minimalSHOE=minimumLEVELshoe
minimalSHOE=minimumLEVELshoe
- 1b. The shoe should not impede the movement or flexibility of the foot in any way. The shoe should allow the foot to use all its musculature and strength, including the grasping and splaying actions of the toes.
- 2c. There should be no cushioning.
With these two restrictions the range of shoes that fits stomper's definition is quite narrow.
For instance, 2c. would leave off all FiveFingers with EVA midsole, like KSOs, Treks, Bikilas, Flows and so on.
If 1b. is strictly applied only socks, the forthcoming Inov8 EvoSkin and some FiveFingers should be included. I doubt you can grasp something with your toes through the thinnest flat sole of some sandals or flip-flops, and any grasping action without actually anything to grasp won't help your feet and legs to walk or run.
That said, I like the idea. I find the addition of cushioning such as an EVA midsole totally unnecessary (therefore far from minimal) assuming that the biomechanics of joints, bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles provide enough cushioning to run safe of injury to any minimally trained individual (i.e., almost any minimally sensible and sensitive person.)
As for the proposal of different levels to classify minimal shoes, I initially thought to be more accurate than a simple cut point, but later I thought it twice and I realized it would be contradictory by definition and also inaccurate if generally applied.
We shouldn't assign levels to the concept of minimal because minimal as attribute already implies a specific level: THE MINIMUM LEVEL.
Broadly speaking, the minimum level could be defined as a threshold between the excess in one or several quantitative magnitudes to attain a predefined state, attribute, etc. and a shortage in those magnitude/s making that state impossible to reach. However, such threshold often becomes blurred or is intrinsically not possible to determine, what makes the definition of an acceptance interval a more convenient tool to work with.
The second consideration to be taken is the dynamic nature of such threshold. This time I'm going to give some examples to spare you from my pseudo-accademic speech:
The minimal shoe to walk or run is a relative concept itself. The minimal shoe on the Moon would require both an air-tight construction to keep your body fluids in a liquid phase, and thermal isolation to prevent your feet from Moon's extreme temperatures. Similarly, a sandal wouldn't serve as a minimal shoe to walk in the Antarctica in the open air. The same can be applied to desserts with extremely high/low temperatures, and so on. Minimal is a relative concept that mostly depends on the factors affecting the activity and even the subject who is performing it.
Finally, my last concern involves the predefined state to be attained to define that minimum level. Again, I'm going to give an example of it. In a temperate climate and on a regular surface, the minimal shoe to walk a few miles for a trained individual would be only his or her own feet. If that individual wants to keep his or her skin clean and safe of any possible cut or puncture the minimal shoe for that purpose would probably require of some additional element of protection (a pair of socks would probably work), if that individual wanted his or her minimal shoes to last longer, a pair of socks wouldn't work quite well. Therefore, the purpose of the activity (in the former example, going for a walk in reusable minimal shoes) is an additional element to take into account in the definition of the minimum level of choice.
I think that any accurate definition regarding what a minimal shoe is should clearly specify that kind of assumptions and accept different definitions for the different factors involved.
) Think of your hands. Since the only part of our body with more sensors than our feet are our hands. We can either use our hands naked, our cover them with gloves or mittens. Mittens would be like shoes that allow all of our toes to visit one another. Gloves (VFFs) have a separate home for each of our fingers. Typically mittens are thicker than gloves. Anyone who has ever worn these know that you can do more, from a dexterity standpoint, than you can in mittens. So I kind of relegate mittens to boat anchor status.
