14 January, 2008

a modern belief in foot binding

I am a modern day believer in foot binding for one purpose, or one that I know of that I would sacrifice my feet for. That one reason is rock climbing. If you want to be full-on hard core you need to also believe in the modern day practice of foot binding. I just bought some climbing shoes (Scarpa Reflex, the ones in pic) and I was actually conservative in how much I will accept the pain of it all in order to loose the weakness of my toes. Let me explain, many climbers recommend getting shoes that are a full two sizes smaller than you actually feel comfortable in. This is what I found on Sizing rock climbing shoes:

These shoes are designed to fit very tight, often uncomfortably so. The toes should be slightly to very curled for performance in edging. There should be one to two fingers width between the laces/straps for stretching. The heel should also fit very tight so that the shoe cannot slip off when heel hooking.
This makes it so that you cannot put your full weight on your feet, but they are designed and bought that small for a purpose. You see, your toes are not strong...so in the foot binding for climbing mentality you scrunch your toes up underneath your foot so that you don't put all your weight on your toes and therefore loose your footing.

I am excited to move on back to C-town where I can climb since that is one of my sports of choice. I will try and figure out a way to make it the most cost effective possible, but we'll see. What I love doing is indoor, I am a mom and wife and even before any of that I still am not willing to risk my life on purpose in any kind of sports activity. I enjoy what is known as "bouldering" -here is a wikipedia definition for you:

Bouldering is a style of rock climbing undertaken without a rope and normally limited to very short climbs so that a fall will not result in serious injury. It is typically practiced on large boulders or artificial man-made boulders. However, it may also be practiced at the base of larger rock faces, or even on buildings or public architecture (see buildering). Bouldering is a style of climbing emphasizing power, strength, and dynamics.

I fell in love with this while at OSU and now that I have undergone the baby-carrying, kid-bearing stage of my life I am ready to begin getting my fitness level up again. I never wear uncomfortable heel-y shoes , or those with insane-o pointy toe pain-causing designs(ie check pics below) ....or do I?? I guess that to me this is the price of beauty, and beauty to me is a good swift climb exhibiting power, strength and insane grip.

Uhm...not dressed like these girls though, but I am guessing their shoes are probably more comfortable.

4 comments:

mostly ugly said...

I miss rock climbing, I sold my shoes when the boys were 2. anyway, sorry for the bad timing with pp.

Tricia said...

bethany, i love that you love this. it's so cool getting to know you and find out how pumped you get about super cool things like PK and bouldering.

love the pics at the end. you can tell that first chick is not super excited about the photo shoot. the second one at least has some bicep action going on.

bethany said...

yes...fun stuff!! i can't wait to get over to Dixon and try that new wall!!

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