Don't wait for an influencer to tell you

Last week a man came into the shop who had bought a pair of shoes 11 years ago.

He wore them for a while and did well, but he never bought or wore minimalist shoes again.

It's strange, but that's the way it was.

Why was that?

At the end he tells the story himself.

Manuel arrived one Thursday morning from Ubrique. From Jesulín's place. He is over 70.

That morning the shop was full and while I leave Ángel with several customers, I attend to Manuel in another room, inside the store.

As soon as he arrives he sits down and I look at his shoes.

They are sporty, with a fat sole, slanted forward and finished with a pointed toe.

The bunched up toes are even digging into the fabric uppers. They are cramped together, with no room to breathe.

She tells me, with a pained expression on her face, that her feet hurt a lot.

"No wonder, with those shoes!" - I comment.

"It's not the shoes, it's just that my feet hurt. These shoes are good, look, they're Geox" - he replies.

I explain to him why the shape of his shoes could be the cause of his pain, but after exchanging a few words, I see that the man does not allow himself to be advised.

Seeing that it's not going anywhere, I say to him:

"The best thing you can do is to try barefoot at home and if it suits him, then he buys the shoes."

The man looks at me with a blank look on his face and says:

"At home I'm always barefoot, the first thing I do when I get home is take my shoes off. And I bought you some shoes a long time ago, the ones with the V (he means Vivobarefoot).

"Well, you've answered yourself" - I reply.

"When you give your feet space, the pain goes away. In those shoes, as expensive as they are, your feet don't have it."

And I turn to the shelves to pick up two models that might suit him.

She likes them both. He tries them on, asks the price and makes up his mind.

When he's paying I ask him why it's taken him so long to come back.

He says that he started wearing minimalist shoes, but as no one around him was wearing them, he stopped wearing them.

Now, as more people use them, he is coming back.

And this is the reality and the reason why Manuel stopped wearing barefoot shoes.

It works more or less like this:

• If an influencer says it, you listen to them.
• If your friends are saying it, you listen.
• But if your body is telling you, you don't always listen.

The opinion of an outsider is worth more than the opinion of your own body.

Manuel could have been the first to inspire his friends, to advise them on footwear that would not spoil their feet, that would give their toes space and air.

He did well with his Vivobarefoot.

But he decided to do like everyone else, to stop listening to his feet and go back to toe-crushing shoes.

Although the decision is always yours, the influence of others has a lot of weight in your decision.

And Manuel's feet were crying out for a change.

They, without a doubt, would have preferred the Feroz Paterna Tejano for all day wear.
 
The spring version of the Paterna for your feet to breathe and stretch.

Do you follow others or do you listen to your body?

Health starts with your feet.

Antonio Caballo.