Having had no shoes for three years, Art Sylvia says his feet have never felt better, writes Joann Klimkiewicz
HE'S GOT a good pair of feet, Art Sylvia. Solid and toned. Fungus-free. Toes nicely aligned. The soles have developed a thick skin, yet they're surprisingly soft to the touch. (Yes, we asked. And yes, he kindly obliged.)
Three years after kicking off his shoes for (mostly) good, Sylvia, 63, says his feet have never felt better.
"My only regret is I didn't start earlier," Sylvia says during a break from a wood-sanding project in the backyard of his home, his dust-splattered bare feet planted in the grass.
A retired restorer of antique cars, Sylvia is among the few, the proud and the shoeless who embrace barefoot living just about any time, anywhere they can. While the rest of us think we're living carefree and casual when we sink our toes in the cool of summertime lawns, that's just kids' play to bare-footers who pad in naked feet year-round.
Podiatrists might have something else to say about it, but people like Sylvia say it's a lifestyle that's as much about naturalism as it is about nurturing happy, healthy feet.
"I find it funny that so many people frown upon it because I guess they're just afraid to go against the norm. I guess when you turn 63, you don't really feel the need to conform anymore," says Sylvia, a late-in-life bare-footer who came to it as a means of treating his stubborn nail fungus and fallen arches.
Both have improved considerably, he says. Free from the constraints of shoes, his feet are better able to breathe and have built up a muscle tone.
"Now," he says, "I go barefoot as much as possible."
That means hiking the leafy trails near his home, shuffling up to the bank teller and standing on line at the post office - all in his bare feet. He has been asked a few times to leave an establishment. But save for a few puzzled looks, Sylvia usually makes it around without incident.
Some places he knows he can't push the issue, so he doesn't. Instead, he brings a pair of sandals along and slips them on when he needs to.
"I'm not out to prove a point, know what I mean?"
Maybe. At one local coffee shop, Sylvia's bare feet prompted a particularly boorish reaction from a manager. So Sylvia returned in his sandals and ordered a cup of coffee. He took a seat and slipped off his shoes, lingering until the last sip. He still does it, too.
"I guess you can say I'm being juvenile," Sylvia says with a smile.
But isn't it illegal to drive barefoot, to enter a food establishment sans shoes? You know - no shirt, no shoes, no service? And what about sanitary concerns? Taking your naked soles out in public is just begging for splinters, glass cuts, critter bites and bacterial infections, no?
No.
So say the folks at the Society for Barefoot Living (www.barefoot.org), long-time shoeless crusaders who claim a worldwide membership.
The society contends that shoes are a modern invention, unnatural to squeeze one's feet into and the cause of most podiatric ailments. They aren't anti-shoe, however, acknowledging there's a time and place for protective footwear (factory jobs, for example).
But overall, bare-footers say they like feeling the earth between their toes. Outdoor walking becomes a heightened sensory experience with all the ground's varied textures and temperatures.
Around the world, barefoot runners and hikers have made names for themselves. Connecticut resident Richard K Frazine promoted the joys of shoeless hiking in 1993 with his book The Barefoot Hiker, published by Ten Speed Press of Berkeley, California.
"People have an inordinate fear of doing this," Frazine said at that time. "You can sustain injuries, but mostly they're just small cuts of the kind that people get on their hands every day."
But can shunning the protection of shoes really be all that good for one's feet? "Generally, I don't see a problem with it," says Marc Lederman, president of the Connecticut Podiatric Medical Association.
"A lot of the conditions we treat . . . there's no doubt that shoes cause many of those problems," he says. "But that's not to say the solution is just going barefoot."
Going shoeless on occasion does get air to the feet and can strengthen muscles reliant on arch support, says Lederman. But it's not a cure-all for serious foot conditions, he says.
And there are certain medical problems for which it wouldn't be wise to go bare, he says - poor circulation, open skin fissures and diabetic neuropathy, which causes a foot desensitisation that increases the likelihood of suffering scrapes, cuts and blisters.
But in healthy patients, barefoot living is an individual matter, says Lederman. The make-up of some people's feet does in fact make running or hiking easier without shoes.
"The foot is a pretty mechanical tool," he says. "When we jam it into a shoe, we certainly mess with that mechanical device. . . But what works well for some people is a disaster for others. I wouldn't say [barefoot living] is bad, but it's not something I would encourage either."