As you are watching the March Madness NCAA basketball games, you might think back to watching the games a long time ago and how the shoes have changed over the years. If so, Sean Williams will take you through that history in a short video from Slate.
In the video Williams briefly recounts the evolution from the Chuck Taylor shoes to the shoes of today. If you have been around awhile, you will remember a lot of these shoes. Check it out.
Look at your shoes. Do your shoelaces come untied periodically? Are your bows straight across the top of the shoe as they should be — like the shoe on the right — or do they end up aimed down the length of your shoe — like the shoe on the left? I recently ran across a three-minute video on Netflix from TED about how to tie your shoe. Intrigued, I figured it was worth three minutes. In the short video, Terry Moore explains how you likely have been tying your shoe wrong all these years.
While Moore explains the problem quite well, it took me several viewings to figure out how I should adapt my shoe-tying style. For me, it was a matter of looping the opposite direction around my finger instead of my thumb. If you are still not quite seeing it, here is another video that explains a little more how you might make the adjustment to tying the superior reef knot instead of that granny knot your parents taught you. [2016 Update: A previously posted video from from Runner’s World is no longer available.]
In defense of your parents, the granny knot probably is easier for little kid fingers. But I am upset about all those years I wasted having to retie my shoes after they came undone. Now, if you tie your shoes correctly, you can use that extra time for for your favorite activities, including reading Chimesfreedom.
How do you tie your shoes? Leave your two cents in the comments.
