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In praise of the humble plimsole.

Last year I bought some chinese army shoes- very simple plimsoles in green cotton canvas with a thin rubber sole and the classic unshaped insole. They were very light and cost me 25 yuan / 2.5 GBP / 3.75 USD. They held up well and were still going strong, if looking a bit worn, after 6 months of constant wear, when I decided to upgrade to "real" shoes. I bought some light Decathlon trail-walking shoes for 250 yuan and they looked the business, showing no signs of wear after a full winter/spring's service.
Thing is, after the initial wierdness of wearing totally flat, simple shoes I got used to them and realised last week that I was starting to get a small collection of army shoes which I wore in good weather. "Enough!" I thought and put them aside. For the last week or so I've been only wearing the Decathlons in the "new" style and I'm not getting re-used to them. going to the plimsoles I had to develop more strength in my feet and my walking changed as I got used to my now slightly shorter legs. The way i placed my feet also become more exact. My feet now feel held too loosely and a camber has formed on the outside of both heels of the Decathlon pair, which is putting stress on my tendons and affecting my posture. So today I went out and got myself some new improved plimsoles (35 yuan) and as soon as I put them on, everything felt better, my back-alignment became more natural and my tread firm, despite feeling most of the bumps in the pavement.
I have been of the opinion until now that very slim, very flat, un-arched shoes were bad for your feet, but now I'm beginning to think this isn't true. Obviously if I was pounding the pavement 10K per day I'd need an actual running shoe, but for simple street-walking, I mean walking on the street, they seem to do everything my body wants them to.
 
I seem to have the same issues with my feet. Hands down the most comfortable tennis shoes I own are the basic Puma Speed Cat shoes. I'm currently on my 4th pair... What can I say, I'm hard on things.
 
FWIW many people have over/under pronation issues, and standard running shoes can highlight the problem. Getting running shoes tailored to how you move can help. Makers like New Balance and Brooks have models aimed to fix this. Some sports shops have test equipment that you run over barefoot and it works out what you need.

But yes, plimsols are great and classic. And being neutral they won't create problems by forcing strange movement on you.
 
To my amazement the new ones are in fact a French company, Feiyue. I thought there were Chinese.
Here's the link and I'm wearing the lo model in white with blue and red. they must be fake or stolen at that price

www.feiyue-shoes.com/pages_en/collections_show.cfm?id=b9733f4a-ccd7-8fae-9d26388c2785ce03


Edit: further digging shows them to be available in The States for around $35. One martial arts website describes the company as Shanghai-based but famous since the 30s for strengthh and durability- got the feeling this was the company blurb though. Oh, do you remember the days you could at least trust a company to be honest about where they're from!
 

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