My instructor has pretty feet. At least, according to Tessa. I have never managed a good look. Not in the many years of our association. I have managed a glimpse once or twice but never a thorough examination, probably because the appendage closes in on Mach 1 at eye level. And at floor level his feet are mostly harmless. Plenty of other reasons to keep the eyes up and moving.

Tessa’s comment got me to wondering. Why do we train in bare feet? I have heard the most hare-brained explanations ranging from “It honors our ancestors” to “It develops proprioception” (That’s just your body’s ability to walk and chew gum without falling down). Well, are we honoring our ancestors or are we trying not to be klutzy?

Probably because we are indoors. And that’s not some mystical Zen thing, either. Removal of footwear when entering a home is more widely practiced than it isn’t. It seems that Americans and Australians are the worst offenders. Settling frontier country means living in a house with a dirt floor, and, so, why take off your boots? It’s just a little cow poo, Martha. So Martha wears her shoes indoors, too. That’s why American do-jos have signs on the door asking all guests to remove shoes. Mosques in Turkey don’t need those signs. The Turks just know.

Now, having said all that, I freely confess I don’t always train in bare feet. Our instructor has a policy that allows us to train in shoes that are used only indoors. And he recommends certain fighting shoes. Some people are allergic to the carpet. Some people need arch support. In my case, I had tailor’s bunions the size of gnocchi dumplings on each foot. By the way, I have a cure for tailor’s bunions that I could make money on. Except that the treatment hurts worse than listening to “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”. You can read about my bunion treatment at this link.

At home, I pretty much always train in shoes. Why? Well, because I train in an open-sided garage on textured concrete. I have even trained in steel-toed boots. They weigh, like, four pounds each. Resistance training. But it’s also to protect my feet. Textured concrete ain’t kind to your skin like a clean-swept do-jo.

And let’s get real. When will I need to use my karate in bare feet? When I need karate, I’m usually on a sidewalk decorated with broken liquor bottles and about to shame my ancestors. Besides, if I haven’t developed proprioception by that point, it’s too late, anyway. The term proprioception was invented by a guy who flosses his dog’s teeth.