First workout and adding a goal

I did most of the p90x yoga workout today. I was dieing. It was hot as hell and I was sweating so bad that I was slipping even on the yoga mat. Overall it was about an hour of yoga. I also did some walking around. I pushed mowed the lawn and did some walking around at the mall, BJs store, and outside. My girlfriend's feet were troubling her during the walk so she took her flip flops off and said that it felt much better. This sparked a conversations about the benefits of being barefoot vs wearing shoes all the time. Before this conversation I was just happened to be reading about barefoot training. On Joe Defranco's site about his training with Triple H and how he started using five fingers "shoes." Joe talked about how wearing shoes is essentially putting a cast over your foot. It makes the bones, tendons, muscles, ligaments, and fascia weak. It also screws up walking mechanics. I started researching a bit on the topic of barefoot training. This other site brought up the fact that when people run with shoes the majority of runners use the heel stike stride. Once you take the shoes off almost everyone switched to mid foot or forefoot strike stride. This happens because barefoot heel strike is way too painful and punishing to the body! Your body is the result of millions of years of evolution. Feet are designed to NOT be in shoes.    http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20100127/barefoot-running-laced-with-health-benefits

Back to tonight's walk. Ashley was telling me how in gymnastics they never wore shoes during training because you don't wear them in competition. They did everything barefoot. Ashley's feet are strong and tough as hell. Mine I always knew were pathetically weak and sensitive. I decided to give this barefoot walking a try. We were about 5mins away from getting back home so I took my shoes and socks off and walked the rest of the way. I couldn't believe how sensitive the skin on my feet were. It wasn't comfortable to me to walk on the street. At the same time though I noticed just how natural and good it felt. I could feel the cool night's air running between my toes drying them out. I always had a problem with my feet sweating and causing athletes foot. I also noticed a chance in my walking mechanics without even thinking about it. I was holding the arch up in my left foot better (my left foot is very very flat, my right foot works well).

So my new goal is to start doing more barefoot walking and training. To toughen up my feet I am going to slowly add time into walking totally barefoot. I am also going to try out getting a pair of five fingers or something like it. Unfortunately a couple months ago I dropped a lot of money on custom fit arch supports. They do help but they are just not cutting it. I still have left hip and knee pain at times. I can still feel my foot just slapping against the ground instead of doing some muscle work and absorbing the shock effectively. My left foot may never be as strong or functionally sound as my right but my new goal is to even it out as much as possible with exercise. I am going to start out with the barefoot intervention first then add on some inversion exercises to strengthen my foot's ability to hold its arch up.