Origin

Origin story

This practice borrows inspiration from years of frustration living and moving in our modern world; the way we shuffle our feet or enter rooms hurriedly and unaware; the way we walk, breathe, interact with objects, animals and people has fundamentally changed to adapt to our high-fashioned and well-paved environments yet our basic anatomies and musculature structure has not.

Our staunch devotion and love for bulky, plush footwear to compensate for the lack of strength, flexibility and durability in our feet as well as the promotion of these footwear by our modern medical advisors for our safety.. all of this and more points to a simple truth: we are a people who have become deeply detached with the earth and have therefore forfeited our common sense resulting in a change in our basic movements.

Modern advice

On the topic of medical advisors, notably podiatrists- those who suggest supportive footwear are likely not wrong that many of us need support, but this isn’t because our bodies require augmentation, rather it is because we have allowed our muscles and connective tissue (as well as our absense of deep calluses often removed through frequent pedicures) to atrophy- or have never developed in the first place- due to the absense of natural movement in most of our lives.

Before going forward, it is essential to note that our movement has changed as a result of our environments becoming less wild and unpredictable. Our roads are paved, our sidewalks often perfectly flat and smooth. Even the substrate that we walk on is drastically different, even looking at the textures and personalities of dirt trails versus concrete paths.

As a further result, we often walk distracted and detached to what is beneath us simply because there are few to no dangers that are commonly found in more natural landscapes. The biggest “dangers” our modern paths possess are either being too slippery due to the lack of texture, or possibly having a few too many cracks to avoid resulting in giving a person with OCD trauma in being able to steer clear of them all.

Joking aside, it would therefore be borderline negligent for a medical professional to suggest that the majority of people should elect to go barefoot or adopt more minimalistic footwear designs since people, by and large, lack the foundational conditioning necessary to handle the rigors of this on their bodies and doing so without proper conditioning would doubtlessly lead to significant injury and possibly even long-term impairment. In fact, I feel sorry for many medical professionals who recognize this.

Realignment: a path forward

The practice of Shadowcraft seeks to realign us with our nature and reawaken our awareness through the emphasis on proper form and slow, deliberate, motion leading to full range experience of our most basic and innate of abilities: movement.

It is with deep appreciation and gratitude to share that many of the learnings and observations detailed herein are either an adaption of or were directly borrowed from the teachings of Tom Brown Jr. and the talented and devoted instructor cadre at the Tracker School.

• Core