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Mulberry4000
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Walking in medieval times and marital art stances

The way we walk has change, instead of toe to heel it is heel to toe. I have five finger trainers , and they force you to walk on the ball of your foot. At first my leg muscles in my lower leg hurt, not now. So how did walking on the ball of your feet, affect stances before the invention of modern foot wear. ie before 1500AD

Chris R
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I find this topic quite interesting. I have also heard that the heel dominant way of walking seems to be more of a European thing, and that this was one difference that was observed between Native Americans and the Europeans on the American frontier; their gait and tracks looked different.

But in terms of kata, I find this confusing. People naturally fight on the balls of the feet, and historically people used to be less heel dominant in the way they moved (especially non-Europeans), but yet in kata you keep your heels on the floor, and turn in a very heel-dominant way. Maybe this is due to increased stability in some positions, but it seems odd. I have also heard of people criticizing the mechanics of Karate's heel-dominant turns as being stupid.

Mulberry4000
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Well the heel to toe  changed because of shoes, and the way they developed over time. So if you had shoes that could dig in via the heel it makes sense to develop the stances  in this way. I agree bare foot we tend to walk toe to heel,  as the latter is narrow  and the ball is wider. So when footware changed over time so must have the stances, 

So when we train  we do it in   bare feet, but go out wearing shoes, so the stances would be different and the  application of  force would be different.  For example we are training one way but go out and do the opposite and this can affect our fighting  or stances etc.  Just watch how u walk bare feet in the dojo and how u move etc it is different with shoes on.

Kiwikarateka
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Chris R wrote:

... yet in kata you keep your heels on the floor, and turn in a very heel-dominant way. Maybe this is due to increased stability in some positions, but it seems odd. I have also heard of people criticizing the mechanics of Karate's heel-dominant turns as being stupid.

Whether you heel turn or ball of the foot turn depends on your style generally. In Goju which I do, we turn on the ball of the foot. I feel like we have a turn in a kata that is on the heel though. I've yet to learn all the kata though so I'm not 100% sure on this one.

Mulberry4000 wrote:

Well the heel to toe  changed because of shoes, and the way they developed over time. So if you had shoes that could dig in via the heel it makes sense to develop the stances  in this way. I agree bare foot we tend to walk toe to heel,  as the latter is narrow  and the ball is wider. So when footware changed over time so must have the stances, 

So when we train  we do it in   bare feet, but go out wearing shoes, so the stances would be different and the  application of  force would be different.  For example we are training one way but go out and do the opposite and this can affect our fighting  or stances etc.  Just watch how u walk bare feet in the dojo and how u move etc it is different with shoes on.

According to his autobiography, Funakoshi used to walk around in geta (traditonal Japanese wooden sandals) using the suriashi style of walking. From what I can tell the traditional footwear of Okinawa were geta, so I doubt Funakoshi was an anomoly. Though perhaps he was one of the last people to wear geta, they're not exactly everyday footwear nowadays. Whether or not suriashi was the preffered style of walking I have no idea. While perhaps not the method used in Okinawa, here's a walking/running method that was utilized in the Edo period by Japanese. It seems to have influenced Japanese martial arts to some extent. https://www.tofugu.com/japan/namba-aruki/

Dillon
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I'd love to see more research on the "change" in walking. I suspect the adjustment has been much more minor than switching from walking on the balls of the feet to walking on the heel. Mostly, we walk more-or-less flat-footed - just like apes. I've heard the idea that we used to walk on the balls of the feet, but mostly from people selling running programs or minimalist shoes.  Edit: I'm referring to walking form most specifically here. Running form usually winds up with a mid-foot or sometimes ball of the foot strike when barefoot. I just haven't seen data indicating that different populations had wildly different strike patterns when walking. 

Mulberry4000
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Well  from ball to heel is to heel to ball is a major change. The shoe wear is an important factor. i notice when i wear five fingers i walk differently. The back is not strong enough to walk long distance, the i push  my feet forward and this less shock on the knees.

Dillon
Dillon's picture

My point was that the research doesn't indicate that there was a shift from ball to heel in walking - only in running.

"Au. afarensis also left behind a 27 meter long set of footprints known as the Laetoli Tracks in Tanzania. Approximately 3.7 Ma, 3 Au. afarensis individuals walked through a muddy layer of volcanic ash that preserved their foot prints after the ash hardened20. From the Laetoli tracks it is clear that Au. afarensis walked with an upright posture, with a strong heel strike and follow-through to the ball of the foot, with the hallux making last contact with the ground before push-off."

http://efossils.org/book/fossil-evidence-bipedalism

"Human bipedal locomotion is characterized by a habitual heel-strike (HS) plantigrade gait, yet the significance of walking foot-posture is not well understood. To date, researchers have not fully investigated the costs of non-heel-strike (NHS) walking. Therefore, we examined walking speed, walk-to-run transition speed, estimated locomotor costs (lower limb muscle volume activated during walking), impact transient (rapid increase in ground force at touchdown) and effective limb length (ELL) in subjects (n=14) who walked at self-selected speeds using HS and NHS gaits. HS walking increases ELL compared with NHS walking since the center of pressure translates anteriorly from heel touchdown to toe-off. NHS gaits led to decreased absolute walking speeds (P=0.012) and walk-to-run transition speeds (P=0.0025), and increased estimated locomotor energy costs (P<0.0001) compared with HS gaits. These differences lost significance after using the dynamic similarity hypothesis to account for the effects of foot landing posture on ELL. Thus, reduced locomotor costs and increased maximum walking speeds in HS gaits are linked to the increased ELL compared with NHS gaits. However, HS walking significantly increases impact transient values at all speeds (P<0.0001). These trade-offs may be key to understanding the functional benefits of HS walking. Given the current debate over the locomotor mechanics of early hominins and the range of foot landing postures used by nonhuman apes, we suggest the consistent use of HS gaits provides key locomotor advantages to striding bipeds and may have appeared early in hominin evolution."

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/219/23/3729