On Tuesday I went walking barefoot and it wasn’t because they repossessed my shoes, although surely this is only a matter of time. Gingell, Baines, Lauren and I spent an afternoon at Trentham Gardens and while we were there we tried out the Trentham Estate Barfuss Park (because writing barefoot in German just gives it that exotic edge).
The idea behind the barefoot walk comes from a German priest called Sebastian Kneipp who according to Trentham Gardens was born in the 1900s (as Kneipp lived between 1821 and 1897 they presumably mean the 19th century). Kneipp apparently cured himself of TB by bathing thrice weekly in the Danube during the winter of 1849. Trentham are a little less specific, stating that “having reputedly cured himself of a serious disease he became famous and the welfare practices that he developed became equally famous throughout Germany.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia says that since Kneipp’s death, “his methods are being lost sight of, showing that it was the personality of the man rather than his system which gave him fame. He discovered nothing new, but systematized what was known before and had been allowed to lapse.”
While walking barefoot is undoubtedly good for you, Kneipp’s contribution seems sketchy at best, this however is not the point. Anyone can have a walkway but it’s only with Kneipp as a scientific fig leaf that Trentham can claim to have a unique attraction (I still argue that anywhere can be a barefoot walk depending on your mentality).
Nonetheless, it was fun; a thousand metres of pathway, a variety of surfaces and no shoes. We walked over earth, sand and stone, traversed a tree branch bridge, passed through water and waded through mud. Sliding my feet in wide cresecent shapes one in front of the other gave me a chance to feel more of the textures, Gingell referring to this as my supermodel walk, her balance still somewhat impeded by the receding, yet ever present, T-virus.
On such a warm day the water and deep mud were cooling but the most rewarding textures were some of the gravels. Sun warmed grit allowed you to really stretch your feet and gain sensation in parts of your foot that rarely touch the floor. Gingell seemed to struggle with these, which I found odd for someone whom I think of as so active and outdoorsy. Lauren theorised that my legs are so thin that the nerve endings couldn’t squeeze all the way to the bottom. This is more than likely true.
While it’s an attraction that would be easy to mock, it was enjoyable and had a certain novelty value to it. If you happen to visit Trentham Gardens there’s no harm in trying it out, it’ll certainly be safer than going barfuss in Shelton.
[This may strike you as a somewhat odd blog post and I think you'd be right. Not only is it a strange topic but it also seems closer to a journal entry than one of my more traditional challenge-focused blog posts. Hopefully I'll write some more of these, I realise quite a lot happens that slips through the blog net. In other news, while I was almost up to my knees in thick, dark, suspiciously fragrant mud I got a phone call inviting me to a job interview. That, however, is a story for another day.]
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This reminds me of Vivo [http://www.terraplana.com/vivobarefoot.php] which was covered in the Metro the other week, no doubt after someone there read New York Times [http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/].
Of course the real joy of barefoot walking is feeling the texture of the ground and experiencing the elements, speaking from personal experience which primarily involved taking out the rubbish before going to bed on bin night.