The importance of correct footwear
If you are practicing classical combat methods, including taijutsu, bojutsu long staff, and especially kenjutsu sword, wearing tabi will have a major influence on your movement.
Our practice of Sengoku Warring States era combat utilizes a type of footwork that resembles an eagle claw talons. Difficult to describe in words, but imagine an eagle’s claw gripping by pulling in and down from the front and back at the same time. You grip the ground with your toe tips and back edge of your heels pressing in for proper classical movement. This toe and heel action has an effect on the muscles and joints of the leg. This leg muscle and joint action affects the placement and movement of the hips. All this combined produces either authentic and effective classical combat movement, or that strange effect that the Japanese refer to by the phrase gaijin koshi ga takai – “foreigners with high hips”.
Tabi soles (rubber or cotton) flex to match the bottom of the foot exactly. This quality of fit is important, because we are studying a technique developed by people who wore that kind of footwear. Thicker soled wrestling shoes or even skinny soled kung-fu or martial arts shoes cannot flex like that, and you will move with either flat foot shuffling like a wrestler or – completely opposite of tabi wear – feet flexed with heel up and toes pushing down like a boxer. Consequently, it is then so difficult to learn good sword work because you end up with modern wrestler or boxer body dynamics due to misuse of the feet on the ground.
Tags: martial arts, MMA, nijutsu, Shinobi Martial arts, Stephen K. Hayes, To-Shin Do