Putting Your Best Foot Forward
By Diane Adams-Strickland
I have participated in many kinds of exercise systems over the course of my 45 years on this planet. However, Pilates is the only exercise system that places a lot of focus on the feet. Joe invented the Toe Gizmo, the Foot Corrector, various feet exercises, and the 2 x 4; and you can do footwork on many apparatus all over the studio. I guess you could say that Joe had a foot fetish; but we should, too.
The feet. The glorious feet that hold us up, that let us walk through the neighborhood, that let us stand on our tiptoes to reach something, that let us run down a basketball court, that let us drive a car...
What do we do in response to all the wonderful things our feet let us do? We ignore them, take them for granted, and cover them up in socks and shoes which prevent them from articulating properly.
One realizes how important the feet are only when trouble and pain arise in the form of bunions, tendinitis, reduced flexibility, knee pain from improper alignment, bad arches...the list is endless.
Yes, Joe created a corrective exercise system; but he firmly believed in maintaining good health to prevent injury. And the feet need to do exercises as well as the rest of our body parts. During the next few Foundational Fridays, we will explore the importance of the feet to the Pilates system and maybe develop a foot fetish of our own along the way.
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