Sentient and Useful Toes

Remember how delicious it felt to discover your toes when you were a baby? That sense memory may elude you, but if you've spent time with an infant recently your mirror neurons will have picked up on the baby’s delight as you touched each little “piggy.”  This likely put a smile on your face, a twinkle in your eyes, and opened up space in your heart. You may even have felt happy sensations in your own feet.

Every Little Piggy Counts

The simple act of sensing your toes can appreciably affect the way you use your feet and your whole body.

Recently a friend gave me some toe socks.  She said they helped her feel more grounded as she stands all day styling hair. Wearing those socks made me acutely aware of my “toe cleavages”—the super-sensitive spaces between the toes.  Becoming aware of those spaces makes it clear that each toe is an individual. Grown-ups have piggies too.

Toes are Not Merely Decorative

A baby’s toes love having something to do—they love sensing and pushing against things. In time this pushing becomes the push-off phase of our walking gait and activates the fascial resilience that imparts springiness to our steps.

My first walk wearing my new socks helped me notice that my big toes weren’t fully engaged. I spent a little time massaging my two big piggies, and tried to help them remember how it feels to sense the ground, and to push against it. Once my big toes came online, I noticed sensations of activation up the inner lines of both legs and into my abdominal core.  This gave me an instantaneous lift through my midline, and a somatic reminder of our bodies’ fascial continuity from tongue to toe.

Check out my Foot Alignment Workshop for more about healthy mobility of the toes and whole foot.  This podcast chat with Michael Max also touches on sensations in the toes and feet. 

Thanks for reading, and for sharing.

© 2024 Mary Bond (revised from a 2016 post)