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  • TED McDONALD: So I just got done having an excellent lunch here, per usual, um, some

  • of my other campus visits.

  • I'm telling you guys have it made when it comes to food.

  • So thank you Google for a terrific lunch.

  • Those of you can see me closely see that I'm sporting a black eye today.

  • I have two Siberian huskies who I'm trying to train to not want to chase squirrels.

  • And it's not easy to do because something runs quickly by you -- I run a lot in Volunteer

  • Park -- and you have two dogs that I often run with a tether on, so I'm not holding them

  • and I'm like running with them.

  • And usually, we're in like this really fluid, moving great together.

  • And I can use voice commands and I can -- I kind of have various ways to keep them

  • doing -- we're all kind of a pack and I'm sort of the alpha, at least that's what I'm

  • hoping.

  • And some squirrels or a squirrel went by in a somewhat narrow path and suddenly I found

  • myself in a branch and stopping.

  • A branch suddenly decided to stop me.

  • So I have a black eye and a hurt shoulder but other than that I think I'm okay.

  • I'm good to go.

  • I actually did this the day before -- I gave a talk last week at the Pacific Lutheran University's

  • -- they had a international symposium on sport and recreation.

  • And I didn't realize I was getting a black eye.

  • I guess it -- it happened the day before and I guess -- well, I guess some of you have

  • had black eyes sometimes.

  • I guess it doesn't just like suddenly you have a black eye.

  • So I was, like, didn't really know I had a black eye, but everybody was looking at me

  • so funny.

  • I thought just like, gee, I guess I must look really funny.

  • I mean, that's probably true, too, but nonetheless that's the story on that.

  • Anyway, I don't know how many of you know me from reading the book 'Born to Run' or

  • having checked out my blog, Barefoot Ted's Adventures, but I'll tell you it's been an

  • incredible experience to have become sort of a person who my own personal journey to

  • find a way to run joyfully to sort of do things that I sort of didn't think I was ever going

  • to be able to do, and then sort of put my mind to it.

  • And start really investigating what it means to be able to run and whether or not this

  • is something I was going to be able to do in my life for longer than an hour without

  • pain led to me where I am talking to you today.

  • And the story goes like this: When I was a younger person, I remember there was a --

  • my family ran the Santa Monica Pier carousel in Santa Monica.

  • I'm kind of from a carousel family, if you can imagine that.

  • But the son of Alan Cranston, who was a famous California senator, was having his 40th birthday

  • party at the carousel, and he was going to run his first marathon.

  • And I thought, my goodness, 40-year old running a marathon.

  • You know, this is his first marathon.

  • I was just so intrigued that somebody that old -- I think I was 20 at the time -- would

  • ever even be able to do that.

  • And I got to know him and I was sort of intrigued.

  • And he really had a successful run, and he was talking about how great it was and kind

  • of sharing with me his experience as a runner.

  • And I -- in the back of my mind, I sort of filed something there that, perhaps when I

  • was going to be turning 40, I think that I might try to make that attempt at a marathon.

  • So anyway, about seven years ago, my 40th birthday was comingwas going to be coming

  • up, and I thought, well, now's the time to give it a try.

  • So I'd done a little running here and there.

  • I ran, you know, some in high school and while I was -- I remember the first thing I did

  • after graduating from UC Berkley, I was studying Japanese and Rhetoric -- the first thing I

  • did after I got out was I started running again.

  • And I thought -- it seemed so enjoyable to suddenly start being able to put energy into

  • something that was so pure and -- but I could never, I really could never get more than

  • a hour where I would be in so much pain, basically.

  • And I tried different shoes, I tried all kinds of different things.

  • And I sort of gave it up for awhile and went to bicycling.

  • It's a very, very common story.

  • And anyway, my 40th birthday was looming about seven years ago, and I decided, well, I'm

  • going to make one more effort to crack this nut of long distance running.

  • There's got to be now some technological solution to this problem, and so I started Googling

  • "lowest impact shoe" and various things.

  • And I came up with a great find.

  • And it's -- it's a company out of Switzerland called Kangoo Jumps – I believe is the name

  • -- or Kangoo Boots and they literally make a boot-like footwear that has a, kind of like

  • a leaf spring built into it.

  • And you put these on and you can literally bounce.

  • I mean you can bounce around the -- and I thought yes.

  • And they had like a, you know, they had sort of testimonials and various people who had

  • tried, you know, people that had various problems with impact and they had gotten these shoes.

  • And I think they had evidence showing that this shoe was the most impact-resisting shoe

  • on the market.

  • And so it was like, right on.

  • And I -- right away e-mailed them and I -- they told me, oh, it's a great timing.

  • We're having this newest version of the shoe coming out that's even got more spring.

  • And I was going to have to like wait like a month.

  • I was just -- whenever you have to wait for something it's just like building up the intensity

  • of how wonderful it's going to be.

  • And I was just imagining myself sort of bouncing through the foothills and just -- I was going

  • to be coming a living embodiment of Tigger.

  • I had like -- I'm built so strong, I've got strong legs and I'm strong.

  • And I thought if with regular running shoes I could do an hour without pain, and for me

  • I was always assuming that marathon runners and long distance runners, those guys it's

  • all about enduring pain.

  • That's what I assumed, based on my experience.

  • So I thought if I could go on hour with the best running shoes, I figured I'm going to

  • be able to do like two hours like right away, like first day.

  • So anyway, long story short my Kangoo Jumps came and I put my Kangoo Jumps on, so damn

  • excited and I was bouncing around the yard.

  • And instead of one hour where I was in my case kind of lower back pain, 15 minutes later,

  • I'm feeling the same problems, the tightness in the legs and the various other things.

  • And I was just like, oh my gosh, you know.

  • It was just like you got to be kidding me.

  • I took the dial, turned to 11, 11 didn't work.

  • And I don't know about you guys but I'm one of these kind of problem solvers that I like

  • to like -- I like to test the extremes.

  • Even on some computer coding stuff I do, I'm like go over let's do this oh,crap that's

  • all screwed up.

  • Go over here, don't do this.

  • Oh, that's kind of screwed up.

  • And somewhere in the middle, I find a solution.

  • So 11 didn't work.

  • I had the best, most impact-resisting shoe in the world, 15 minutes later, ain't going

  • to be going anywhere soon.

  • And thankfully the kind of prototypes I had broke, I got to send them back.

  • They were rather expensive and, well, anyway, I found myself kind of confronted with a dead

  • end.

  • And I didn't right away think about barefooting, but I had been doing a lot of barefooting

  • already.

  • I'd been doing some barefoot hiking, and so I thought maybe I'm just going to be a hiker.

  • Maybe I'll be a barefoot hiker.

  • So I Googled "barefoot hiking," and well of course, there are barefoot hikers in the world.

  • And there are barefoot hikers forums and there are barefoot hiker events.

  • So I'm looking at all this barefoot hiking stuff, and I'm thinking that's cool I've been

  • doing that a lot.

  • And I think it's actually been very beneficial to me to have had that background before I

  • go further in the story.

  • But nonetheless, while I was looking at the barefoot hiking website, there was a little

  • link down at the bottom to barefoot running.

  • And before I clicked that, or about at the same moment that I clicked that link over,

  • and it happened to be a link over to -- the famous barefooter named Barefoot Ken Bob,

  • this bearded, long-haired guy that works over at Cal State Long Beach in Southern California

  • who had had a website sort of on barefoot running for several years.

  • Before I clicked on that, sort of like a flood of memories of various things in my own experience

  • that made me remember that indeed there were or had been perhaps in my mind at the moment

  • biomechanically perfect individuals in this world who had been able to achieve great things

  • barefooting.

  • I'd remembered Zola Budd, if any of you are older than me or about the same age, you probably

  • have remembered or heard about her, an Olympic athlete runner.

  • But I also started remembering my own father's experience as a barefooter in high school

  • and football it was very common to do a lot of training in barefoot.

  • I remember my aunt who had some high school track records, and her bemoaning the fact

  • that somewhere I think it was '64 that the essentially the sporting goods associations

  • in the United States lobbied and made it so that you had start wearing sport shoes in

  • high school sports.

  • Before that, I went and investigated -- this was quite fascinating, entire cross country

  • teams would be barefoot.

  • Barefoot training was not unusual.

  • Matter of fact, barefooting had kind of had a boom even previous to 50 years ago today.

  • Something I'll tell you, some of you who have read 'Born to Run' know already, even previous

  • to that there were people, like there was a fellow from Australia named Herb Elliot,

  • one of the early Australians to be able to get some medals in track and field.

  • And he had this kind of wacko coach named Percy Cerutty who apparently took these guys

  • and had them training like indigenous people of Australia, and had them running barefoot

  • all over the place, and ended up having great efficacy for these guys.

  • And matter of fact Herb Elliot, a barefooter runner, was on the cover of Sports Illustrated

  • twice, once in the late 50s and again in the early 60s.

  • So there was a whole generation of people, my father and my aunt and others, that barefoot

  • running in and on its face was not unusual and furthermore, running in shoes that weren't

  • padded or cushioned in any way was not unusual.

  • And matter of fact, part of the training techniques of being able to learn how to run this way,

  • either by default based on the fact that you didn't have any padding in your shoe or because

  • you had a great coach and you learned how to run well, you learned how to run in a way

  • that wasn't pounding the hell out of you.

  • These people that ran marathons back before the padded shoe, weren't taking on as much

  • impact as you might imagine based on the way most people think they need shoes today.

  • But anyway, all of these things started flooding through my mind including, I had just been

  • to -- my daughter had been in a triathlon, a kids' triathlon thing, and I remember the

  • first place kid running through carrying his shoes.

  • So just a flood of memories.

  • And then, of course, I even remembered in the newspapers the Tarahumara, the Indians

  • from Northern Mexico, would come and race this one race near where I'd grown up called

  • the Angeles Press 100.

  • And they'd come and run in these shoes that were made out of old tires.

  • I mean, I don't know if you've ever put a tire on your foot and started running, you'll

  • find out real quickly there's no cushioning in a tire at all.

  • Great protection, though, if you decide that you want to step on -- start running down

  • a hill at high speed and suddenly find yourself stepping on sharp rocks or wanting to brake

  • to make a turn. In that case, I would say they are awesome.

  • So anyway, I clicked that click and went over to Ken Bob's site and I was like okay, here

  • we go.

  • Let me just see what this guy has to say.

  • And I -- what I did I very methodically read everything he had written, followed through

  • every link that linked from his website, went to his Yahoo forum and read every input that

  • had started from when hewhen he had started this forum.

  • And slowly but surely, I think that I took in from that all of the things, the ideas

  • about what kind of form I would expect, how far I would -- you know, what kind of things

  • I would have to look out for to start this journey of barefoot running.

  • At this point, I hadn't really tried it, so I had no idea what I was going to expect.

  • So I read all that.

  • I think three days later, I'd completed reading everything.

  • I had read every article, every link, and I was like -- sounds like I'm good to go.

  • So I went out and unbelievably -- I'd been like I'd said I'd been running periodically

  • all my life, so I knew kind of what to expect.

  • I knew about running.

  • But when I applied myself in this new kind of style of running which was much more about

  • learning how to land more on the forefoot or more up on the front part of my foot rather

  • than on my heel that involved having a much quicker cadence, a quicker turnover of my

  • feet.

  • And it was like an instantaneous epiphany that this was -- and by the way, I'm running

  • at this point I'm running on asphalt, concrete and then eventually to some horse trails but

  • it was like instantaneously recognizable to me that I had found something very important.

  • I'd discovered something extraordinarily important that was going to change my life.

  • It was 45 minutes later that I finally got home.

  • I purposefully stopped because I figured I better, didn't want to err on over exuberance.

  • But it was like the most important 45 minutes of my life at that point.

  • I had for the first time run barefoot in my life and I wasn't experiencing any pain.

  • I wasn't experiencing any back pain.

  • I wasn't experiencing any pounding.

  • It was so amazing.

  • Literally from that day until now, it was about seven years ago, I have been able to

  • continuously progress on this little journey of mine, and record it and share what I've

  • found and discovered in the process.

  • And it turns out indeed it's not a -- it's not an unusual event.

  • I'm not the only one who's had this epiphany.

  • It turns out at this point in history, in our moment of time, in our new generation

  • who never really even thought or considered barefoot running, at this moment in time primarily

  • because of the book 'Born to Run', it's had a huge influence.

  • And a whole bunch of research that's either coming out or is about to come out in --

  • and probably Dr. Lieberman's stuff from Harvard being the most important, is that you're going

  • to start seeing the beginning it's already started of a paradigm shift, I believe, in

  • the way we look at what it means to be human and what it means to run.

  • And that leads me to what I want to say about that, which is, an amazing thing.

  • It just so happened that as I discovered this for myself, and the first thing I thought

  • was, my goodness.

  • Well, first of all well let's see how far I can take this.

  • I mean am I going to break down here soon?

  • Let's see what I can do.

  • And it turned out that the fellow I was following and learning from was this guy Ken Bob, Barefoot

  • Ken Bob.

  • And he had been, his thing that year was to run a marathon a month barefoot.

  • And I thought okay, well, maybe I should start training or preparing myself to try to run

  • a barefoot marathon.

  • I've never run a marathon before and my 40th birthday wasn't quite here yet.

  • So that would be the -- that would be the ticket.

  • That would be to determine whether or not this has legitimacy.

  • Am I really going to be able to do this?

  • Am I going to break down?

  • Am I going to start having issues?

  • Whatever.

  • Well I didn't have any issues.

  • I continued to run practically every day.

  • Ended up joining an incredible, mostly Mexican-American and Mexican National running group called

  • the Wild Mountain Runners.

  • And these guys were hard -- for my friends, my Mexican-American friends in Los Angeles,

  • running is right up there alongside boxing as far as machismo goes.

  • They don't run -- they don't run for joy as much as I do.

  • They were running to sort of like, I don't know master themselves in a way.

  • And I would follow these guys on these, about six months after I started running, I got

  • in this club, and they would take me out on these runs in the mountains.

  • I mean, it got to the point by the time I was done from our mountain run, when I got

  • down to the asphalt, asphalt was cream to me.

  • Asphalt was like the answer of all of our ancestors' prayers.

  • Any kind of smooth surface where you could sort of tune out completely and not have to

  • be so hyper-focused on what you were doing was like a dream come true.

  • When you're running trails, particularly the Southern California mountain trails, literally

  • every footfall is a chess move.

  • And you find out real quickly that you're not -- the reason you have this capacity,

  • and this is what I really started focusing on, this capacity to move over incredibly

  • complex moonscape-type terrains in such a way that you're in each step being able to

  • find the sweet spots, if they exist, in real time is an incredible place to get to.

  • When you start, and I think this is what barefooting does, and I talk about this a lot but barefooting

  • forces you to become present.

  • You are mindful of what you're doing.

  • You're no longer the disconnected robotic runner who from their footwear up to their

  • headgear are no longer even connected to their body, not sensitized to the incredibly sophisticated

  • systems that we've inherited that are mostly preconscious but that require the ability

  • to feel the world.

  • Have you ever wondered why you have so much feeling on the bottom of your feet?

  • Have you ever contemplated?

  • Is it because God or the evolutionary gods or whatever it is that swerved us to get here

  • decided they wanted to laugh as we had to anymore nimbly make our way over the ground

  • or does it have some purpose?

  • And indeed, when you really start thinking about it, and then you start actually understanding

  • what's going on, all that sensory input is incredibly interfacing directly with your

  • brain.

  • It's this conceptyou've heard of proprioception which many writers who write about

  • wax eloquent and call it our sixth sense.

  • And the more I understand it the more I indeed believe it is a kind of sixth sense.

  • However, it's a sense that requires the ability to feel, primarily the ability to feel impacts.

  • And the ability to feel that in real time, your body is able to do amazing things, i.e.,

  • instead of you becoming a disconnected robotic mover who just sort of takes impact in you

  • as you move, you when get sensitized and are capable to connect with the proprioception

  • in your own body, your body responds quickly.

  • I little coaching helps, and that's why I do that but ultimately people would discover

  • this on their own.

  • Your body won't let you pound the hell out of yourself.

  • It actually is able to in real time allow to make movements in a way that instead of

  • being disconnected and pound, you end up starting to see that the impact and the way you land

  • and the way you move ends up becoming extraordinarily smooth.

  • And instead of having hard edges in your movement when you're running, you start getting this

  • feeling of a kind of a flow.

  • And indeed, I believe running with my dogs and looking at big cats and other animals

  • that move well, it's this kind of ability to have your movement to be flowing, no hard

  • edges.

  • And indeed in Nature magazine this month, Lieberman has his research, cover story matter

  • of fact, showing him studying an unshod group in Kenya and a shod group having them run

  • over these impact plates and photographing them as they run by.

  • The people who put on the shoe, suddenly you have a whole cohort, a whole generation in

  • our case, of people who by disconnecting from their body and early on the cushioning was

  • minimal.

  • But let's say in the early 70s, the beginning of the cushioning of a shoe before that basically

  • your sole is well, there's no cushioning per se.

  • There's generally protection from sharp things and uncomfortable things that you might step

  • on but cushioning itself and the concept of it wasn't there yet.

  • So the impact feeling is still there.

  • You're still able to run.

  • You sort of get connected to that feeling.

  • The beginning of the cushioning, I mean somebody could do like a evolutionary -- I believe

  • it's going to be a dying branch -- but the evolutionary branch of the beginning of the

  • cushioning in the foot of the whole cohort of runners, and the beginning slowly but surely

  • of people who could start running in a way that they weren't let's say evolved to run,

  • i.e., landing with their heel out in front of them with their leg extended.

  • You do that for too long, too fast and you won't be doing it too long and too fast very

  • long anymore.

  • But anyway, the beginning of that change requiring more padding, requiring a bigger heel, requiring

  • more -- it's kind of like you get into this self-fulfilling kind of prophecy.

  • Of like you need more cushioning and you need more heel because you're taking more impact

  • because you're running in a style that you weren't designed to run and so forth.

  • And finally we get ourself to the point where we are today.

  • Most people, if you interview them or talk to them and I had a chance to do this just

  • the other day, college students, you think, now in order to run, I'm assuming you probably

  • -- do you think -- do you need some kind of protection or what -- right away, of course,

  • you need padding.

  • And you need support and you need arch support and you need -- and any of you have read 'Born

  • to Run' and has read the chapter I would call the small C conspiracy chapter on running

  • shoes and the whole propaganda that have made people assume that they needed all of those

  • things, you'll find out real quickly that whether or not they actually protect you from

  • anything or not, at this point, there's no good scientific research showing that that's

  • the case.

  • Matter of fact, the swerve, the brake seems to be that you're way better not having anything

  • and learning how to run well.

  • Actually McDougall, the writer of the book Born to Run, said it eloquently at the Google

  • talk he did recently which was we're kind of a culture now where we've thrown somebody

  • into a pool and we want them to learn how to swim.

  • And instead of just saying, and by the way, you swim like this and you take your hand

  • over like this and kind of demonstrating how to swim well, we just kind of throw them more

  • expensive and fashionable and trendy new kinds of devices that hold them up.

  • And so they're flailing on the top of the water.

  • When if we could just say, hey, maybe you should just start moving smoothly like this.

  • So anyway, I -- my discovery was suddenly like, wow, I've really got to do something

  • to make this -- I'm going to have to do something to make my story, what I'm going to do, the

  • progress that I'm going to experience -- get out there and let other people know about

  • it.

  • So I started a Blogger blog and started recording my progress.

  • Well, my progress went very well.

  • And one year later, I was able to run barefooted in a marathon and qualify for the Boston marathon,

  • which is an -- for a lot of people it's kind of like the Holy Grail for a marathon runner

  • to try to get a time that's good enough to allow them to enter the Boston marathon and

  • I did.

  • And in the process of that first year, year and a half, I started doing a lot of research.

  • I got very intrigued by indigenous footwear.

  • I figured well, if our ancestors were these great long distance runners as Lieberman was

  • pointing out, these persistent hunters who, for a huge period of our evolutionary history,

  • apparently we were able to and actually, there's some people who are still being able to do

  • it, outrun animals.

  • Squirrels -- as far as speed goes, we're ridiculously slow.

  • We're like on terrestrial animals, squirrels beat us.

  • Just about anything will beat us in the short run.

  • We are phenomenal, probably the best in the world, I think it's -- it's in most cases,

  • particularly if you ever have us running in the middle of the day, human beings can beat

  • out any other animals if you start adding hours and distance to the equation.

  • And we became really sophisticated at being able to chase down very large animals.

  • If you YouTube it right now, you'll find there's some great footage of some San people, some

  • of our earliest ancestors in South Africa, doing this very thing.

  • But it turns out there was a whole huge period of human history where this was a very common

  • practice of outrunning -- I mean the one on YouTube is an 800-pound ibex that within three

  • hours the guythe animal, it takes off at speed, if you're smart you do this during

  • the middle of the day, carry some water.

  • You, because you've got a big brain, start being able to realize several things.

  • You start empathizing with the animal.

  • And you know the environment, and you know where they are going to go.

  • So they sprint off -- bam.

  • And it's the middle of the day.

  • Animals can only take one breath per stroke, and eventually they're going to have to stop

  • and start breathing because they're only cooling down primarily through their mouth.

  • So you know where they're going, you're going to follow their track, but you kind of get

  • a general idea where they're going to be going cause you know where there are some shade

  • trees, where that guy is going to want to get to and you just keep trotting around.

  • You don't -- he's out of your sense of view.

  • You get to where he got to, maybe he's already rested and took off.

  • It shows -- they kind of look around and start feeling where would they go next.

  • Anyway, to make a long story short, after a few hours, 3 to 6 hours depending, that

  • animal has run itself to death.

  • It's having heat stroke and by the time this runner has caught up to him, trotting along

  • at his fairly leisurely pace I would say, that animal is ready to succumb.

  • It ends up the -- in the video on YouTube, he does spear it but it's basically almost

  • a ritualized spearing.

  • And he says, 'I'm sorry I'm taking your life and I hope you're better off in the future.

  • You're going to be feeding my family and taking care of this and it's kind of that kind of

  • situation.

  • Well, it turns out, this was a very common practice up until even recently.

  • Google Book has been a great tool for me to do research on more persistence hunting.

  • I found everything all over the place.

  • The Tarahumara were famous for chasing down deer this way.

  • The most interesting story I found in persistence hunting is one tribe, I can't remember the

  • name off the top of my head, where if you wanted to prove you had some cojones, you

  • would, you would persistence hunt a black bear.

  • Spook a black bear, it runs, you keep following it, scaring the hell out of it, spook it again

  • and you run that thing to death.

  • So anyway, just to make a long story short, I want to make people know that indeed you

  • were born, as a human, if you're a human being, you were born with this incredible capacity.

  • It is a -- the hallmark of our species.

  • I think it's probably the most fundamental human capacity and that is to be able to move

  • long distances.

  • Not necessarily at the speeds that you see people running marathons and things these

  • days.

  • It's amazing how much faster you'll run if there's millions of dollars involved.

  • But I say that in the kind of running that I'm really intrigued by and the kind of running

  • that I coach and share and try to convince others to try is a running that, first of

  • all, is much more connected and closely associated with the way I believe -- and I think it's

  • pretty clear -- that we ran for millennia, not, not 40 years.

  • Padded, high-heeled, orthotic padded shoe boot is only about at its greatest length,

  • 40 years old.

  • And in reality, the ones that we're seeing these days that people think are so necessary

  • have only been coming around since we've been able to manufacture them overseas and start

  • -- the bloat started about that time.

  • But, nonetheless, once you learn how to move the way your ancestors moved, once you learn

  • how to run in such a way that you're not pounding the ground and think more along the lines

  • of a dancer approaching a stage, they're not relying on footwear to help them do what they're

  • going to be doing there.

  • They're relying on form and grace and strength and connection to their body, not disconnection.

  • And once you get rid of the big padded shoes, and once you get rid of constantly listening

  • to headphones while you're running and start trying to tune into what you're doing while

  • you're doing it, what I think you'll find -- and I think it's totally correlates with

  • it being such a valuable survival tool in a sense is that movement is

  • joyful.

  • Movement isn't about -- we didn't become successful as a species because movement was drudgery,

  • painful, and you know, something that led us having to see a professional every time

  • we did it in order to put us back together.

  • This is not the way movement should be.

  • Movement ultimately should be smooth, non-diminishing, building up, and joyful.

  • And everybody of course is probably at one time or another either experienced or heard

  • about how the body essentially, the second wind concept endorphins and things like this.

  • Well, if anybody's experienced this knows that it's an element and certainly an important

  • element of it.

  • But being barefoot and learning how to move well over all kinds of different terrain both

  • natural and manmade that's one of the -- I'm sure some people in the back of their

  • head are like, 'What about manmade materials -- are so much harder than nature.'

  • Well, all I can say is they haven't run much in nature because nature's no friend either

  • to the foot if you're plodding along.

  • But once you become connected to what you're doing and moving well, even the hardest surfaces

  • including, for example, the sun-baked plains where our ancestors started out, rocky plains,

  • you'll find that learning how to move in such a way that you're not pounding the ground

  • is joyful.

  • It's really quite remarkable.

  • And furthermore, when you no longer are running -- it seems like the only way you sell things

  • in a consumer culture is, it's got to either be performance-enhancing or weight-reducing.

  • And I mean, those are two incredibly useful things but the problem with those two things

  • is they're all tied up with numbers.

  • Got to have quantification.

  • How far, distance, and so forth.

  • What I try to train people is to look at their running far more about being, again, connected

  • to their body.

  • Instead of erring on the side of how far, how fast, how longhow about how does

  • it feel?

  • Are you -- am I running in good form?

  • Getting associated with the feeling of moving well because ultimately, good running isn't

  • about how well you can endure pain.

  • It's how well you can remain relaxed, how long you can remain smooth.

  • And those should be the barometers of determining whether or not you should continue forward

  • on your running.

  • So I got to this point.

  • I did the Boston Marathon, and I actually went there and just before I went to the Boston

  • Marathon, I -- I was -- I'd been at this point looking all over, struggling to find some

  • kind of minimal shoe in order to be able to do some hundred mile races I had in my mind.

  • And low and behold, somebody sent me a link to an Italian blog that had the -- it was

  • in Italian, and I used Google Translate to translate it, and suddenly I saw this shoe

  • shaped like a foot.

  • And, I was like whoa, that looks pretty interesting.

  • And I read all about this guy, and it's the grandson of the founder of a company known

  • as Vibrum, lot of people in America call it "vibe rum".

  • Vibrum, Vitale Bramani is the founder,

  • Italian family-owned company still.

  • It turns out it's one of the first products REI imported into the United States.

  • Vibrum sold hiking boots and of course, everybody knows Vibrum for making famous for proprietary

  • soleing materials.

  • The Vitale Bramani was friends with Pirelli, and anyway, to make a long story short, they

  • dominate the shoe-soling business.

  • Well, they'd never manufactured a shoe.

  • Grandson is a yachts guy and barefooting on a boat is actually one of the better -- Any

  • time you're barefoot you have significantly better balance, I don't know if you've noticed

  • that, but that's part of the role proprioception plays for you, too.

  • And he got this guy and he spent three years.

  • I can't imagine any other company doing this, three years of his own, basically time and

  • money, hired this guy who had already started developing this shoe, and came out with this

  • shoe, the Five Fingers.

  • So I saw that, and I went whoa.

  • And I immediately got in touch with the Vibrum USA, and I got a phone call one day and it

  • was the president of Vibrum.

  • I didn't know it when phone call started.

  • And then I said, 'Hey, I really think that you should send me some of those shoes, and

  • I'm going to test those for you, and I'll get some other people to test them because

  • I'm Barefoot Ted and I run marathons barefoot, and I'll be able to tell you if that shoe

  • is actually a barefoot shoe.'

  • And the guy's like, 'Hold on, you're planning on running a marathon in these shoes?'

  • And I was like 'yeah', and he went on to tell me how he was a 2:25 marathoner, which is

  • a very good marathon time, probably around world class time, he did it.

  • And he said, 'I just really don't know about this'.

  • And I said, 'Well, why don't you send them to me and I'll tell you.'

  • So they sent me a pair and lucky for me, and lucky for them I would say, couple weeks later,

  • I was getting ready to make my first trip down into the Copper Canyon to run in essentially

  • the first inaugural Copper Canyon Ultra-marathon.

  • And I was going to be going down there with Christopher McDougall, who happens to the

  • writer of that book, and if you've read the book 'Born to Run', what I'm going to be telling

  • you from this point forward is essentially the story of the book.

  • So I get my Five Fingers, and I indeed wore them and I was friggin' blown away.

  • They were allowing me to be able to stay in this relaxed place that I'm so convinced is

  • very important to remain in as long as possible, and still run on -- there's plenty of places

  • where it's not comfortable to run barefoot.

  • And there's plenty of situations where it could be not so safe.

  • So this shoe was like, immediately, I was like this is the answer.

  • So I took that shoe, it was the early version before they started making some of the different

  • things they have now.

  • And I find myself down in the Copper Canyon of Mexico running this 50 mile race with these

  • incredible athletes, probably the greatest long distance runners in the world today who

  • happened to run in these kind of shoes here.

  • That's a thick version of it.

  • And McDougall was recording this entire trip.

  • He was -- he had this book in mind, planned, didn't really have anything to do with barefoot

  • running at the time.

  • And so that experience ended up becoming a life-transforming experience.

  • Meeting the Rarámuri, the Tarahumara people, running with some of the greatest runners

  • in the world, being part of a great story.

  • And actually getting a chance to have lots and lots of other people sort of start to

  • make the same kind of transition that I have, made me realize it was a goal that I had at

  • the very beginning.

  • Right, early on, after -- particularly after I qualified for Boston and realized I could

  • keep running like this, the first thing I started thinking and the Five Finger shoe

  • ended up becoming the answer, I realized that there was no way in hell that this barefoot

  • running was ever going to become a fad or a hit in the United States unless there

  • was a product.

  • I knew there's just no way.

  • You tell people, you got -- hey, it's free.

  • It's free.

  • It's like, okay, man.

  • Right on.

  • Whatever.

  • It's like as soon as -- we are so trained to like, you know, we purchase a solution.

  • We got to have a purchasable solution.

  • So I actually have a blog entry called Vibrum Five Fingers, Paradigm Shifting Trojan Horse,

  • and that's exactly how I see it.

  • In other words, if you can get people to essentially buy something that is a -- it has no padding.

  • It essentially fits your foot like a glove.

  • It has no arch support.

  • It has no -- anything other than let's say a thicker skin.

  • And, by the way, the skin on the bottom of my feet is not a hard, calloused, unfeeling

  • thing.

  • That's a shoe.

  • The skin on me feet is a supple, pliable, multi-layered feeling, living material.

  • And indeed, I would go so far people think, 'Oh man, don't you want to get into technology?

  • Technology or something isn't there something better?'

  • How about a self-healing, self-nourishing gets stronger and smarter with use material,

  • has a direct interface with my brain, and that -- and even better, all I have to do

  • is eat good food to grow it.

  • I mean, come on, give me a break.

  • It makes a lot of sense when I'm at the farmers' market and I'm getting ready to buy a tomato,

  • that's like 3 or 4 bucks, it's like but it's going to be my shoe. [audience laughs]

  • It changes the whole -- and in reality, when you really think about it you're foot is ike

  • nano-technology.

  • I mean you've got cells building themselves, it's there -- it's on and on.

  • It's so fascinating.

  • And indeed, when you start even thinking about it, look at all the martial arts, first thing

  • you do, you take off your shoes.

  • You want to be a gymnast, you want to be good at balancing, you take off your shoes.

  • You want to do a lot of spiritual arts, take off your shoes.

  • The idea of being connected and being part of your body and being present, all of these

  • things come with the package.

  • And it's just such an incredible journey.

  • So, got to have a -- something to buy.

  • And there was that shoe.

  • And I knew, whoa, people are going to get that.

  • And there're going to be able because ultimately, let's face it.

  • I think probably the most incredibly, apart from the fact of having overly sensitive feet

  • at first, many people do because essentially we've been, essentially wearing earplugs and

  • earmuffs our whole life and wearing those if something loud comes in, if you have earplugs

  • and earmuffs on and something loud comes in, you've got a emergency situation on your hands.

  • You take your earplugs and your earmuffs off, socks and shoes, and suddenly, you're getting

  • what seems like a lot of emergency signal.

  • And at first, I think it's the other analogy is sort of like going to a massage therapist

  • and you're very tight, and they start working on you.

  • And you're like, lady or guy, whatever, you know, that's -- and then oh, oh.

  • And then pretty soon it's like, 'Damn, that feels good.'

  • Well I think there's very much the correlation, taking the earplugs, earmuffs off, and allowing

  • the foot to sort of reawaken, reconnect to the job that's it's been doing for who knows

  • how long now but certainly eons and getting re-in-touch with your own body.

  • I would tell you from my own experience and what I've seen from hundreds and, at this

  • point, thousands of other people it's a worthwhile journey, doesn't cost too much.

  • But that's not the only problem.

  • The psychological difficulty of being in public or running and doing any of these things that

  • society tells that's not right.

  • It's subversive.

  • You're running barefoot, there's something wrong with you.

  • It just doesn't fit the mold of what you should be doing.

  • You're putting yourself at danger.

  • That's the common assumption.

  • You certainly don't have all the social markers of being affluent, where's your brand?

  • You're dirty.

  • People -- I don't know how many people have bothered, but if you want to find a good place

  • to grow microbes just give me a hot, warm, moist dark place, let's add periodically,

  • some moisture and some dead skin cells.

  • For the hell of it, let's wrap it in sort of a tox material made somewhere else by people

  • who don't like what they're doing.

  • But go ahead and do a microbe, do a little sampling of that and see what see what you

  • can grow in a Petri dish.

  • Now go out to let's say someplace where there's sunlight and air and hard surfaces for example.

  • And let's find what we can find there.

  • Oh, but what if you step on a nail, a rock, glass, dog poop, the whole list of other possibilities.

  • And accidents will happen.

  • I'm sure that it does.

  • In my long history now as a barefooter, well, there was this incredible other set of gadgets

  • that I inherited from my ancestors, eyeballs and a brain.

  • And it's amazing how a coordinated use of all those things in real time allows me to

  • not step on the dog poop or not step on the various things that are out there.

  • And then ultimately, and this is the real -- this is the thing that I think makes my

  • job as a coach really the only thing I do, the only thing I'm willing to teach at this

  • point is I do an introduction to barefoot running.

  • One time, you're done.

  • I don't really think I can share it much more.

  • And the rest is sort of self-experimentation, but there are some little hints that you need

  • to pick up on, and it has to do with about the way -- instead of being the plodding kind

  • of mover, what indigenous people used to call us cow walkers as opposed to fox walking or

  • what I call robot.

  • When you learn how to move nimbly, with a much quicker cadence and a much gentler landing,

  • suddenly some of the things that you're thinking that if you stepped on how horrible it would

  • be, when you're dealing with a living, feeling material, you would be surprised.

  • It doesn't want to mash down on things that don't feel comfortable, and getting into this

  • sort of place where you're moving very quickly and nimbly over the ground, you start to land

  • on something that doesn't feel very comfortable -- hot, holey, sharp, whatever -- you're

  • on to your next footfall.

  • So ultimately, a style of movement also plays into how to be able to move in such a way

  • that you can do well with what you've already been given.

  • So the Five Fingers are selling like hot cakes.

  • The first question I had for the president after I tried them and knew that they were

  • going to be good was, is this a stock company?

  • And it wasn't.

  • So sadly, I'm not a millionaire at this point because of sales of Five Fingers.

  • But I believe that I would have been to some degree because at this point last year, they

  • planned on doubling their business in the middle of a recession.

  • And I think the numeral five before the multiplication symbol would have been still too small.

  • And they're getting ready to launch a whole bunch of new shoes in April.

  • And furthermore, the bandwagon hasn't stopped with them.

  • They have a patent on their little design there, smart them, and a pretty smart CEO.

  • But you're going to see that minimalism and minimal shoes will become the rage because

  • more and more people are going to basically succumb to the reasoning that I just sort

  • of shared with you.

  • I hope it makes some sense.

  • And I think with that, I will stop and take some questions.

  • [PAUSE]

  • >> Um, I have read a little bit from that book, so it's a very nicely

  • written book.

  • I would like to ask, the book is talking about people that had nothing to do with running

  • whatsoever.

  • And then within a very short time, like one year or two years, they developed into these

  • world class athletes that are able to run hundreds of miles literally.

  • So how does that work?

  • What is that gives them that ability that they didn't know before?

  • >>TED McDONALD: Well, I think you characterized the book a little bit differently.

  • There aren't -- there are not a lot of people in that book -- the only person that might

  • fit the category or the person that you just described would be me in the book.

  • But there are -- most of the other characters in that book were not like beginning out

  • -- beginners or just starting this journey.

  • So speaking for myself, and as that probably may be the character you're referring to,

  • the question is -- can other people do this essentially?

  • Is this -- is this something that I could do?

  • Maybe is that -- does that simplify it?

  • >> Maybe that would be the second part of the question.

  • >>TED McDONALD: Okay.

  • So my discovery, my personal discovery, I am a person that did just what you described

  • went from essentially not running much, very consistently for very long, to spending a

  • lot of time trying to find a solution to running in a way that I can do it safely and comfortably

  • to realizing that this was an -- was working for me.

  • By the way, before I continue on this, I'm not dogmatically a barefoot runner, nor am

  • I -- matter of fact the only thing I'm dogmatically dogmatic about is being not dogmatic.

  • So ultimately, I am part of getting the story of barefooting and – I really wanted to

  • see it at least become part of the palette of choices of mainstream America.

  • But when I started out it wasn't a choice.

  • You couldn't say I'm going to be a minimalist runner or a barefoot runner it would be like

  • dude that's wrong, you can't do that.

  • So what I think McDougall says in the book and I agree with and what I think the science

  • backs up and I agree with, is that this capacity to run is a fundamental human capacity, and

  • that the foot is not a broken appendage.

  • This is not something that we just accidentally dragged into the future.

  • It's there because it's incredible.

  • It's -- it's one of the things Michelangelo gets off on, he looks at the anatomy of a

  • foot and he was like whoa.

  • It's so amazing.

  • It's such an amazing tool and yet we have a whole generation of people who have assumed

  • that their foot was something broken.

  • That you know, in some cases, you'd also assume if we could cut it off at birth that would

  • be better but since that's barbaric, let's just cast and protect and do everything we

  • can to make it not get injured.

  • And it's that attitude that we had something that wasn't viable, that is wrong.

  • It's -- it's kind of it's purely a psychological thing.

  • It's not true.

  • The foot is -- if incrementally developed -- some people never -- I like to often talk

  • about the foot and learning how to barefoot like a language.

  • And some people, I had a client the other day, 64-year old guy had never been outside

  • in his life -- he was unfortunately affluent when he was growing up and his parents didn't

  • want him to be barefoot like all the other kids who were having fun.

  • He had to wear his shoes.

  • It was like oh my God.

  • But nonetheless, being like a language some people are starting out with just learning

  • the alphabet.

  • They may have never been barefoot in their life, let's say.

  • That's the worst case scenario.

  • Other people were barefoot as kids.

  • They might have been doing barefoot sports.

  • Surfing is a good one, that's what I was into, and skateboarding and other things.

  • They've may have just re-continued barefooting for various reasons, going, living in a culture

  • that allowed that to happen.

  • Their movement into being able to run barefoot or minimally is, obviously, the progress is

  • much greater.

  • The similarity is that regardless, an incremental develop of this capacity, rather than being

  • driven by the ego and numbers and how fast and just everything about performance and

  • how -- if you really get into it as orchard growing rather than as a purchase solution,

  • and sort of regrow your body in a sense, because that's what you're doing.

  • You're reawakening in some cases something that's been in a cast its entire life.

  • What my personal experience and looking at having this forum and knowing about hundreds

  • and thousands of other people who have done the same that incremental development of this

  • potentiality in most almost all human beings, I would say, unless they have some significant

  • trouble, will develop and will come about and will be perfected.

  • You can imagine it's quite a satisfying thing to realize you don't need anything in order

  • to do the one thing that we are preeminent in the world at doing.

  • [PAUSE]

  • >>TED McDONALD: Damn, I talk a lot, don't I?

  • >> Hi.

  • I know you mentioned this a couple of times, but what if you have a flat foot, and it's

  • painful to walk, is it still -- is it too late for those people or can we still try

  • something like this?

  • >>TED McDONALD: Well, that's a great question.

  • Since I didn't have flat feet, I didn't know the answer to that but I can tell you based

  • on reading a lot of experiences from a lot of other people, it's sort of like some people

  • have super high, stiff arches, some people have flat feet, and it used to be that flat

  • feet, by the way, would keep you out of the military in the United States, not anymore.

  • So if you were hoping -- hopefully we won't even have to think that way.

  • Maybe that's a -- that would be the better way.

  • But it turns out with people with the flat feet -- imagine a foot that has not developed

  • any strength yet.

  • And the modality and maybe it's still this case, it seems that the typical podiatrist

  • modality of taking care of almost every foot condition is to stabilize and/or stop movement.

  • Let's immobilize this thing.

  • Well, I think that -- and there are, believe me, on the cutting edge of all of this stuff,

  • this kind of activity won't -- the future will not hold this.

  • I know one lady in -- I'm not even going to say the name -- who is doing some research

  • on this topic, she's already running barefoot.

  • She doesn't -- but she doesn't recommend this to any of her clients yet because the research

  • is not done yet.

  • But the people with flat feet start developing the strength in their feet, and it's incremental.

  • This is like everything.

  • It's an incremental progress.

  • They begin to develop, as their foot develops a full range of motion and starts developing

  • musculature and getting used to -- they start developing some kind of like arch.

  • I mean, there's a lot of cases if you check out my Google group, if you just type in "minimalist

  • runner" it will come up, and maybe do a search in there, and you'll see there's -- this topic's

  • come up a lot.

  • So I was -- at first I was intrigued because I started to think oh, my foot is getting

  • longer and wider.

  • I'm like okay.

  • Then somebody else, oh, my foot's getting shorter and wider.

  • And I'm like, okay.

  • What's going on here?

  • And then a physical therapist was explaining to me so if I have a very, very tight foot

  • arch, and I start giving it full range of motion and allowing it to develop, it kind

  • of stretches out and starts to relax a little bit and sort of develops that way.

  • If I have a very, very flat foot, and I start sort of developing my foot, it sort of shrinks

  • a little bit.

  • So all these different potentials are there.

  • I think that it might be worthwhile if you're concerned about safety and whatnot, try to

  • search out and see -- and I think there are some in Seattle, podiatrists who's along these

  • lines.

  • Of course, Americans have the most unhealthy -- I think the research shows that we have

  • like the most foot problems per any population in the world today but anyway.

  • We've also got the greatest number of choices, so.

  • Anybody else?

  • >> I think I saw in your site you were looking at doing an Iron Man or trying to get sponsorship

  • for an Iron Man and ride the ride on an 1890s full Penny-farthing cycle.

  • What's the logic behind that?

  • >>TED McDONALD: Actually McDougall mentions that in the book, too.

  • I've got this -- before I became a barefoot runner and this sort of proves that the psychological

  • block for being a barefoot runner or minimalist runner before was basically can you handle

  • being "other"?

  • And my little sport before that was I learned how to ride these high-wheeled bicycles and

  • became really good at it actually.

  • There's a race at Stanford University every year that I've won once that I think it's

  • been going on and off since 1891, down the square, riding these high-wheelers, and I

  • got really good at it.

  • And then 1890 was the year I want to do an Iron Man, as if it were that year because

  • 1890 is the last year of the Penny-farthing, the high-wheeled bicycle actually known as

  • an ordinary bicycle as opposed to a safety bicycle.

  • Because Dunlop developed pneumatic tires in 1899.

  • So I got really intrigued by Victorian athletes, their capacities, and it turns out around

  • that era you had a lot of interesting things going on.

  • The bicycle was -- that bicycle, the ordinary bicycle, was the first human-powered machine

  • that we all could own essentially.

  • And if -- most people have never ridden a high-wheeled bicycle, but they're an extraordinary

  • vehicle and if we lived on a planet without an atmosphere, it would be the most efficient

  • bicycle to ride because you're directly driving -- you're, you are -- there are no mechanical

  • devices, you are there driving the wheel.

  • Unfortunately, air and the problem of air, wind resistance, doesn't make that as fast

  • as it could be.

  • But so what would an athlete of 1890 do?

  • Indeed it turns out that I have the capacity, and therefore I think it would be a educational

  • thing because the bicycle itself is such an important thing.

  • We wouldn't be here today.

  • I mean, out of the popularity of the bicycle and the flows of capital that started because

  • of it, and particularly when it became male and female started being able to ride in 1891

  • when the pneumatic tire came out and women could ride a bike.

  • And they had pantaloons.

  • And actually, one of the early feminist movement is the capacity to ride -- wear pants and

  • ride a bicycle.

  • And then of course, all that capital for the ten years up to there leading to well, let's

  • face it, the Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics.

  • The Ford -- his first big capital was from a bicycle racer.

  • I mean, without all of that, we wouldn't be where we are today.

  • However, going back to a world where human-powered stuff, and we eat our fuel, that's my favorite

  • thing.

  • The idea of eating your own fuel and locomoting your own vehicles, your two feet being the

  • most sophisticated ones you'll ever own, that's kind of the idea there.

  • So it's educational and fun.

  • I think it would be cool to do, and I'm ready to do it.

  • I just haven't found the good sponsor yet.

  • Unfortunately, the ideal sponsor is companies that started in 1890, and there are some,

  • sadly, one of them is called Coca Cola.

  • I don't think I would want to be -- I don't know if I want to be a sugar water salesman.

  • But Idaho, the Coeur d'Alene Iron Man, Idaho became a state in 1890.

  • So if anybody's got some interesting ideas of who we can -- I'll cut you in a deal.

  • >> [INAUDIBLE]

  • >>TED McDONALD: Okay, one more question.

  • >> I just wanted to ask about any research or articles or literature that you've done,

  • if you could explain like how barefoot running is more beneficial?

  • Or how it takes away the pain that a lot of us get because we wear the thick-soled shoes.

  • Like what is the difference and why, like, why did you personally -- why do you think

  • that you experience less pain while running barefoot?

  • >>TED McDONALD: Well, there are -- first of all, just to start that off -- not everybody,

  • one of the things I like to say to people if it's not broken, don't fix it.

  • There's plenty of people in this room I imagine -- I met one earlier today, and I know a

  • lot of others who are for one reason or another, by the way, I found older runners to be more

  • likely to be in this position who have been around for awhile and actually learned how

  • to run well before the really gargantuan stuff came around.

  • But there are a lot of studies, I mean,

  • what there aren't a lot of right yet, and I think there's going to have to be more

  • -- there aren't a lot of coaches or there's not a lot of how-to books.

  • There's tons in the works.

  • I mean, I've been, today, I've been answering e-mails almost every day, I'm getting some

  • kind of request to write a forum or a forward to a book and to support or sponsor this minimal

  • shoe.

  • I've never had more shoes in my life.

  • Barefoot Ted, it's just like, it's ridiculous.

  • I mean, it's pathetic.

  • I mean, it's over the top.

  • But I've found some really interesting shoes out there, too.

  • Like one millimeter thin-soled shoes made by -- with Kevlar and rubber so you can't

  • get a puncture wound.

  • But at this point, if you live around here, you might consider coming and taking a barefoot,

  • introduction to barefoot running class from me.

  • I do those.

  • I think there has been a lot -- Runner's World had a lot of stuff about this, and kind the

  • debate about barefooting and shoes.

  • I think if you do just a quick little, quick perusal on the Internet you'll find that there's

  • more -- I could talk for days there's just so much stuff going on.

  • But it's definitely -- there's definitely resources out there.

  • And there's no -- on the minimalist group, Google group I have, there is the kind of,

  • the first the tagged or the -- or the first forum story there is sort of my advice.

  • I recommend reading that.

  • It's very short.

  • And it at least gives you some basics to watch out for.

  • So with that I guess thank you very much.

  • [APPLAUSE]

TED McDONALD: So I just got done having an excellent lunch here, per usual, um, some

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Talks@Google:赤腳泰德-麥克唐納 (Talks@Google: Barefoot Ted McDonald)

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    賴廷澤 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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