feet, Beethoven

Saw Miro Quartet perform Beethoven's Quartet in A minor, Op. 132 at the Blanton Art Museum this afternoon. The violist, John Largess, introduced the piece as having a breadth of emotions making it unlike anything composed before or since. The third movement in particular gives the sense of being taken into a story, where angst, confusion, and joy ebb and flow. There are rock crescendoes, wedding processions (a refrain not unlike Pachelbel's canon), cyclical curtains opening and closing on feelings that seem completely valued and accepted. Such a piece was a welcome stretch for my modern mind, which meets intense feelings with apprehension or denial.

Have been enjoying the bestselling nonfiction book Born To Run about the Tarahumara indians, the indigenous "running people" who continue running in the Copper Canyon area of northern Mexico. The author describes them with awe, and also gives brief biographies of accomplished American ultra-runners who have done various cool things over the last decade. Nearing the end of the book is a fascinating chapter that reads like a manifesto against modern running shoes. McDougal argues persuasively that we were never intended to run in thickly-cushioned running shoes, and that these shoes are causing the majority of running injuries. The Tarahumara run mostly injury-free with patches of car tire strapped to the bottoms of their feet. It all sounds very plausible, and makes me feel a little dumb having recently purchased top-of-the-line asics gel running shoes to try to stave off knee injury. According to McDougall, and Leonardo DaVinci, and other luminaries, the foot is a marvel of engineering that can only be compromised by high-tech supports. The cheaper the shoe, the better. In my own web surfing today, I found a barefoot running website that advocates wearing floppy boat slippers to train. The connection between this and Beethoven is the kinship of hands and feet. With hands, a string quartet can completely convey the most complex of human emotions. Feet cannot be THAT much less advanced. I'm not ready to ditch my Asics, but I will begin incorporating barefoot work into my exercise routine. In the meantime I think my running style is appropriate. Straight back, reaching forward and grabbing the road with the fronts of my feet and not coming down too hard, if at all, on the heel. I don't think modern shoes are all that terrible if you simply run in a manner that doesn't utilize the heavily cushioned heel.