Barefoot Shoe Expo

This past weekend we took a road trip to Chicago (the western edge of Chicago) for a foot health expo. It's officially called the Barefoot Shoe Expo. It lasted two days and had speakers going on all day in one room and another room to shop for barefoot/minimalist shoes, foot health accessories, and specialists who can help with balance, gait, and movement in general. 

We spent Saturday with the speakers (with a little peek at the exhibit hall) and Sunday in the shopping room. 

The first three speakers on the schedule were surprisingly good. They left me with a bunch of foot stretching exercises to do at home. 

The balance training session was probably my favorite. Balance is something lacking in pretty much everyone, and it's the easiest and quickest thing to build back because it's neurological (compared to improving muscle, strength, etc). Even just practicing standing on one leg with your eyes open and closed can improve your balance!

We had to partner up and toss a hacky sac back and forth while on one leg. Then they challenged us to do a tap of the ball before catching it. Then they told us to announce which hand our partner should catch the ball in while on one foot. After that we had to say right or left, but the partner had to catch with the opposite hand of what we said. Whew! That was tough. All in all, fun and good practice, which is the Foot Collective philosophy on improving balance. If it's not fun, you won't do it. 

Katy Bowman was the speaker I looked forward to the most (and the last one we listened to before checking into our hotel). I listen to her podcast about movement and she's the person who inspired me to look into minimalist shoes in the first place (and my chiropractor who said I had the beginnings of a bunion on my right foot 😅). 

I had her sign my book at the end of her session and we were able to chat at her booth a bit on Sunday afternoon. 

We did squeeze in a Costco run, ate supper at a deep dish Chicago-style pizza place, and went to church Sunday morning before the second day of the conference started.

Sunday we spent the whole time in the exhibit hall checking out vendors. I took a ton of notes about shoe brands, their fit/cost, and future shoe possibilities for Jaron. We did buy a few pairs of shoes, and a pair for Jaron. He slept for a good chunk of the shopping, which made it much easier. 

Two challenging things about the weekend: packing food. I wanted to bring lunches for us both days, so I made a cold pasta salad for Saturday and a deconstructed spring roll salad for Sunday. Saturday's meal was great, but Sunday's salad would have been better if we had eaten it on Saturday. I did have plenty of snacks along, so we didn't go hungry, but the prep for getting us to that point took a lot of brain power and energy. 😅

The other challenging thing was that my baby carrier got left behind. 😭 It was sitting on the bench in the basement with a couple other last minute items to be packed, and when I came downstairs with Jaron, they weren't there. I assumed G had grabbed them. He thought he must've taken them, remembered something else he wanted to grab, and set them down somewhere. 

Devastating because I had planned to strap Jaron to my back so that both G and I could participate in the sessions and we could shop uninterrupted by an 18 month old who just wants to walk. It ended up being okay. G entertained him so I could participate in the session activities. He even got Jaron to nap on his chest! It still would've been easier with the carrier, but it worked out okay in the end. 

Will we go back to the conference? I would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat (only $15 for both days), but it's not going to be a yearly thing for us. We'll probably go back at some point, when Jaron is older and needs more shoes.