shoes

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PAN AM Triathlon Footwork

pan am triathlon          Triathletes are overcomers!  Of the three sports – swimming, biking and running – most triathletes are stronger in two. Bikers and runners, for example, may have poor ankle flexibility and find it difficult to do the straight-footed swimming kick. With one finish line, the clock is a tyrant for triathletes. Training becomes a lifestyle. Many do interval workouts based on the comparative energy required in each sport. Using the rule of thumb that 100 yards of swimming = ¼ mile of running = 1 mile of biking, they build up training blocks to beat the clock. (1)

The big time wasters are the transitions from swimming to biking and from biking to running.  Triathletes move from wet to dry, from no shoes to shoes, from horizontal to semi-vertical to vertical, from using one set of muscles to another, to another. Frustration can plague transitions: getting a foot stuck in a wet suit, lacing up shoes quickly, and managing blistered, swollen feet. Their woes compel wise preparation for every ‘next race’.  Triathletes are organized!  They enter transitions with physical and mental preparedness.

Swim –Balanced Footwork

The triathlete runs into shallow water before she begins to ‘dolphin’ – a shallow dive or leap forward. First, gliding under water, she stands up and leaps further into the water until it is deep enough to swim. She minimizes her freestyle swim kicks to stay balanced and to conserve energy.  Toes pointed, of course. Near the end, she ‘changes gear’, increasing her swim kick to get her blood flowing in preparation for moving on land.

Transition 1

On terra firma, she sprints to the bike racks.  Carrying her bike upright, she heads to the mount line. Alternatively, her bike is ready with shoes attached by rubber bands to the pedals; she hops on and coasts with her feet on top. As she starts to cruise, she puts her feet into her shoes.

Bike – Rhythmic Footwork

Eyes on the road and not her feet, the triathlete concentrates on her pedaling stroke. Initially, she works at a rhythm to let her heart rate calm down and to get ‘her legs back’.  Soon enough, she increases her tempo, pushing straight down on the pedal at the three o’clock position. With several minutes remaining she starts thinking “RUN”. She changes into a slightly bigger gear and pedals standing up. While still on the bike, she stretches her running muscles (hamstrings and calves). She dismounts ‘on the fly’.

Transition 2

T2 is fast but tough.

Run – Paced Footwork

The run begins on legs that feel wobbly and heavy. The athlete’s body must redirect blood to her running muscles. Her brain needs time to override the “pedal in circles” message. She pushes through until she finds her pace. Soon enough, her cadence of 90 rpms on the bike, matches her previous stride rate of 90/min.  In various segments of the race, she may pace herself differently. Ideally, it is a continuous build. She focuses on good leg turnover.  Her lower limbs feel ‘normal’ again.  She sprints for a good distance to the finish line.

Go to – http://www.toronto2015.org/schedule

Resources: 

http://www.toronto2015.org/triathlon

https://docs.google.com/folderview?pli=1&docId=0Bya1shSQAxUDU0p2VVRUWDZyZjA&id=0Bya1shSQAxUDMGgtdFFUUDN6c28  (1)

http://www.trinewbies.com/tno_swim/tno_swimarticle_04.asp

http://www.camelbackcoaching.com/olympic-distance-race-strategy-and-pacing/

http://www.active.com/triathlon/articles/10-tips-for-faster-triathlon-transitions

http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com/2011/01/18/pedal-efficiently-cyclist

http://www.active.com/triathlon/Articles/Learn-to-Master-the-Bike-to-Run-Transition.htm

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.   1 Corinthians 9:25 (NIV)

TRAINING – COMPETITION – PODIUM

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PAN AM Cycling – Road Footwork

cycling road      Road cyclists are avid, even over-the-top enthusiasts for their sport.  Nose to tail, they seem to ride in packs. Drafting is all part of the competition. They move through air turbulence together, sharing the benefits.

Roadies have a handle on what is happening technically and biomechanically as they pedal their bikes. They know how to increase energy and efficiency by engaging new muscles and ‘spreading the load’.  They purposefully ride vortices in wakes.  Based on the cadence (RPM), they adjust to high- or low-heel pedaling techniques. They demonstrate how effort in pedaling combined with gravity affects acceleration and deceleration. As experienced bicyclists, they can transfer power and avoid ‘the dead spot’. They’ve revived talk of ‘ankling’, an old technique. It entails “drawing force across the bottom of the revolution arc and upwards to the start of the downward thrust”. (1)  Roadies’ ‘talking the walk/ride’ feeds their own enthusiasm.

However, coaches offering advice to pro-racers on road bikes will often set aside the advanced level talk in favour of simple visual cues:

On the upwards stroke:

  • “As the foot nears the top, think about pushing your knee toward the handlebar”.

On the downwards stroke:

  • “Pretend you’re scraping mud off the sole of your shoe”.

These cues are ‘activated’ well in advance of when the foot is actually at the top or bottom of the pedaling action. (2)  The roadies are on it!

Go to – http://www.toronto2015.org/schedule

Resources: 

http://www.toronto2015.org/cycling-road

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2009/05/efficiency-of-pedal-stroke-ankling/  (1)

http://www.bikesplit.com/bsa4.htm

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/scni45a1.htm

http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/aerodynamics2.html

http://www.roadbikerider.com/cycling-science/perfect-pedal-strokes (2)

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.   1 Corinthians 9:25 (NIV)

TRAINING – COMPETITION – PODIUM

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Holt Renfrew: Under the Skin of Luxury Shoes

museums galleries luxinside x-ray

In a travelling exhibit, high-end retailer Holt Renfrew partnered with the French Embassy to reveal what the highest price items are made of. Combining art and science, Paris-based journalist Laurence Picot used a medical scanner and photography to examine fourteen top luxury items.  These included the new Hermès saddle, the S.T. Dupont lighter and Pierre Corthay shoes.

“LuxInside – Traces of Man” offers an inside view of excellent craftsmanship.  “The principle behind luxury products is that you should not see signs of human innovation or the work that went into them,” Picot explained. Nevertheless, she was fascinated by the manufacturing processes and the people involved. Unsurprisingly, luxury retailers were unwilling to reveal the inner qualities of their designs. This only set Picot and a collective of artists and scientists onto an investigation that “diagnoses” the talent, the traces of what man has produced.

You may have wondered aloud at the $1,000 price tag for a pair of red-soled Christian Louboutin heels. There’s more to luxury than meets the eye. It is the use of a very durable, costly metal — originally patented for the aircraft industry — to structure the heel and sole, resulting in a heel that will properly support a women’s ankle and stand the test of time.

The exhibit arrived in Canada after its tour of Europe and South America.

http://www.fajomagazine.com/exclusives/luxinside

http://strategyonline.ca/2014/05/22/holt-renfrews-see-through-exhibit/

Photo Source:

http://www.blogto.com/fashion_style/2014/05/this_week_in_fashion_luxinside_exhibit_ideal_charity_fashion_show_and_designer_sample_sales/

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Gagosian Gallery NYC: Shoes as Canvas

Museums Galleries Stepping up for Art

A 16-year-old art world progeny with well-placed parents spearheaded “Stepping Up for Art” a fund-raising exhibition for arts programs in NYC schools.

India Wolf collaborated with Gagosian Gallery, on Madison Avenue, and Charlotte Olympia, a non-profit organization, to enlist twenty contemporary artists to customize Olympia’s iconic “Dolly” platform heel shoes.  Each artist put their own stylish stamp on the shoes.

Studio in a School, which brings visual arts to under-funded New York City public schools, also invited children from their partnering schools to put their own spin on the shoes.

To see ten examples from the exhibit, go to:

http://www.vogue.com/866298/charlotte-olympia-and-india-wolfs-custom-shoes/

http://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/accessories/2014/05/charlotte-olympia-shoes-artists/photos/

Photo Source:

http://www.buro247.com/me/fashion/news/charlotte-olympia-art-gagosian.html

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National Museum in Manila: Imelda Marcos’ Shoes Don’t Shine

museums Galleries Imelda Marcos shoes

Imelda Marcos became known worldwide for her massive shoe collection. She was often used as a symbol of excess in the Philippines, where many residents were forced to walk barefoot due to the extreme level of poverty in nation. The flamboyant first lady’s infamous footwear collection is housed in the National Museum in Manila. The once beautiful and expensive designer shoes have now been ravaged by termites, storm damage, and just overall neglect.

The enormous shoe collection was among the belongings left behind when the former Philippines’ first lady and her dictator spouse were driven from the country by a revolt in 1986.

http://www.inquisitr.com/341699/imelda-marcos-former-philippines-first-ladys-show-collection-ruined-by-neglect/

Photo Source:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2207353/Imelda-Marcos-legendary-3-000-plus-shoe-collection-destroyed-termites-floods-neglect.html

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Bata Shoe Museum: The Rise of Sneaker Culture

museum galleries Bata out of the box

The Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto is a cultural gem in a shoe-box-like structure designed by famed architect Raymond Moriyama. Boasting a collection of 13,000 shoes and related artifacts, the museum has four galleries, with displays ranging from Chinese bound-foot shoes and ancient Egyptian sandals to chestnut-crushing clogs and glam platforms.

The current special exhibit “Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture” explores the history of the sneaker with some 120 running shoes from the past 150 years. On view are some of the rarest sneakers from the archives of Adidas, Nike, Reebok, PUMA, Converse and England’s Northampton Museums and Art Gallery, with the largest collection of historical footwear in the world. On loan are shoes from rap music legends Run DMC, sneaker guru Bobbito Garcia aka Kool Bob Love and Dee Wells from OSD (Obsessive Sneaker Disorder).

Now termed a “status symbol and icon of urban culture,” the historical beginnings of the sneaker are shown from its emergence in the 19th century to becoming “one of the most democratic forms of footwear” in the 20th century.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/01/15/out-of-the-box-at-torontos-bata-shoe-museum

www.batashoemuseum.ca

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Biometric Soles

Gait identifying

Pedo-Biometrics Lab (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh) is working on high-tech shoe insoles designed to monitor access to high-security areas such as military bases or nuclear power plants. The concept for these insoles builds on extensive research that shows individuals have unique feet and ways of walking.

Sensors in the biometric soles check the pressure of feet and monitor gait. Its microcomputer compares these patterns with a master file for that person. By the third step, it can determine the match or not. If not, a wireless alarm triggers a message. The sensor also detects when someone is wearing another person’s shoes.

Scientists have known for centuries that each person has a unique way of walking. The U.S. Department of Defense and the Chinese government pour millions into funding gait research. The Institute of Intelligent Machines is also doing extensive research into gait biometrics. There are even reports of floors designed to monitor footsteps without people being aware of it.

For more details, including how biometric soles may be used for medical diagnostics, check this link:

http://www.mobilenapps.com/articles/3243/20120723/biometric-soles-future-high-tech-security.htm

Photo Source:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=app+to+identify+gait+marios+savvides+images&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=xFVNVIzEFcqBygSi44GYCg&ved=0CBwQsAQ

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Prison Yard Walk

Prison Yard Walk

(Lyrics from The Americans EP, released 29 October 2010)

Well, you wake up in the morning
To a rapping on your door
Someone working for the warden
Says, “Get your feet on the floor”
You go walking down the hallway
You feel the eyes on you
And you don’t know what they’re thinking, you don’t know
What they’re going to do

You do the prison yard walk
One hour a day
With your head in the clouds
Your feet feel far away
You do the prison yard walk
And you’re feeling fine
Taking it one day at a time

Inmate Receiving
New men walk in
Jeans once worn baggy
Are now worn thin
You hand them their Bob Barkers
And they look you in the eye
You’re just twenty-three, and the world’s already
Passing you by

You do the prison yard walk
With no laces in your shoes
We all must pay
For the lives we choose
You do the prison yard walk
And keep an empty mind
Keep taking it one day at a time

The girl who used to write you
Don’t write you no more
You stared at her picture
‘Til your heart got sore
You know she’s going places
You’re not allowed
But your memory gets hazy when you
Think about her now

And the prison yard walk
Is only a blur
You walk it with them
But you’re thinking of her
You do the prison yard walk
With tears in your eyes
And keep taking it one day at a time

When you’ve heard every word
In your dying mind
And it’s the same old voice
You’ve been hearing your whole life
You keep yourself busy
And do the best you can do
And they call that killing time, when it’s the time
That winds up killing you

You do the prison yard walk
One hour a day
And it’s hard to believe
It could be any other way
You do the prison yard walk
Right down the line
And keep taking it one day at a time

http://theamericansmusic.bandcamp.com/track/prison-yard-walk

Photo Source:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=prison+yard+walk&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=jngtVNOwMNGryAS95YKICg&ved=0CBwQsAQ#imgdii=_

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Nelson Mandela’s Shoelaces

Prison post Nelson Mandela shoelaces

On February 11, 1990, after twenty-seven years in prison Nelson Mandela walked out into a changed nation. Once accustomed to living underground with the police hunting him, he was greeted as an African nationalist leader.

Mandela’s release was preceded by secret talks that included Kobie Coetsee, the Justice Minister, and Niel Barnard, the head of the intelligence service. Mandela asked for a meeting with P. W. Botha, the head of the apartheid state, which Coetsee and Barnard finally arranged in 1989. So anxious was Barnard, the intelligence chief, about the meeting that seconds before the two men were to shake hands, he knelt down to fix Mandela’s clumsily tied shoes. (Prisoners were forbidden shoelaces, and Mandela was long out of the habit of tying them.)

That anecdote says a lot about the length of Mandela’s imprisonment and his isolation—it is one thing to repeat the number “twenty-seven,” and another to think about being forbidden shoelaces so long that you forget how to tie them. It also says a lot about what a natural leader Mandela was, his presence and his grace—the dignity that years in prison couldn’t touch.  In the end, even his jailers had to acknowledge that it was wrong for this man’s shoelaces not to be tied. And really, they must have known it much earlier.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/mandelas-shoelaces

Photo Source:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/photos-e6freuy9-1225996392278?page=53

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Art and Artisans: African-American Shoemakers

Shoemaker African American By Jacob Lawrence

1.  “The Shoemaker”, Watercolor Painting by Jacob Lawrence (1945)

While the work of Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) was never oriented to overt political polemics, his painting explored—and called attention to—the most significant social issues in his community. “The Shoemaker” marks the beginning of what would become a potent subject in his work throughout the rest of his life: the representation of manual labor by African Americans.

The shoemaker’s heroic scale dwarfs the tiny shoes aligned on the workbench and hung on the walls, and overwhelms the miniature-sized room in which he works. The whole scene is organized in a flat pattern of angular elements, all in saturated color. The cobbler’s geometric, exaggerated shoulder line signals both strength and concentration of purpose. His gigantic hands—oversized even in relation to his huge frame—are central to conveying the story of his power and single-mindedness.

2.  Shoe-Makers in Lexington Kentucky, Pre-1900

The making of shoes was one of the skilled labors performed by slaves throughout the South. Once slavery ended, former slaves used the skill in their businesses that were often operated out of their homes. Later, the industrial manufacturing and mass production of shoes would greatly reduce the number of individual shoemakers.

Here the names of some African American shoemakers in Lexington, KY, pre-1900:

  • Sally A. Jackson was a shoe binder who lived on E. Short Street between N. Mulberry and Walnut. She was a free person and is listed in the Directory of the City of Lexington and County of Fayette for 1838 & ’39.
  • Micajah M. Mason was a shoemaker who lived on W. Water Street between N. Mill and Broadway. He is listed as a free man in the 1838-39 directory, and in the 1859-60 directory when he lived on E. S. Mulberry between Short and Barr Streets.
  • Edward Oliver was a boot and shoe maker. He lived at 4 E. Water Street and is listed as free in the 1838-39 directory.
  • William Tanner, a shoe maker, lived on E. Short Street between Walnut and Bank Streets. He is listed as free in the 1838-39 directory.

Sources:© 2011 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/46.73.2

http://nkaa.uky.edu/subject.php?sub_id=21