Stepping into Everyday, Casual Barefooting

It all started for us in 2009 on our annual family vacation to Acadia National Park. We live in Maine and try to get there at least once a year to explore the natural beauty of Mount Desert Island. We were taking a boat tour early one morning, and we were walking down the ramp to the boat behind a guy who had some of those “crazy toe-shoes.” Naturally, we started talking to him about them, and were formally introduced to Vibram FiveFingers. I was extremely skeptical at first and had a lot of questions, but I had recalled seeing something about them online a while before and we decided to look into it further. We got back to our hotel and started reading anything we could online about them. From an objective point of view, what we read started making a lot of sense. I looked at my wife, Crystal, and said, “Well, you love being barefoot, maybe you should get a pair.” From there, I knew what I was going to get her for her birthday. I, however, could never picture myself wearing those things. My wife’s birthday in February 2010 came, and so did her first pair of VFFs, – “Chili” Classics. Somewhere along the line, I convinced myself that maybe they would be OK to wear, as long as I never left the house in them. Crystal had no such qualms; she couldn’t wait to wear them as much as she could. “Why would I wear them in the house?” she asked. So, shortly after my wife’s came in, a conservative pair of Black Classics arrived for me to wear in secret. Soon after breaking them in around the house, I started thinking that maybe they would be OK for walks outside with the family, as long as nobody actually saw me. I steeled my nerves, and stepped out the front door. What has surprised me the most is how many people really do care what kind of shoes you wear! On one of my first walks with the family, my neighbors stopped me to tell me how awful those things must be for my feet. Before long, I started going more places for two reasons – because I loved my newfound “barefoot freedom” and then to see what people would (or wouldn’t!) say to me about them. I started sounding like a Vibram commercial as my care about what other people thought disappeared. I can feel the ground! I can bend my feet! My toes have functions in my daily life! Crystal and I would compare notes at the end of the day. Later in 2010, we went back to Acadia, and this time we made a vow to spend as much time in our VFFs as possible. What is so amazing about Acadia is that so much has been done to keep people in touch with nature. As we were on the trails, on the beach, exploring Cadillac Mountain, we felt more in touch with our surroundings than we ever had before. We also had lots of conversations with strangers, including a discussion I had with one of the staff members of Jordan Pond House, where they told me that the groundskeeper there used to have all kinds of back problems until he started wearing “those shoes” and then going barefoot entirely to care for the gardens and landscaping! We have never talked to so many people about what they wear on their feet until we started wearing VFFs. We’re not runners, we’re just a regular couple chasing around kids trying to live normal lives while trying to let our feet do what they were built to do in the process. Since those days, we have added Speeds, KSOs, and a pair of Soft Star Roos for myself (I may have just found the perfect “house” shoe!) last week. So, when my wife’s birthday came around this year, it seemed fitting to do something to commemorate the occasion while giving the wallet a break from yet another pair of barefoot shoes. We have a friend who has a business making custom gourmet cakes and has a talent for making things that you would not expect. I tasked her with attempting to make a cake out of my wife’s VFF Speeds (which she hasn’t had a chance to wear much due to the Maine winters – perhaps that’s a problem that could be solved with some KSO Treks?? I digress…) and the result is better than we could have ever imagined. The cake came out amazing, as you can see – and my wife could not have been more surprised. I wanted to share this with you to let you know that your site has been a great resource for us, and to hopefully encourage other people to take their first step (so to speak) into a lifestyle of everyday, casual barefooting. Not everyone is a runner, and I want to make sure that people know that you don’t have to be to enjoy the benefits and freedom of using your body the way it was designed. It’s wonderful to have such advanced technology available to us in these types of shoes, and we love putting them on every chance we get. Here’s to walking the world in a whole new, old way.