Not quite shoes, not quite mittens . . .

Check these out: Vibram Five Fingers.

As the title of the post says, they're not quite shoes, they're not quite mittens. Naturally, one of my friends dubbed them "shittens." (Note: later on my beloved sibling pointed out that they're more like "shoves" since mittens don't have separated fingers. But "shoves" don't flow like "shittens" do, do it?)

Since I try to be somewhat self-aware, I can freely admit that my interest in these shoes, err, mittens, err . . . these things, probably grew out of my deeply conformist decision to start wearing pants again. Hey, it's tough to find a job where wearing a kilt is a part of the job description! I got a call or two from a pipe band, but the only musical instrument I play is the radio.

Anyway.

There's the good, and the bad, about these shoes. I'll start off with the bad.

They look silly. Remember, this is coming from a guy who wore a skirt for a few years! They look a little too . . . slipperish. While "shoe" or "footwear" is a pretty elastic concept, here in the Greater West we tend to bring certain "social constructs of shoeness" to the table. (OMG, I'm sounding so SO MARXY!) And we expect shoes to completely cover the top of the foot (for men, anyway), and probably to have laces or buckles or something. I have actually thought about a "top cover" for these shoes, to give them at least a "deck shoe" appearance. Sometimes I dare to think really goofy thoughts.

Let's see, what's the other bad part about these puppies?

Well, so far as I can tell, it's just the looks. (Now we see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!)

Well, I lied. I'm still working out my ability to easily slip into these shoes. The toe pockets require sliding your foot in just right, otherwise you end up with two toes awkwardly squeezed into one toe-pocket. (Can we call them toe-pockets? Or would just "the toe" be better?) If you consider taking ten or fifteen seconds to get the toes aligned just right a drawback, then there are two drawbacks.

Upsides?

They breathe very well. The Vibrams have basically only two components: the Vibram sole and the stretchy nylon-type material. The body of the shoe breathes well, and doesn't build up heat. Foot sweat is a non-issue. When I drove up to Gainesville recently, I wore the Vibrams for the second leg of the trip up, and I'd been wearing my Keene sandals before that. The Keenes were freshly washed and air-dryed, and still my feet got warm and sticky and sweaty after about an hour on the road. Switching to the Vibrams, my feet were cool and dry the whole way up.

Road feel. You get better "road feel" from the Vibrams than you get with almost any other shoe. Let's compare with a "traditional" running shoe, shall we? (Note: what we think of as "traditional" these days is very damn seldom related to any kind of tradition with history behind it, witness "modern traditional" running shoes like those churned out by Nike, Adidas et al. Long dang way from a Chuck Converse, is all I'm saying.) A traditional running shoe will provide lots of support, lots of cushion, lots of orthotic influence. The Vibram takes a completely different tack. If a Nike insulates you from the road, like a mid-1970s Lincoln Town Car, the Vibram is a MG TC. They let you sense it all, the transition from asphalt to concrete to grass to sand.

You can wiggle your toes. Maybe it's only become important to me after seeing Die Hard, but I do a lot of toe wiggling. Side to side, up and down, all kinds of goofy stuff. Essentially, the same kind of hand stretching exercises, only below your knees! Your toes are not pinched together inside a shell with the Vibram, and the nature of the sole allows independent toe movement. Jerry Lee Lewis could play an arpeggio on the piano with his toes, if'n he was wearing Vibrams.

They may be silly, but I like them. I have worn them a good bit lately, and they really do feel like you're going barefoot. To me, that's a good thing. I'm not sure how much credence to put into the "barefooting movement" in terms of health claims, but I know that these are very comfortable.

I've worn them "just walking around", and driving, and even two times to Memorial Park, where I huffed and puffed around in a three mile circle with a fifty pound pack on my back. Even at the park, while my feet did feel much more "muscle sore" than in the past, there was none of the "bad pain." ("Bad pain" is the pain that doesn't comply with USMC definitions of pain as "the weakness leaving your body" but more along the lines of "dude I broke something.") Walking on rocks was a touch uncomfortable, but that thin sole IS Vibram, so it wasn't nearly as painful as being barefoot. Walking on gravel wasn't painful at all, but kind of "stimulating."

So there you have it.

Shittens.

Despite their unorthodox look, I can enthusiastically recommend the Vibram FiveFingers line of footwear. While not appropriate for a professional environment, I think that they represent a bold new approach to "what footwear is." Plus they represent a way to let your freak flag fly without tattoos or piercings.

So foshizzle.