The Goal of Running
The details about Running technique below are here to help us move toward this goal. Learning the technique exactly as written, or exactly as someone else runs, is not the goal!
We don’t want to learn how someone else runs. We want to learn how to learn how to run for our self.
We want to play with the details. Listen to our body. And especially listen to our sensitive BARE soles (there is a reason there are more nerve endings in our bare sole than anywhere else in our bodies). Watch the bill of our hat while running (when we’re wearing a hat). Make mental notes of how much, or how little it is bouncing up and down or side to side (the goal is to move forward, not up and down, or side to side). Make continuous adjustments to our technique. Listen continuously to our bodies and soles. Ask the tough questions. Are we eliminating pain and discomfort? Are we moving forward? Or are we simply trying to get used to the pain of running the way we habitually learned to run while wearing thickly cushioned shoes? Play with the techniques? Fine-tune each detail. Review the effects on the other details. Fine-tune those, one at a time, or a few at a time. Work at PLAYING toward LEARNING how to eliminate discomfort, and wasteful motions, or lack of motions (stiffness) that sways us from our goal – moving forward without injury.
For infants first learning to walk and run barefoot this process seems almost automatic. However, for adults it is much different. We don’t have the seemingly infinite patience and wisdom of the infant – we want to learn NOW! Or worse, we don’t want to learn anything new. Taking off our shoes, is only the first step in improving our technique. So, we need to make conscious efforts to stay conscious while running, and work at PLAYING, to LEARN new truths. Stimulation of our bare soles will help to that direction.
And finally, If we come to believe that we, or anyone, has PERFECT running technique, then we still have much to LEARN about LEARNING how to run!
