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| MBT Shoes on work by Arik Levy |
“Help solves knee and back problems; relieve tension in the neck; ease joint pains; help to tone and shape firm buttocks and thighs (!); while burning more calories when standing, or slow running compared to ordinary shoes.” Not to mention they make you a few inches taller. Imagine that! All without invasive surgery—please can you sign me up? Now! At my age, you can’t afford to dismiss every new-fangled, seemingly spurious claim. Besides, everyone is entitled to an opinion…to hope.
What I refer to are MBT shoes, the Swiss creation (never known for their maverick fashion sense) for power walking aficionados. The company web site, referred to above, employs the terminology “the anti-shoe”, a characterization more accurate than imaginable. These must be the ugliest thing for feet since 1970’s style orthopedic shoes were introduced to give credence to the idea that nothing good for you could taste, look or feel good. Not in the deepest recesses in Florida would these shoes fit in. But somehow for me, they work.
OK, I admit it, to engage in the process of power walking at full tilt in MBT’s, which resemble rubber rocking chairs, ends up recalling Sally Fields having a psychotic episode in the film Sybill or a goose-stepping SS soldier in a Mel Brooks movie. Needless to say, my kids are not amused. Especially when I team them up with a suit. But rolling on MBT’s is like floating on marshmallows, with an accompanying feeling of detachment; you can close your eyes and drift. I walk so much now I feel Socratic, I even coined a term: Walkism, to indicate the peripatetic process of giving up driving and running in pursuit of a different mental space, where time is slowed and thought expanded (other than when simultaneously Blackberry-ing).
But as we know, there is no free lunch, and MBT’s assault on fashion is not the only downside. If you check Internet forums, you would think wearing these ortho-sneakers is the worst thing since the plague health-wise. Also they are so towering, falling off them is a constant threat; but at the least, I can now commiserate with my wife’s 10-inchers. Another existential dilemma is that it induces what feels like paranoia, but with cause, as people from hooligans to innocent kids cannot help but incessantly mock your determined gait rocking to and fro while lurching down the street like a lunatic. At times it’s beyond disconcerting, feeling like the dupe of a mime in a public square every corner.
In the end, even if it’s a mere placebo, it’s enough, as I find it the only exercise (mostly) anxiety free. They even have an MBT standalone boutique in Harrods, which must mean something? And whether or not my buttocks gets further toned or even firmed for that matter, since reading the myriad MBT claims, I notice most men don’t seem to have an ass. And, for an avowed car fan, walking so much is the closest I've come to green.
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