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Your Wonderful Feet

Foot Yoga Pampers Your Feet

If the Shoe Fits …

I didn’t start out with petite feet. Following the common fashion wisdom of the ’60s, I envied my sister’s little size fives. My size-eight shoes just never looked as cute. Ever notice how shoe stores display only teeny-sized shoes?

On top of having largish feet to begin with, 30 years of yoga practice have made my feet both longer and wider than they used to be. All that attention to planting the four corners of the feet—the inside and outside balls and heels—all the barefoot practice and spreading my toes has allowed my feet to abandon all efforts to look petite and fashionable. I now have what I call “Fred Flintstone feet.”

The other thing my yoga-inspired foot freedom has wrought is a complete unwillingness to wear the narrow, pointy, high-heeled shoes that are considered to be fashionable. While I understand why they are deemed attractive, I can’t stand having my toes squished into little points. High heels completely throw off my center of gravity, and my skinny ankles twist at the thought of perching my heels atop stilettos.

Our feet are our foundation. The health of our skeletal structures depends on how we stand on our feet. We may not feel the effects of unhealthy shoes in our 20s and 30s, but our life’s habits tend to come home to roost as we enter our 40s and 50s. This article gives a great overview on shoe styles through the ages and how misconceptions about healthy feet have possibly harmed not only our feet but the rest of our skeletal structure. Here’s another that specifically addresses the problems with wearing heels.

All that said, my teacher used to say, “It’s not what you do once in a while, it’s what you do every day that makes you who you are.” Stylin’ shoes are probably not going to create huge problems for you if you wear them on occasion. It’s everyday wear that changes your skeletal structure.

Caring for your Feet

Aside from wearing flat-soled shoes with wide toe boxes, how else can you care for your feet? Yoga, of course. Decades ago, I learned some great foot exercises from Mary Palmer, the yoga teacher who first brought B.K.S. Iyengar to America. More recently, Anusara teacher trainer Jenny Otto taught me some more great techniques.

Jenny has incorporated foot work into every class I’ve taken from her. In a 2008 article in Fit Yoga Magazine, she said, “Our feet are like steering wheels of the legs … What happens to the feet affects the knees, hips, and, ultimately, the whole spine. Everything starts from the ground up.” According to Fit Yoga, Jenny “not only healed her painful heel spurs through yoga but also built up the arches of her flat feet.” I also came into the world with flat feet and have seen my feet grow arches over the years of practicing yoga.

Foot Yoga

Here are a few examples of foot yoga I learned from Mary and Jenny:

1. Start with bare feet. Sit on a cushion or folded blanket and cross your right ankle across your left thigh. You may also straighten your left leg out on the floor and cross the right ankle over it. Another option is to sit in a chair, and cross your right ankle across your left thigh.
2. Thread the fingers of your left hand in between your toes, moving them as deeply as you can into the webs between your toes.
3. Squeeze your fingers with your toes; release. Squeeze your toes with your fingers; release. Repeat a few times.
4. With your fingers still between your toes, circle your ankle 8 to 10 times, then switch directions.
5. Remove your fingers and massage the ball of your foot with both hands.
6. Massage your arch with both hands.
7. Pull out gently on each toe.
8. Release your foot to the floor and have a look at your feet. It’s likely your recently massaged foot will likely look pink and alive compared to the other one.
9. Repeat the whole series on the other foot.
10. Jenny also advocates rolling tennis balls under your feet. Try it standing in Tadasana. Roll the ball under one foot for about a minute as you stand on the other. Then stand in Tadasana and check in with your feet, legs and two sides of the body. Note if the sides of the body feel different from each other. Repeat on the other side.

You can do these exercises as part of your yoga practice, or you can do them at other times. I sometimes do foot yoga while I watch a movie (at home, of course).

How to Heal Summer Feet Year Round

My final recommendation for pampering your feet comes from years of living with summer foot syndrome—cracked heels. Yogis suffer summer feet even in the winter, because we practice barefoot all year. This causes our feet to dry out even in winter. This year I discovered a fabulous locally handmade natural product called Mom’s Stuff Salve. It’s made by Utah artist Lee Udall Bennion from all natural products, some of which she grows or gathers herself. I use it on my hands and feet and this is the first winter ever that neither my hands nor my feet have cracked.

How do you care for your wonderful feet?

Charlotte Bell discovered yoga in 1982 and began teaching in 1986. Charlotte is the author of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyday Practice, published by Rodmell Press. Her second book, Yoga for Meditators (Rodmell Press) will be published in May 2012. A lifelong musician, Charlotte plays oboe and English horn in the Salt Lake Symphony and folk sextet Red Rock Rondo, whose DVD won two Emmy awards in 2010.

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