Barefoot
[6] The discomfort of Roman shoes and boots, however, typically caused even the wealthy to go barefoot or use slippers at home, despite considering them effeminate, foreign, or lower-class when worn in public.
[3] The Chinese similarly considered their footwear an important mark of civilization, although some Taoist immortals and gods like Xuanwu are usually depicted without shoes.
Owing to the importance of reflexology to traditional Chinese medicine, many parks across East Asia have pathways of raised stones that people can walk along barefoot for supposed health benefits.
[citation needed] In Christianity, most churches and holy sites can be entered wearing shoes but there are some local exceptions, such as the barefoot night ascent of Croagh Patrick in Ireland.
Raj Ghat, the monument to Mahatma Gandhi, is usually visited barefoot;[7] this was observed by both US president George W. Bush and Pope John Paul II.
[28][29] Until the 1980s, it was common, especially in elementary schools, to allow students who had forgotten their sportswear or at least their sneakers to participate in physical education classes barefoot.
[33] It is not expressly forbidden to drive barefoot, the German Highway Code simply states that the driver “is responsible for ensuring that his sight and hearing are not impaired by the crew, animals, load, equipment or the condition of the vehicle.
For this reason, most Japanese houses are fit with a genkan, a small room at the entrance where residents and guests can change into slippers or similar indoor footwear.
[citation needed] In Spain, driving barefoot or with flip-flops is not illegal, but drivers found to be impaired in their freedom of movement or control of the vehicle by lack of proper footwear may be fined up to €200.
[59] In the province of Tuyen Quang, in northern Vietnam, the Pa Then ethnic group organizes a ritual during which men dance barefoot on embers.
Cambodian dancers were well-born women of the king's harem and danced barefoot, with the feet turned outwards and the legs slightly bent at the knee to cushion the movements of the upper body.
In 1908, Maud Allan shocked and fascinated London theatre-goers with her barefoot dance of desire in Salome, and scandalous tributes positioned her as the embodiment of lust.
[63] Californian Isadora Duncan revolutionized dance in the Western world by jettisoning the tutu and the pointe shoe of classical ballet and scandalized audiences by performing works of her own choreography in flowing draperies and bare feet.
[64] Duncan divorced the bare foot from perceptions of obscenity and made a conscious effort to link barefoot dancing to ideals such as "nudity, childhood, the idyllic past, flowing lines, health, nobility, ease, freedom, simplicity, order, and harmony".
She believed her utopian dance vision and program would ameliorate the perceived ills of modern life and restore the world to the imagined perfection of Ancient Greece.
Celebrities who have gone barefoot at the festival include Vanessa Hudgens,[72] Isabel Lucas,[73] Alessandra Ambrosio,[74] Gigi Hadid[75] and Ashley Benson.
Footwear provides some protection from puncture wounds from glass, nails, rocks, or thorns as well as abrasions, bruises, heat burns, electrical shock, and frostbite.
[81] Similarly, barefoot running usually involves an initial forefoot strike, instead of on the rear of the foot, generating smaller collision forces.
[84] In people who are not habitually barefoot, athlete's foot is spread by fungal spores coming into contact with skin that has been weakened and made moist.
[86] The parasite may spread through contaminated material coming into contact with any part of the body, such as through flecks of mud splashing on an ankle or leg.
In the United States, during the period of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, business establishments would deny admittance to barefoot hippies arguing that health regulations required that shoes be worn.
[90] This led to a belief by many in nonexistent OSHA or local health department regulations preventing people from going to stores, restaurants, and other establishments without shoes.
Other common activities performed barefoot include yoga, pilates, hiking, running, driving, water skiing, touch rugby, soccer, beach volleyball, surfing, tubing, gymnastics, slacklining, and martial arts.
[99][100] The two schools of thought involved in barefoot placekicking were that the lack of a shoe provided the kicker with a better "feel" for the ball and greater control over its trajectory.
[105][106] Two sisters, Lucy and Susan Letcher, hiked approximately two-thirds of the 2,175-mile (3,500 km) Appalachian Trail barefoot from June 21, 2000, to October 3, 2001.
[109] In European nations, including Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, there are barefoot parks or walks.
Barefoot parks usually include a lot of adventure stations, allowing visitors to experience the feeling of soil textures underfoot; to wade through rivers, mud, brooks, or ponds; and to exercise foot gymnastics, balancing, and climbing.
[114] Many leisure and competitive runners have been known to run barefoot, including well-known athletes Zola Budd of South Africa and Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia.
[116] The fastest person to run 100 meters (325 feet) on ice while barefoot is Nico Surings of Eindhoven, Netherlands, who ran that distance in 17.35 seconds on December 8, 2006.
[117] Laboratory studies suggest that, due to the lack of extra weight on the feet, the energy cost of running barefoot is reduced by 4%, resulting in lower oxygen consumption.
