Kick off your shoes but watch out for those gingko nuts

BY LOUIS TEMPLADO

You might not think Tokyo is a rough place to run, but with pebbles, chopsticks and gingko nuts on the ground, you really have to watch your step.

Still, such things are no obstacle to the city's small but intrepid band of barefoot runners. From calloused veterans to soft-soled newbies, you can catch nearly all of them practicing their steps at Yoyogi Park in Shibuya Ward under the direction of diminutive but remarkably springy instructor Tsuyoshi Yoshino.

Do we really need lessons in how to run barefoot?

"The human body is designed to run without shoes," says Yoshino, who heads the Japan Barefoot Running Association. "But in this day and age, it's something we're unfamiliar with. If you start suddenly, you're going to hurt yourself."

A sports biomechanist, Yoshino began running barefoot in 2005, while a graduate student in the United States.

There, he says, barefoot running has become a movement. Here, there's just his Barefoot Running Club, formed in July. It has about 30 members.

"We get new people whenever we're covered on morning news shows," he says. "But there we're treated as an oddity. What I find strange is that Japan has a culture where we're always taking off our shoes--people know that it feels good to go barefoot. But they draw the line when it comes to running."

Barefoot running, he says, requires a technique different from the way most people run.

Shod in shock-absorbing, motion-controlling conventional running shoes, most of us land on the heel, which pivots as the foot rolls forward for the next push off.

Barefoot runners instead land on the middle or front of the foot with the knee bent, using gravity to "fall" into the next step forward. It sounds complicated, but the motion kicks in instinctively once the feet realize they have to fend for themselves.

The eyes, too, click into a different mode, continuously scanning the ground a couple of meters in front of the feet.

"That's one of the disadvantages of barefoot running," says Yoshino. "You don't see much of the scenery."

The first sensation for neophytes is embarrassment. When that passes, a sense of lightness sets in, followed by a desire to overdo it.

"Take it easy," advises Yoshino. "Some people are fine from the start, but others are going to run lots but still get lots of pain," especially in the calves and foot muscles, until they slowly adapt.

Even if you own a pair of so-called "minimalist" or transitional running shoes, such as Vibram's glove-like Five-Fingers shoe, it's better to try running barefoot from the start, says Yoshino.

"Those shoes can give you the sensation of running barefoot, but they delay important feedback so that you might do more than you're really ready to do. When you're truly barefoot, blisters and other things will tell you when you've had enough for the day."

Not all information comes in the form of pain, discovered Hiromi Saito, 28, one of 16 participants at a beginner barefoot event at Yoyogi Park on Nov. 13. "I got an idea of my own form, and I noticed things I wouldn't normally have, such as the texture and temperature of the ground," she says.

It's within that heightened sensory state, says Yoshino, that the magic of barefoot running lies. "Think of the way we use our hands when we're cooking or stitching on a sewing machine. They move their best when there's a challenge. Our feet move the same way."