock,
- Everybody has their naturally genetic foot position,
but there's certain characteristics to how
your foot should be positioned if it's functioning
in its most efficient manor,
So, first off, this is an ideal degree,
So this down here shows an excessive high arch,
this shows a flat foot,
So, this is the angle in which your arch
should be positioned if it's functioning
with less fatigue than normal,
- My name is Eric Kaplan,
I'm the owner of Good Feet,
we've been in business since 2002,
- When somebody comes in it's our job to assess
the situation without crossing the lines
of diagnosing or prescribing to them,
So, when they come in we'll ask a series of questions
such as, what are your goals?
What ailments are bothering you?
What activities do you do?
What type of wardrobe do you wear as far as footwear?
From there, we will take prints, measurements,
You have a heel to toe measurement,
and then you also have a heel to ball measurement,
So that's more specific to the bone structure on where
an arch should actually fit underneath your foot,
We specialize in a system of three different types
of support that all work together for different shoes
in various activities,
This device is called a classic,
This is referred to as an exerciser,
and basically the purpose of this is to balance
the weight distribution over the entire foot,
So it does help to take pressure from the heel, the ball,
and inner and outer longitudinal sides to limit rotation,
So, this device is the core of the products,
It's the most effective of everything that we do,
but with that said, it's not the most comfortable device
as you first begin to wear it,
So that's where the other two pair do come in,
So, this is referred to as a maintainer,
and it would basically retain
the change that this has provided,
It's much thinner and sleeker in design,
so it's used in a wider variety of shoes,
For ladies who like to wear sandals, dress shoes, loafers,
various styles that are more limited in space,
The third device that we recommend,
this is called a relaxer,
So it's the thinnest and sleekest of the three,
The main purpose behind this is to limit
barefoot walking at home on hard surfaces,
So most people would use this in a slipper to,
you know, provide minimal support the last couple of hours
of the day, but still feel like they're walking barefoot,
Basically, the system of three will cover all shoes,
all activities and goals as far as changing biomechanics
to the point where we can usually get
to the root of the problem to make them feel better,
- Arch support is really important
because if we lose our arch in a sense,
if we start flattening the arch of our
foot, we start getting an inward rolling of the ankle,
which in turn is gonna start rolling in the knees
and the hips and we start having knee, hip pain,
back pain, those kinda things,
So, there's a lot of importance to the arch of the foot,
- It all starts with your feet,
So not only are we helping people you know, feet problems,
it's their back problems 'cause it stems from your feet,
- Let's say somebody comes in with ball of the foot pain,
By raising the metatarsal arch, it'll take these bones,
slightly elevate them, causing the toes to relax
and lay down, whether they're dealing with hammertoes,
bunions, upper body concerns,
it's affective for all of those areas,
Same thing with the heel,
By lifting back here, it takes pressure off of the heel
if they're dealing with the plantar fasciitis symptoms
or heel spurs or various forms of heel pain,
So, it's important to wear arch support because naturally,
we put too much pressure in certain areas,
and those are usually the areas
that cause the biggest fatigue and concern,
- The arch support is the most important thing
that you can put in a shoe,
and our product has truly changed so many lives,
not just here in Colorado, but across the country,
as well as the world,
- The footwear industry for the last 45 years
has been telling people a story,
and it's a very compelling story,
and the story is you need support, you need motion control,
you need pronation control, you need an orthotic,
you need things under your arch, you need all these things,
And there's just not a lot of evidence,
like none, that it reliable works,
None,
My name's Steven Sashen,
I'm the CEO and Co-founder of Xero Shoes,
Six years ago I got back into sprinting after
a 30 year break and I was getting injured constantly,
and a friend of mine suggested that I might wanna
try taking off my shoes and running barefoot,
and then he also pointed me to a book called Born to Run,
which talks about the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico who run
for hundreds of miles in just like a piece of tire strapped
to their foot and they run totally pain free, injury free,
till they're in their 70s and 80s,
So, I took off my shoes and it worked,
I discovered when I was running barefoot what kinda
form problems I had when I was in my shoes,
and by being barefoot, it just cleared those up and I became
injury free almost overnight,
and I made my first pair of sandals inspired
by these Tarahumara tire sandals,
and the gist is that we give you the closest thing
there is to a barefoot feeling,
Your feet can totally move naturally,
They can flex, they can bend,
they can grip, you can feel the ground,
It's just enough protection so that you don't have
to worry about what you're standing on,
So our first product was literally just a sheet of rubber,
some nylon cord and instructions about how
to make your own sandals, the same way they've been
doing it for 15,000 years,
But we knew that the do it yourself thing
was intimidating for a lot of people,
So with the help of our current product designer,
we cracked the code and came up with the first redesign
of that basic 15,000 year old sandal in 15,000 years,
First, we took the thousands of tracings
that we had of people's feet and figured out where
that post is supposed to go to handle most people,
We changed the shape a little bit so that it doesn't
necessarily handle 99% of all people, but 95%,
'Cause we don't want something too big
so that it doesn't work for people,
and we figured out a new lacing system that allows
for really, really easy and secure adjustment,
and you can just slide your foot on and go,
and we added the heel cup which is partly decorative,
and partly it helps keep stuff out,
it keeps your foot centered,
We raised the ankle holes so that
the lace never touches the ground,
We added this really ultra soft TPU toe post
and we're using a 5,5 millimeter rubber,
So, it's just the perfect among of ground feel
and the right amount of protection for people,
The premise in the barefoot running world
is that if you use your arches, you're fine,
When you put support in something, there's no activity,
You're shutting it off and then expecting
it to somehow be strong,
But if you actually use your feet,
you can strengthen and use your arches,
I went from having crazy flat feet,
where I'd like get out of a swimming pool
and you'd see the shape of my foot,
it looked like a paddle and now it looks like a foot,
- We support all kinds of the body when they get injured,
You know, when you have an arm injury, you get a sling,
When you have a neck injury you get a neck brace, et cetera,
The only part of the body that we permanently brace,
as far as I can tell, is the foot,
So when people get arch supports,
they get them for the rest of their lives,
- So, what we say about arch support is that you are your
own support if you have the ability to let yourself do that,
Whether you have flat feet or high arches,
the problem is almost always an issue of strength and use,
not a question of needing more or less support,
- If your shoes make your foot muscles week,
and the arch supports basically then sorta rescue
that arch from the weakness of those foot muscles,
Putting in that arch will alleviate the symptoms,
but doesn't treat the cause of the problem,
which is the weak foot,
- It would almost seem that the shoe companies
that make billions of dollars selling shoes
and orthotics would have some vested interest
in making barefoot seem like a bad idea,
Maybe,
(chuckling)
I mean, it really, I don't know that it's that simple,
but I don't think that it's that much more complicated,
- There's a debate that's going on, right?
People like shoes that have arch supports
and kinda cushioning,
- As far as the minimalist shoes go,
I and the majority of the pediatry community
do not agree with it, we don't think it provides
support to you, we don't think it helps you walk any better,
it just looks fashionable and looks like
you're a healthy person,
- I think in general, my belief is that they're gonna
cause more problems down the road,
- I'm a big proponent of wearing supportive
shoes for your foot type,
Every foot is not the same,
What a flat foot needs, a high arch doesn't need,
- If your feet can tolerate it then that's fine,
but it's not for everybody and it's been very interesting,
I've talked to pediatrists who've said the advent
of the minimalist shoe has helped me
as a pediatrist because it's sent me patients,
- One of my all time favorite things is when some doctor
says I love this whole barefoot idea,
it's putting my kids through college,
(chuckling)
I'm seeing more patients than ever,
(chuckling)
Like, wait, wait, okay first of all, you guys had the same
joke 45 years ago when running shoes came out,
Secondly, when someone comes in and they said
they tried being barefoot and they got injured,
did you ask them if they were actually barefoot?
Because the difference between barefoot and being
in what most big shoe companies sell
as a barefoot shoe, is night and day,
Most barefoot shoes are about as barefoot
as a pair of stilts,
- I see a lot stress fracture with people like this,
People break their foot because
there's not enough support for the foot,
- So the minimalist shoe idea is a good concept,
You know, I like the idea, but it's not practical,
If you've got perfect feet everything's fine,
you know, for short periods of time,
Sure, yeah, they could do just fine,
but nobody is really going out
and buying a flip flop to wear everyday,
unless you live on the beaches of California,
- Your feet are very adaptable,
Your body is very adaptable,
If you give it some stimulus, it will change,
- To look at the human foot to understand why
it is the way it is, you have to understand how we became
first walkers and climbers and then how we switched from
being walkers and climbers to being walkers and runners,
and we have the feet today of walkers and runners,
- Out of all the bones in your body,
almost a quarter of them are in your feet,
If you just think about it logically,
this is not rocket science,
Your feet have all these bones and all these muscles
and all these ligaments and all that sensation for a reason,
If you don't use it, you're not only losing it,
but you might be losing a bunch of other functions as well,
- We know that humans have been running
for millions of years,
In fact, we evolved to be really phenomenal runners around
two million years ago, that meant that for the vast
majority of human evolutionary history,
for millions years, we were running barefoot,
It doesn't take more than a few seconds of thinking
to realize Olympic athletes for thousands of years
in Greece and Rome did that,
and our ancestors for millions of years did that,
What's the big deal?
- Well back then, people lived to be 40,
You wanna live to be 100 now,
you cannot do that to your feet,
You need protection, you need support,
I mean, think about it,
You're running and you're pounding your foot against
the ground, you have no support, you have no protection,
how is your knee gonna feel?
How is your ankle going to feel?
It just doesn't make sense,
- You know, barefoot running has cycled around,
I've seen it come and go a couple of times now,
It was popular in the '80s as well as,
you know, there were some people in the
'60s that were running barefoot,
- First we had the normal shoe, the FiveFinger shoes,
minimalist shoes and now we come to the thick shoes,
So we're kind of evolving back and it's gonna
be very interesting over time to see what comes after
the shoes like the HOKA's that have the thicker heels,
- So now there's this whole thing about maximalist shoes
with tons of padding and tons of support because some people
didn't like the minimalist idea and someone just happened
to have an idea that was the exact opposite,
If we think back prior to 45 years ago, every shoe
was a minimalist shoe, it really let your foot move,
It was a thin bit of leather,
it was closer to what we have then what you find now,
- Look what type of shoe here they ran with
in the '60s, in the '50s,
There was no structure to them, per se,
Since the running craze in the early '70s to now,
no matter what they have done to sneakers, the more padding,
gel, air, whatever they could put in there,
really hasn't shown to decrease injuries,
- If you could prove that this shoe was better than your
competitors or even better than your last year's model,
don't you think you would show that study where this one
is scientifically better than this one?
Because then you would own the universe,
Why is it that in 45 years, that study has never happened?
It's never happened because it's not possible,
They've never done it, they can't do it,
There's no evidence that supports that,
- I think we over value the extent
to which shoes are solutions to problems,
It's really more how you use your body
than the shoes that are on your feet,
It's just that shoes affect how your body works,
- The shoe is only good as the person that's wearing it,
So, if you're not following a proper stance or a posture
or mechanic, the shoe can cause just as much harm
as it could if you're wearing a regular shoe,
- It's all about alignment,
So if the body is not aligned properly,
it's going to accommodate, things are gonna change,
joints will move and change and we get arthritis
and things that shouldn't happen,
So, it's just all about why you wanna go minimalist?
What you're planning to do in a minimalist shoe,
and how long you're gonna do it,
- It's not about the footwear, it's about the form,
It's about how you land, it's about how you use your feet,
It just so happens that it's easiest to make those form
changes when you're getting the feedback from
the ground that you get when you're barefoot or close,
in a pair of Xero Shoes,
- I'm not saying that shoes are bad, right?
- Right, - Or that they shouldn't
want to wear shoes, - Right,
- But we have to understand that everything,
everything comes with costs and benefits
and shoes are no exception,
- When you can feel the difference between having your foot
wrapped up in a cast, a regular shoe or what we
affectionately sometimes call foot coffins,
versus being able to use your feet,
you just don't wanna go back,
- Is it a craze, sure,
But some people will stay with it,
- If the shoe works the way you say
it work then it's worn and fine,
If it's only to work for some guy in Colorado
or New Zealand, it doesn't mean anything to me,
- If you feel comfortable in it,
then that's the shoe for you,
- Some people say, well, you know the big shoe
companies could compete with you,
They could just come out and do it,
and I'm not hugely worried about that,
To do something this radical would almost be admitting
that everything else you're selling is crap, is a lie,
and no ones gonna do that,
- Really barefoot is best for your feet,
but we live in a world that is obviously a shoe world,
Nowadays, everybody in mostly in westernized society
we're wearing shoes and you need to wear shoes in certain
environments where you really could run
the risk of hurting your feet significantly,
- Who doesn't like to run barefoot?
If you're running up across
the lawn barefoot, you feel good,
Would I run barefooted around here, no,
- You know the reason that most people
go barefoot is because they like to,
I mean, at least in terms in western developed countries,
and the reason that most people go barefoot
in developing countries is 'cause they have no choice,
(light music)
- Soles4Souls collect new and gently worn shoes
and then distribute them around the world to people who,
live in abject poverty and also
they offer disaster relief to those in need,
My friend and I went to Haiti in August of 2010,
shortly after the earthquake and we went there to distribute
shoes for Soles4Souls and when I went to Haiti,
that was my first experience of extreme poverty,
and the last day of our trip while we were there,
our team was gathered in a room and we all went around
the room and everyone was to tell the story of how
the couple days we had spent there had affected them,
and it came to me and I opened
my mouth and nothing came out,
I began weeping,
I knew that my heart was in trouble,
and so when I came back to Colorado,
I knew had to do something and so I asked my husband if it
was okay if I started collecting a few shoes in our garage,
I sent one email to 20 people and out of that,
at this point we've collected 270,000 pairs of shoes,
I've been to Haiti four times and Africa once to distribute
shoes to those in need and that's how I got started,
There's some days where we may collect six pairs of shoes,
The next day, we may get 600,
So, everyday is very different,
but every pair really, really matters to someone,
Whoever is receiving that pair of shoes,
it may be life changing for them,
Children in Haiti have to wear black shoes to school,
So, without black shoes, they can't go to school,
For a child to not be able to have an education
because they don't have a pair of shoes is unbelievable,
There are different orphanages and communities that we go
into in Haiti and Tanzania and these children are given
a pair of shoes and with that they can receive an education,
What we do is we provide shoes that provide an opportunity
for people in Haiti and other third world countries
to be able to provide for their families
and be able to put food on the table for them,
I know on the day I quit collecting shoes,
there are people who won't eat
and that's what kinda drives me,
is that I know what we're doing here
in our little warehouse is a very important thing,
- It was so inspiring to meet someone like Michelle,
It makes just tossing another bag of shoes onto
the pile feel like it's not quite enough,
I needed to do more,
So I decided to go with Michelle and Soles4Souls to Haiti,
With so many shoes, they were bound to need some help,
(upbeat joyful music)
(gentle music)
(light music)
When I decided to do this project,
something I wanted to learn more about
was how diabetes affected people's feet,
As a type two diabetic myself,
I'm always worried about my feet,
But first, I needed to find a doctor
with some real experience,
- My name is Edward Mostone,
Sometimes people come in with just a little corn,
flat feet, a lot of fractures, bunions, hammertoes,
ingrown nails, trauma, infections,
frostbite in the winter time, a worm in their foot,
cutaneous lava, lawn mower injuries,
sea shell injuries, plantar fasciitis,
I used to see a lot of drug induced abscesses in the foot,
they used to inject in the foot,
This week it's kitchen knife week,
I had two people who dropped the kitchen knife
and cut the extensor tendons,
You've been in practice long enough, you will see things,
- [Calvin] I think I found the right guy,
- Treating diabetics is a team effort,
You need a good vascular surgeon,
you need pediatrist, you need good wound care,
It's something you can't treat on your own,
Most primary care physicians are very good
at sending patients over for a yearly eval,
and they're more attuned to checking their feet,
They have usually a problem with their circulation,
where the blood flow isn't that good,
or they have a sensory impairment
where they can't feel their feet,
Those things lead to big problems,
- My name is Dr, Jocelyn Curry,
I am a podiatric physician,
meaning I treat all ailments of the foot and ankle,
When it comes to diabetes and the feet,
the feet can be definitely one of the early
signs that changes are coming,
The nerves in the feet are really important
and in diabetics they tend to be affected first,
Meaning they don't feel sensation
or feel pain as quickly as they used to,
The nerves in the body run like wires
from the spine to all the locations,
So when they affected by the blood glucose being too high,
it makes them misfire and creates shooting,
burning, tingling sensations in the feet,
and over time, patients start to lose the sensation
and not know when they have injury,
- Your feet get damaged everyday,
So the blood goes in there, fixes it and goes back,
So now if your feet are diabetic,
your bottom of your feet gets damaged,
not enough blood goes in there and it doesn't heal,
- The biggest thing is hydration,
Our feet are covered by our skin,
the skin's the biggest organ in the body,
it's a barrier to keep things out
that aren't supposed to be in,
So, if your feet are dry, it's gonna crack and it's gonna
cause fungus, bacteria, different things to get in
that causes the infections that lead to the amputations,
So, hydration is key,
- Every time I'm on call, I have a diabetic foot infection,
and it's usually something that has to go
to the operating room on an urgent basis,
Usually they ignore the problem,
I saw a little blood on my sock,
I didn't think anything of it,
Or I noticed a problem and I said ah, I'll treat it Monday,
By the time they went into the hospital,
the whole toe was infected and the bone got infected,
Once it reaches the bone and you have some
of the product tissue,
you end up usually with an amputation,
The difference between saving a toe
and losing a toe is patient waiting,
- Diabetes is the number one cause of amputation,
So we try to prevent them losing their limb
by building braces or building foot orthotics
or providing them with shoes,
That's part of my job,
Then there are people that are just vascular and there's
a point where they end up losing their leg and that's where
I come in with the prosthetics and I build them a prosthesis
to return as much normalcy to their life as possible,
So the first part of designing a prosthetic
is to build them a socket,
The socket is the interface between them and the prosthesis,
So, we start with casting them, fill the model,
I hand modify the casts and then we wanna make sure
they don't have a rotation or fit issues,
So we start with the socket,
After the socket is fabricated, we select the different feet
based on what this patient's goals are, what they wanna do,
For instance, this leg has a vertical shock
and a torsion adaptor on it,
So this is for somebody that wants to be able
to pivot and the pivot takes place here,
Also, the vertical shock reduces the strain
on the bottom of the residual limb,
This kinda represents kinda the inside
of what the prosthetic looks like,
We have an alignment fixture, we can change the alignment,
which is the orientation of the foot to the socket when
they're walking, and fine tune that,
This foot flexes and springs,
So when they're walking they get
some energy return and push off,
So it propels them forward,
Getting that patient to not only walk,
but walk well is really important,
There's two types of diabetes;
there's type one and there's type two,
There's juvenile diabetes and adult onset diabetes,
They're both very serious, they can be managed,
Some people have it very severely
and some people don't have it so bad,
So just because you said that you were
a diabetic does not mean that you're gonna end up
with an amputation or foot loss,
It just puts you at a very high risk of that in the future,
- My mother was diagnosed with diabetes in her early
to mid 30s and she was a type two diabetic
and it was insulin dependent,
She tended to regulate her blood sugar with her insulin
instead of trying to do it with diet,
When she first was diagnosed with diabetes, she drank coke,
regular coke just like always and if her blood sugars were
up, she just would give herself more insulin and that's not
how you're supposed to do it, I mean, but that's how she did
and she didn't pay attention to her diet,
She just didn't try to let the diabetes affect
her life and it does, it's a life changer,
It should be, at least in the way
that you take care of your body,
My mother ended up having an amputation,
She got a sticker in her toe and one of the things
that they tell you to do is pay attention to your feet,
If you get an infection, you need to get to the doctor right
away and get on top of it as quickly as possible because the
circulation is so bad that you don't heal like you should,
So, we had to setup an appointment to get her toe amputated
and about four weeks later we were back in having another
amputation and they took her leg just below the knee,
So,
(light music)
I've been a stylist for 27 years,
Done hair, massage, facials, feet,
We do have diabetic patients that come in for foot care,
A lot of times they can't pick their foot up to reach
it to be able to trim their toe nails and they need
to be very careful to keep their toe nails trimmed,
because as the toe nails get long,
you scratch yourself in your sleep,
So, by keeping the feet rimmed it helps to keep them safe,
I just realized with my mother having the health issues
she's had over the years with her diabetes that,
how important that the safety of doing
the manicures and pedicures was,
When I went to try to figure out what pedicure chairs
to use, I tried to find something that had
the least amount of mechanisms and pipes,
It seems as though whirlpools and objects harbor bacteria,
- When the spa companies started coming out with different
types of pedicure thrones, everybody loved 'me,
they they thought they were awesome 'cause they came
with the nice massagers in the back of the chairs,
and everybody wanted the water to stay warm
and to move like a whirlpool,
So, when they started 'em they put a whirlpool jet system
in them, just like you would see in a hot tub,
So the water goes out around through like a warmer
and would go through pipes in the bottom of the chair,
What they found was, even though you would run
disinfectant through that, there's always that chance that
some of that would get left behind, bacteria could build up,
and that's why they became so unpopular
and pretty much non-existent anymore now,
So when they came out with pipeless,
which is basically the same throne with a tub at the bottom,
and instead of having the water move out
and inside of the tube, it just circulates inside of
the tub with just a little fan,
That fan, that motor, the whole little thing comes off,
it gets disinfected,
The water you see in there is the water
your feet touches and nobody else's does,
It never went anywhere else,
It's just like a sink,
It fills up and it drains,
Plus we go another step by putting a liner inside
of the tub to protect against any bacteria or anything,
So that when the next person comes they know
it's going to be clean and ready to go,
- It takes time to clean those tubs,
And it takes time to fill 'em up, put the solution in there,
run it through, drain 'em, fill 'em back up again,
- It's part of who I am as far as a business person
when I think about the pedicure chairs
and the safety of the clients that come in,
I mean, if my mother was sticking her feet in that tub,
would I feel confident to know that she was gonna be safe?
- When we're thinking about the history of foot washing
in the Bible, it has a long history in the Hebrew testament
or the old testament as it's sometimes called,
And it's just a way of when somebody comes into your home,
of showing them hospitality,
which is also a sign of dignity,
a sign of respect and also it's a way of honoring God,
The main source of our knowledge
and understanding of washing of the feet
with Christ is in John's Gospel, chapter 13,
This is at the end of the dinner,
at the end of the Passover, the most sacred meal,
completely against what they ever would have anticipated,
at the end of the meal,
Jesus, who is their Rabbi, their Lord, their master,
their teacher who they look up to, takes off his garments,
he gets down on his knees to wash their feet,
Well this would have been unheard of that the master
would get down to wash the disciples feet,
And so, Peter, who so often is the spokesman for
the disciples says, Lord, you can't wash my feet,
And Jesus says, if I don't wash your feet,
then you will never be able to understand completely
who I am and what you're doing,
And what's significant here too,
is that we have accounts that in the early,
early church, the washing of the feet continued,
And so clearly, people in the early life of the church
recognized that when Jesus washed the disciples feet,
he was doing something very significant
and something that we are to carry on,
and then here we are doing it even today,
(playful music)
- [Calvin] Making this movie has been a lot of hard work,
and with all of this traveling,
my feet have been killing me,
Why not take a little time to really pamper myself?
I mean, all guys get pedicures, right?
- My name is Carolina de Pena,
Here we are at Polish Nail Bar in Santo Domingo
in the Dominican Republic,
This place like very girly, but we have clients
that are men and like to do their feets and nails,
With men, we need more time than for women,
because their feet are very rough,
So it's more time for me to put the applier
and do their feets then for a girl,
- My name Georgette Sands,
I'm the proprietor of The Nail Lounge located
ina Nassau, Bahamas,
Usually men are afraid to come in here,
They say it looks too girly,
But the minute they walk through the door
and they actually sit down in our chairs
and they have our service, they wanna come back,
We have had men that book appointments every three weeks,
and they just love it in here,
I don't know if it's because a lot of women are in here,
but they seem to like the condition of their feet
that we are encouraging them to groom their feet,
And a lot of them may have never had a pedicure before,
but the minute we speak to them and say just try it out,
try it out and it seems as though it's catching on,
They wanna come back very often,
I would like to see more men in particular,
because whilst men like women with nice feet,
women like men with nice feet,
- My name is Dina and this is the co-owner,
it's also my loving husband, Tom,
- I just don't like feet,
It's kinda ludicrous that I'm part owner of a nail salon
because I don't know, it's like the far end of your colon,
I mean, I know you got one, but I don't wanna touch it,
I don't wanna smell it, just you know, keep it to yourself,
- We welcome every shape, every looks,
every crooked toenail there is,
- And at this time, I exercise my fifth amendment rights,
(chuckling)
- You know, a lot of times women come in here
and they always tells me how they wish to bring their
husband to get their pedicure because it's bugging them,
Feet creates a lot of odor,
- There might be stats somewhere on how many divorces
were caused by stinky feet, huh?
Is that possible?
- It's possible,
Men attracts the women more so if they got
their manicure and the pedicure done,
To tell you honestly, it's true,
- Men, get your feet taken care of, it's a chick magnet,
- I think when you come in and get the pedicure done
and I think your partner will be happy
to see you got the nail and toe done and make you
feel nice and better to go with that person,
- There's a stigma for men having their feet done,
and I have the same perception,
It's something for ladies, it's something the ladies do,
- When a male client comes in here for the first time
just because their wives said so and the moment they sat
down and you start working on their calluses,
during the process, you can see on their faces with the, ah,
- It's quite a bit more comfortable when
you're standing around doing whatever you're doing,
without these big, thick calluses on your feet,
- A lot of men and women doesn't realize
that until they actually come here and says,
wow, I never thought that I needed this,
- When I get done with a pedicure,
I feel like I have Air Jordan shoes on and it is so amazing,
I mean, the difference coming in versus when I leave here
and after a pedicure,
I'm a diabetic,
I have neuropathy, so it's really important to me
from a health stand point, comfort stand point,
things of that nature,
- Pedicures are very, very popular and especially men,
Once you can get a guy to come get a pedicure,
they're pretty much hooked,
(light music)
- The greatest thing about nail polish, toe polish,
getting a manicure, getting a pedicure,
is that nails can be done by almost anyone,
The professional gives you the best,
but if you can't afford to go to the salon,
you can easily do your own nails and make them look good
with the products that are out there today,
You're immediately glamorous when
you have beautiful nails and beautiful feet,
- My name is Jeff Pink and basically
we have two brands in my company,
There's one brand which is called ORLY
and there's another brand which is called SpaRitual,
In 1975 I opened a beauty supply store
in Tarzana, California,
At that time I used carry other people's products,
but listening to the manicurists and what the needs are,
I felt that there is more than that,
I can up with my own product,
Keep in mind at that time the only thing which was available
to the manicurists was base coat, top coat and nail color,
No straight nail, no fast dry, nothing of that business,
In the last 38 years or 39 years of the company,
I developed 26 nail tape,
I'm covering every issue, every needs that the consumer
as well as the professional nail technician
needs to perform her services,
- There are so many cool things out there,
We have a product line called SpaRitual that we use,
it was one of the first vegan lines that had been out that
was new and developed from a company called ORLY,
that's been around forever, that everyone has trusted
and relied on over years and years and years of time,
- One day I said to myself, Jeff,
you developed so many products,
but you never developed an application of a product,
How to apply differently,
I took a regular cap, which is usually
it's a very hard plastic and was able to cover
it in a special mold with rubber on the outside,
- The cap is user friendly for a manicurist,
I can just open this bottle and close it with no problem,
- On top of it, because it's made out of rubber
and you will have a very good grip on the cap,
when you apply the nail polish you get more accuracy,
- I can get into little teeny, tiny finger nails
or people that don't have a little baby toenail,
I can polish 'em with this polish,
- It's one of the best innovation
in nail polish application ever,
- From the very youngest person who applies their nail
polish or their toenail polish, to the 90 year old women,
there's just been, just an explosion of nail art polishes,
Some companies have as many as 140 different colors,
Some of them have gold in them,
Some of them have gold dust in them,
diamond dust in them, sparkles in them,
So much is being added to the nails and to the feet today
to make them really glamorous,
- Right now, nail art has taken a big resurgence,
Some of the younger women are painting
every nail red and one white,
or they're getting some kind of artwork,
- There is so much publicity about nails now,
There's so much on the internet,
There's so many styles that you can pick from,
There's a magazine like Nail It, that's on the news stand
to show people what's available to them,
Of course, if you're in New York City,
you're going to have a much more sophisticated look
than perhaps somebody that is in Kansas,
- The difference between polish trends in Kansas
and the Midwest as opposed to California or New York,
trends tend to be a little bit different,
It took us a while to pick up some of their trends,
- It doesn't take as long as some people think,
especially with internet, pintrist,
I mean, good lord there's everything,
It's immediate anywhere with, you know, so,
Trends that may have taken longer before to get to Kansas,
don't as much anymore,
That, and especially the younger ones,
they're like, they're all over it,
- You can go online today and you can find not hundreds,
not thousands, but literally millions
of nail designs and nail pictures,
What to do with it, how to do it,
the different colors that are available,
It's really just been an explosion unlike
the beauty industry has ever seen,
As a matter of fact, nails has taken the biggest jump
in profits and in sales in the last two years than
any other cosmetic on the market today,
Bigger than makeup, bigger than hair, bigger than tanning,
Nails is just jumping to the forefront
of what beauty is all about,
- Right now, nails are trendy,
For example, you want to go to a fashion event or a wedding,
you want to combine your nails with your outfit,
- Nails and feet today are the perfect fashion accessory,
A woman can do anything with her nails
and with her feet to make them look glamorous,
to fit in with her fashion, her dress,
Today they can put nails on that look exactly
like the dress that you're going to wear,
It could have the same pattern
as the dress you're going to wear,
So, in today's society, truly a woman is not dressed unless
her hands and feet are dressed as well,
- Feet is very important to the fashion industry,
Perception is reality,
When it comes to branding in the fashion industry,
you wanna make sure you have the whole package,
Whether that's a photo shoot, whether that's a face shot,
whether it's a full body shot, swimsuit,
you wanna make sure your presentation is on point,
Also for runway,
They're gonna look at the clothes,
they're gonna look at the walk,
but the feet is definitely gonna be looked at the most,
Without perfect feet, you have no package,
You see a lot of perfect feet that are out there,
However, we know all photo shoots
are pretty much airbrushed a little bit,
But you gotta have a solid foundation,
So we tend to go with the more younger models,
more petite to where the bone is strong,
the skin isn't as scarred,
and to try to really look for that perfect image,
We're working with big time clients
and branding is very important,
One bad image in a magazine could take a company down,
- The model selection is one thing
that's extraordinarily important,
Hands, feet, face and body,
We need to find the whole package and that's not easy,
Being a hand model is a very difficult thing
and being a foot model is very, very difficult,
- My ability to be a foot model over 20 years
and to be continually booked
has a lot to do with my lifestyle,
It's not only the manicures and pedicures
and the sloughing of dead skin and things like that,
and the techniques that I've learned,
I have the ability to get the shot really quickly,
I could show up with no nail polish
on and have absolutely clear toenails,
Most people actually can't do that,
even if they're professional foot models,
What makes my feet perfect is the arch,
The fact that there are no calluses,
that the toes are straight and the first toe
is the longest toe and they go down in size,
It's not enough to show up and just have pretty feet,
You have to really know what you're doing,
That's how you keep the work coming in, you know?
And then you gotta remember to have fun with it,
you know, because it's just feet,
- Back in 1992, many years ago, you might not see the gray,
but many moons ago I competed in the Miss Bahamas pageant,
and I'm so grateful to have won that year,
I represented the Bahamas in Mexico City
in 1993 at the Miss Universe pageant,
I don't think I would have been able to compete in today's
Miss Universe because the six inch heels are killers,
I'm so grateful that I competed when
I did compete on maybe three inch heels,
That was cool, that got you by,
- I never recommend my patients to wear high heels,
- Women like love their high heels,
And it's a love, hate relationship,
- It's hard to be in a high heel or a pump,
because they're not made to really be comfortable,
- With the styles being as long and as pointy as they are,
women's feet just get crushed into
these shoes that destroy our feet,
- When you have the high heels, the way you gotta put your
foot in there and the way your foot is in there for a
sustained period of time, we start to develop some bunions,
- Most every women that wears high heels will experience
a burning sensation on the ball of their foot
because of when you're in an elevated position such as this,
all of the pressure is falling onto
the ball of the foot and the fat pad,
- If you're wearing four to six inch heels everyday,
eventually it's gonna catch up to ya,
- I probably wear high heels seven days a week,
You know, 48 weeks a year, and my feet know that
I've worn these shoes, let me tell you,
- People comment on how were you able
to stand up in those heels?
Well, it's because I take my slippers to work with me,
so as soon as I take a break I'm back down,
- Take 'em off as often as you can,
If you're sitting at a desk, take 'em off while you're
at your desk and stretch your feet out
and those kinds of things,
- You know, if you talk to foot doctors they'll say,
oh, this is really bad for you,
You know, it'd be really bad for my social life
if I wasn't wearing heels once in a while,
- I like 'em if you wear 'em for the right time,
You're going out, you're having a nice dinner and you're
dressed up for a special occasion, that's fine,
- You know, when you wear a high heel,
it makes your pelvis tip in a different way,
So, it's sexier,
- I shouldn't say this,
but I love a woman in high heel shoes,
- My name is Sarah Ray, I own True Love Shoes in Denver,
What I specialize in is women's shoes that are trendy,
not necessarily brand name driven,
and because trends change so fast and that's why when you
have shoes that are all $38 or less and boots that
are $58 or less, that's gonna be something that is gonna be
an easy thing for people to be like yeah, I'm getting that,
I'm not gonna think about it, I'm gonna get it,
The red shoe is like a classic, iconic, like it's the shoe,
It's gonna be a pump and it's gonna be red and it's,
you know, it's just burned in the brain,
and this is like the end all be all red shoe,
It's super glamorous, it's covered in stones,
it's just gorgeous,
If the man is choosing the shoe, this is the shoe,
It's not gonna be the green shoe, the yellow shoe,
it's the red shoe, that's been ingrained
in his mind and his psyche, probably from childhood,
You know, Dorothy had the red shoes,
- The red shoe sounds like the best of both worlds
because the color red is highly sexualized and it creates
an emotional response of lust, passion,
We see a lot of symbols of red in our culture,
Red roses, so red shoes combined with a sexy foot,
I can see that being a highly eroticized form
for potential foot fetishes,
Fetishism in general is described
as a intense sexual arousal to an object,
So, if we think about foot fetishism, a foot is actually
a part of the body, so it's less of a fetish
and more of what we like to call a partialism,
So this intense attraction to a part of the body
and it usually is associated with sexual arousal,
So there's two types of people with this sort
of partialism or sexual preference,
Some can only be aroused by the presence
of that object, being the foot,
or others, there is no other type of interference in sexual
arousal in their relationship, but there is a preference,
a real strong interest or intensity around feet,
You know, shoes are an actually interesting part
of foot fetish, and if we look in the culture that we have
historically, we have thing like honeymooners
and newlywed couples that are going on their honeymoon,
they would tie shoes to the back of the car as they drive
off to be, you know, together supposedly for the first time,
and that was supposed to represent fertility
and good luck in the marriage,
And we've seen that internationally,
Even fairy tales like Cinderella where it was the small foot
would be the foot that gets the prince,
So, in the original story before it was adapted by Disney,
the prince was sort of a foot fetishist himself
and he said, whoever can fit their small foot
in this slipper will be my bride,
So in the original story there were women and sisters
with ugly feet, which they were described as,
cutting off toes and squeezing into this small slipper
in order to be considered beautiful,
The original Cinderella story isn't that far from reality
in the women cutting off their toes
to fit into the smaller shoe,
In early history, women were actually cutting off toes
or slicing off sides of the feet to make them more narrow
or to fit into the smaller shoe,
because that was a sign of femineity and beauty and today,
we're seeing a lot of surgeries around feet or altering
the feet just like any other part of the body,
to make it appear more sexy or more feminine,
because that's linked to body image
and how women are perceiving themselves,
- My name is Sean Ravaei, I'm a pediatrist,
When general pediatrist see all foot problem,
my practice is mostly focused on younger women
who don't like the way their feet look,
Very common ugly toes or ugly feet, they want it to look
better and they don't like the way it looks,
- Hi, how are you?
- I'm good, how are you?
- Great, great,
What brings you in today?
- So I was interested in learning about what you'd
be able to do to make my feet look prettier?
- Okay, so what exactly bothering you about your feet?
- [Anastasia] I'm interested in kind of fixing
the shape of my big toes,
- Okay, yes,
- I'm not really happy with them--
- In this area? - Yes,
Especially the bunion area, - Yes, yes,
- I feel like it's just way too narrow up at the top
and much wider down there,
so I'd definitely like to kind of fix the shape up,
- Yeah, what we can do for you, you have really wide feet,
I can make the feet a bit narrower
because most shoes are narrow,
It's gonna be hard for you to wear most shoes,
- Right, - So, most people have
feet like this, your feet are like this,
- Right, - Spread out,
So, you know, push these bones in,
- Okay, - Be a little bit narrower,
Like this, you'll feel like this afterwards,
- Okay, and how would you go about making my feet narrower?
- Well you have to reshape your bones and fix some bone,
put 'em in the right position,
Your bone is not in the position right now,
So, that's why you have this bump on the side,
- Okay, - It's very common with women,
- And so, after the procedure, if I went forward with the
procedure, how long would it take, like, for recovery?
- The recovery, you can walk the same day,
but for you to wear your regular shoes
it might take a few weeks,
You cannot wear high heel shoes for about a few weeks or so,
- Okay, - We are take an x-ray,
see whether we have to reshape the bone or break the bone,
Which bones we have to take care of,
how much we have to move it over,
Sounds good?
I've had few people who came to me
and they told me their big toe is fat,
They wanted the liposuctIon of the fat in the big toe done,
Yeah, I mean they're right, the toe was fat,
They were right, but I didn't think, a lot of women
they want to wear the shoes
and they were hiding their big toe,
All the toes were nice except the big toe, so we made a toe,
took some fat out of it and it was a lot better now,
- [Calvin] Liposuction for toes?
- For the toe, the big toe, yeah,
- I have had patients who have
requested liposuction of the foot,
In my hands, I don't think it's appropriate,
I'm not trained in it, I don't do it, but it's a request
and that goes more towards cosmetic surgery,
- Every surgery has its risk,
I just, I don't see the purpose in taking that risk of an
infection or something going wrong or not healing properly,
Just for the look of it,
- When women feel they have bigger toes, bigger feet,
it becomes am I feminine enough?
And these surgeries or these cosmetic procedures
become a way to capitalize on that,
and guarantee if we can change the appearance of your foot,
it'll take care of your feeling about your body image
and self esteem will improve,
But, I find that a lot of those issues
for women are more deeply rooted,
You may fix the foot but you still remain depressed
or unhappy or you'll find something else
that you don't like about your body,
and we see that a lot with body dysmorphic disorder,
It becomes this distorted, unrealistic image of a perceived
defect when a lot of that isn't realistic,
It's created in the mind and it becomes an obsession
or compulsion around that thinking that I'm not normal,
I'm not right and I wanna change
my appearance in order to feel perfect,
- So, Anastasia, you decided to go ahead
and get the surgery done,
Why did you decide to make this decision?
- Um, I decided to have the surgery done
because I was unhappy with the shape of my feet,
I wanted them to look prettier and also just
be more comfortable when I wore shoes,
So that's kind of what made me decide
to go forward and have the surgery done,
- Feet represent a symbol of health and we spend a lot
of time grooming and taking care of our feet,
Our feet, you know, transport us everywhere we go,
For women, historically, you know,
women with smaller feet were more feminine,
- My name is Jo Farrell, I'm a documentary photographer
and cultural anthropologist,
I have been photographing traditions
and cultures that are dying out for many years,
About 10 years ago I had an exhibition in London
and decided to focus more on women's traditions,
One of my first thoughts was women with bound feet,
I'd been in and out of Asia for over 20 years,
So, I was using my contacts, but everyone just said
there was no one left alive who had bound feet,
I was very fortunate to be in Shanghai and was driving
along the driver told me, I overheard your conversation
and my grandmother has bound feet,
So, his grandmother Zhang Yongying,
was one of the first women
that I photographed with bound feet,
She let me take this photograph within
the first hour of actually meeting her,
I wasn't expecting her to do that,
Normally I talk more to my subjects, but she wanted
to take her shoes and socks off pretty soon after I met her,
And it was the start of something big that actually
going through and documenting these women,
The history of foot binding is slightly curious,
No one has real definition of how and when it started,
It is believed to have started in the Shang Dynasty,
There are stories of emperors in China, particularly Li Yu,
he was an emperor who had a courtesan
who would dance on lily pads,
She was so favored by Emperor Yu,
that other courtesans decided to bind their feet so that
they would gain favor from the emperor,
And it mainly happened in the rich families, the elite,
but like any tradition or fashion,
it went down through the classes to the peasant farmers,
It wasn't done throughout China, it was the Han Chinese
in the central parts that had their feet bound,
It is believed at the height of foot binding,
between 40 to 50% of women in China had their feet bound,
A woman who had bound feet would be considered a good wife,
She'd been through a lot of pain and suffering,
so she was more likely to be more subservient,
to not complain,
What would happen is matchmakers would go to all
the villages and find suitable young girls
who they could match make with young boys,
Typically, the mother-in-law, one of their requirements
was that the daughter-in-law would have to have bound feet,
So, when the child was young,
they knew that they were already betroth to somebody
and it was expected that she had bound feet,
How the actually bound the feet was
by using a long piece of cloth,
So, if you imagine the small toes would all be underneath
the foot, with the large toe, the big toe still out,
and it would be bound round the foot,
then back round the heel,
so it actually would lift the foot up into the heel,
and if you see the x-rays of it,
you'll see that a lot of the foot was going upwards,
And so, creating it so that the heel was nearer
the metatarsals would make a smaller foot,
They would be then made to walk and their own weight
would break the small toes beneath them,
They tell me that it was extremely excruciating during
the first year, as you can imagine,
In some ways, the mothers of these daughters
having their feet bound, they did it so that their
daughters would have a better life,
They knew if they bound their daughter's feet,
they could get married, they could have a family,
they would have more land,
Without that, they would have a poor, difficult life,
For centuries, they had been trying to stop foot binding,
The big change happened after the opium war,
There was a lot of foreigners coming
into the ports of China, into Shanghai,
and it changed how China internally perceived itself
because it could see that it would look unfavorably
with the women with bound feet,
They originally tried to ban foot binding in 1911,
Sun Yat-sen came into power and it was
the start of the Republic of China,
This had stopped in the actual cities by 1911,
but it carried on, especially in rural areas,
up until 1949 when it finally was stopped,
They would go around to villages
and forcibly remove the binding,
If they were found with her feet bound,
one of the ways of stopping them was to fine them
or to take the bindings and hang them in the windows
of the woman's house so that she would be ashamed that
her neighbors would see that she had done something wrong,
The typical lotus foot was between three and four inches,
All the women I've documented had much larger feet,
and partly that was because they had unbound their feet
and they were allowed to spread out,
So none of them actually really achieved the small,
perfect foot,
But I believe with all my heart
that they are proud of what they achieved,
They will always tell me when I look at their feet,
my feet were smaller,
When it was actually done, it was, you know,
it was much quite nicer, I think that is with pride
because it was an achievement that they made,
They lived in a society where it was considered beautiful
and the best thing to do to actually reduce
the size of their feet,
But during their lifetime and their generation,
it was then turned with the cultural revolution
that it was now considered something that they should
be ashamed of and they were mocked for,
So they have both the side of them that they thought it was
a good thing and they also thought it was a bad thing,
Any of these women, I think that the pain and suffering
they went through, even if they haven't got
the most perfect foot, I think they achieved a great thing,
That they went through this and were able to marry into
another peasant family that had more land
or more sheep or something more than what they had,
To capture these women before they have, you know,
all passed away, I think is an important decision,
An important project to do,
- [Calvin] It seems throughout history,
feet have been viewed as objects of beauty,
Not only for their size and shape,
but sometimes for the artwork that people add to them,
(rock music)
- The weather starts gettin' nice and the shoes start
to come off and the flip flops go on,
that's when people really wanna get their feet tattooed,
Usually it's just something feminine
is what they're looking for,
You know, swirlies, stars, you know quotes,
you know the pretty stuff that girls like,
- I am not a girly girl,
I am more of a tom boy,
I was never really raised to be a prissy little girl,
(chuckling)
I have three daughters and we had discussed
getting a mother-daughter tattoo,
Had been throwing it around for about two years,
So we actually got a little more serious about it,
trying to come up with the designs,
We came up with one and so far
I'm the first one to go get that tattoo,
The design of my tattoo, it's infinity with the word family
incorporated into it and that's what we wanted
because infinity is forever and family is forever,
So we wanted those two things to be incorporated in a tattoo
and then we would each personalize it to fit us,
My first intent was to put it on the back of my shoulder,
but when I went in, the tattoo artist,
we talked a little bit more about it and it would
be more visible on my foot, since during the summertime
I do wear sandals, and I decided sure,
This is my first experience with a tattoo,
I figured it's something that would tie me
and my daughters at this point, together,
And I figure, hey I'm 50, another thing off my bucket list,
(groovy music)
(tattoo gun whirring) - Amor,
- Hey, what's up, how are you?
- Pretty good, how are you?
- Awesome, really good, man,
- All right,
- So, welcome to Miami Tattoo Co,
- All right, thank you,
- First the customer will meet with the general manager
and he already kind of starts working with them and
determine which artist would be the best artist for that,
Based on the ideas they have, they may already have
pictures, they may already have ideas,
As long as they have a basic range of what they do like
and what they don't like, they'll sit with the artist
in what we call a consultation and then the artist
will come up with a concept after they speak
with them for a while, draw it up,
Other times it's the image, if it's a realistic tattoo,
it's the image taken straight from
the picture that the artist will use,
A lot of people wanna have the art on their feet,
You know, because of the limited space of the foot,
some designs can be put on there, but we do get names,
flowers, butterflies, filigrees,
infinity signs, things like that,
or even more elaborate stuff that will start
at the top of the foot and work its way up into
the ankle and then connect with something else,
So, it comes out pretty nice,
(tattoo gun whirring) - I saw something kinda
like this on a woman's feet in a tattoo magazine when
I was like 13 and it stuck in my head ever since,
I'm trying to get all the painful spots out of the way
before I'm older and don't wanna do it anymore,
- You've got a lot of nerve endings in your feet
and you're really ticklish on your feet,
so it's not like the most common place to tattoo,
'cause it is, you know of course, a more painful spot,
It's also a much more difficult spot to tattoo,
- The foot hurts,
The foot hurts,
Everywhere on that foot hurts,
(groovy music)
- I guess I'm about to get my first tattoo,
here at Miami Tattoo Company, South Beach, Miami,
Wish me luck,
I'm kind of afraid of this process,
but we're gonna give it a shot,
Okay guys, here we go,
(tattoo gun whirring)
I survived, (chuckling)
With my new tattoo, I was starting to think
that maybe I had the perfect foot,
But it wasn't long before I got a call from Dr, Christian,
telling me there is one more person that I needed to meet,
- All I remember from that day was I left for work
and I went back home and took a shower and had
to go run some errands and that's all I remember,
- [Calvin] In April of 2014, Kristin Hopkins lost control
of her vehicle and tumbled 140 feet down
an embankment near Fairplay, Colorado,
She was trapped for over five days before a passing motorist
found Kristin still alive inside her overturned car,
- I don't remember the accident and all I remember
is waking up in the car and I just knew something
was not right with my feet,
I don't remember Flight for Life
taking me to hospital or anything,
I remember waking up in the ICU,
I had to be told numerous times a day what happened;
that I was in an accident, that my feet were amputated,
I was not in lucid, basically for a good week,
So, I think that's how I was able to accept this more,
because it wasn't, I woke up one morning
and oh, my God, my feet weren't there,
It was a constant, you had your feet amputated,
I think the gradual realization
of what happened was easier on me,
The first time standing up was very interesting,
I mean, you do physical therapy everyday in the hospital
and in rehab to make sure that you're strong enough
and what not, to stand up because
for two months I was bedridden,
The first pair of feet that I had, the prosthetist gave me
10 pages of feet and was like, okay, you pick one,
and I'm like I don't know what they're supposed to do,
I wasn't really thrilled with how they were treating me
and everything, so I asked my orthopedic doctor,
you know, what he recommended and I moved over
to Christian and Creative Technologies,
- I was really glad Kristin came and saw us,
We were having a Saturday fitting with Kristin
and she was doing pretty well,
We left her in her current feet
and just remade new sockets for her,
I like the feet that she was in; they had the shock,
they had the torsion, I thought they were appropriate,
But then I started listening to Kristin more and she's like,
I love everything, but I really hate it
when I go down a ramp,
I really hate it when I have to walk up a hill,
So, I'm thinking and I chase Kristin out
to the car and I says we need to talk,
I says, we need to talk about your feet
because if that is an issue, we need to address that,
and there are feet that we can talk about
that have microprocessors that will pick your foot up,
put your foot down,
When you're walking down a hill it'll level you out,
So, she got in these and they've changed her life,
So this is kinda the guts of the foot,
Her prosthetic is held on with a vacuum,
Every time she steps down on the heel,
it activates this pump here and this pump is this line here,
is drawing air out of the bottom of the socket,
and this seals it at the top,
That's why she has those sleeves on,
And this is a microprocessor foot,
so it adjusts to terrain,
If she's going down a slope, the feet recognize that
and they point the feet down and keep this at 90 degrees,
If she's going up a hill,
the feet will dorsaflex and let her go up the hill,
So they adjust to the terrain,
- You take walking for granted and when
you don't have feet it's kind of like, oh, okay,
It is what it is,
I can't change what happened to me,
So it's, you know, am I gonna sit in a room and cry all day
long or am I gonna go live my life and show my kids that,
you know, nothing can stop me,
- So after traveling so many miles and talking
with so many people, I'm still left asking myself,
what is a perfect foot?
Is it a finely toned foot?
A well-worn foot?
A beautiful foot?
A manicured foot?
Maybe it's a natural foot?
A well supported foot?
Or could it even be a robotic foot?
Maybe in the end, the idea of a perfect foot
is really just a myth,
- Next time you're at a beach or pool,
just look at other people's feet and when
you see somebody go by and you'll say wow,
look at that girl, she's got big bunions,
She looks like she's in her 20s,
and then you'll see other people, wow,
Very rarely do I see a perfect foot,
But, when you do see a perfect foot, you realize it,
Very, very few and far between,
- Feet are feet and you walk on your feet,
So, perfect feet are feet that are functional,
- For me, perfect feet are ones that work,
I don't care how they look, I don't care,
I just wanna know that they work,
That's a big deal,
- One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, 10 toes,
which is what mother's usually do
when babies come into the world,
Let's see, do they have 10 toes and 10 fingers?
Perfect, there you go,
(laughing)
- [Calvin] Well, she's got a point there,
Thanks, Miss Bahamas,
And speaking of the Bahamas, it's time to go back home
for the annual Junkanoo celebration,
It's time to dance,
♪ Hey, hey ♪
♪ D-Mac'll make ya jump, jump ♪
♪ Start jumpin', jump, jump ♪
♪ Now everybody jump, fling them, flag them up in the air ♪
♪ Wave them, flag them up in the air ♪
♪ Fling them, rag them up in the air ♪
♪ Fling them, flag them up in the air ♪
♪ It's time to lose my mind 'cause it's my time ♪
♪ All this liquor up in me feelin' nice, nice ♪
♪ Always something up in here and they're takin' wine ♪
♪ So back this thing up, girl let me mosh it from behind ♪
♪ We rushin' up in the road ♪
♪ And we don't give a good one ♪
♪ We got no choice when Junkanoo ♪
♪ Play time to act bad ♪
♪ If you miss this my friend ♪
♪ I tellin' you it's so sad ♪
♪ I leave my manners home and waited for the signal ♪
♪ Jump, jump, start jumpin' ♪
♪ Jump, jump, D-Mac'll make ya, jump, jump ♪
♪ Start jumpin', jump, jump ♪
♪ Now everybody jump ♪
♪ Fling them, rag them up in the air ♪
♪ Fling them, flag them up in the air ♪
♪ Fling them, rag them up in the air ♪
♪ Push them, flag them up in the air ♪
♪ I dance and wince and whine 'cause it's my style ♪
♪ Winding up on every bump of a wild child ♪
♪ And if the bump all good then I gonna be on it for a while ♪
♪ 'Cause it's wake and Junkanoo carnival, Bahamian style ♪
♪ Yeah, we rushin' up in the road ♪
♪ And we don't give a good one ♪
♪ We got no choice with Junkanoo ♪
♪ Play time to act bad ♪
♪ If you miss this, my friend ♪
♪ I telling you it's so sad, so sad ♪
♪ I leave my manners home and waited for the signal ♪
♪ Jump, jump, start jumpin' ♪
♪ Jump, jump, D-Mac can make ya, jump, jump ♪
♪ Start jumpin', jump, jump ♪
♪ Everybody jump ♪
♪ Fling them, jump, jump, flag them up in the air ♪
♪ Wave them, jump, jump, flag them up in the air ♪
♪ Fling them, jump, jump, flag them up in the air ♪
♪ Wave them, jump, jump, flag them up in the air ♪
(upbeat music)
♪ Baby come here and rock me ♪
♪ Baby come here and hold me ♪
♪ Boy don't you talk, just show me ♪
♪ Show me you want to control me ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Oh, now ♪
♪ Don't you, don't you let me go ♪
♪ Boy don't you know I see ya ♪
♪ Baby I wanna please ya ♪
♪ Promise I never leave ya ♪
♪ You are my king and I need ya ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Oh, now ♪
♪ Don't you, don't you let me go ♪
♪ Destiny, ah, ya, ya, ya, ya ♪
♪ Is in front of me, ah, ya, ya, ya, ya ♪
♪ Baby all I see, ah, ya, ya, ya, ya ♪
♪ Is just you and me ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah you are my vice grip ♪
♪ Come now we go on a nice a trip ♪
♪ We can cruise the world on a nice ship ♪
♪ Our boat come choppy and we might flip ♪
♪ Yeah, you are my niceness ♪
♪ Fresh like fruit, me see your ripeness ♪
♪ God you know sexy and spicy ♪
♪ Now let them come between me I love bliss ♪
♪ Don't you, don't you let me go ♪
♪ Keep talkin', don't you, don't you let me go ♪
♪ Don't you, don't you let me go ♪
♪ Keep talkin, don't you, don't you let me go ♪
♪ Don't you, don't you let me go ♪
♪ Sweet like sugar, nice like wine ♪
♪ You and me together till the end of time ♪
♪ Oh, now ♪
♪ Sweet like sugar, nice like wine ♪
♪ You and me together till the end of time ♪
♪ Oh, now ♪
♪ Oh, now baby ♪
♪ Sweet like sugar, nice like wine ♪
♪ You and me together to the end of time ♪
♪ Ah, ya, ya, ya, ya ♪
♪ Sweet like sugar, nice like wine ♪
♪ You and me together till the end of time ♪
♪ Ah, ya, ya, ya, ya ♪
♪ Well mother said another party another year everybody ♪
♪ Here we go, it's Novie Sonovia ♪
♪ We havin' a party ♪
♪ We havin' a party, if you don't know ask somebody ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, party ♪
♪ A Junkanoo party ♪
♪ We havin' a party ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ Yeah, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ A party, oh, oh, oh ♪
- Now we can go home and have feet sex