KenBobisms

Ken Bob, The Thinker???

Introduction

It’s been my experience that whenever I have had what I thought was an original and great thought, I will eventually find some great thinker who has already thought of it.

These are just a few silly, and some not as silly as they might seem, sound bites – some from other great thinkers, but mostly from me, but probably inspired by, or thought of before by other great thinkers…

Most recent KenBobisms are at the bottom of page

1. 1. Relax, relax, relax. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   2. “Fitness has to be fun. If it is not play, there will be no fitness. Play, you see, is the process. Fitness is merely the product.” – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   3. 
      Have fun! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   4. In the beginning we were barefoot. Then we screwed up and invented running shoes. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   5. It has often been noted, by friend and foe alike, that I am a “master of the obvious”. That is, that which some people simply accept as obvious, without stating, I will actually dare to state. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   6. For those of you, like me, who don’t always see the obvious the first time you see or hear a concept, I will now state what has become obvious to me; Running Barefoot is, obviously, the natural way for humans (or any other animal, for that matter) to run. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   7. One weakness in my credibility is that I do not have a great comeback story. No serious injury, no chronic pains, no great story about overcoming drug abuse, tragic accident, birth defects, dysfunctional family life, etc.. Ive always done some running barefoot, and the only injuries I’ve suffered that prevented me from running for more than 1 or 2 days, happened while wearing footwear. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   8. I don’t run barefoot because I’m some sort of special case. I’m not. I’m not a super human, I don’t ever plan on, or believe I could complete some of those ultra-marathons of 100 miles or more, with or without shoes. I run barefoot because it is very normal and natural. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   9. I have always been a bit sensitive (not ultra sensitive like some, but perhaps that’s just me being sensitive to hyper-sensitive people), but certainly, at least it seems to me, that I am quite a bit more sensitive than most folks I have known. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   10. If I hadn’t decided to run marathons BAREFOOT, I would only have completed the one marathon, with shoes, and would have been proud, to have sufferred through that, and happy, to be finished with it, and thrilled never to do another marathon in shoes, ever again! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   11. It all started in 1955, when I was born, and you’re probably not going to believe this, without shoes! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   12. The only other animal that regularly wears shoes, are horses, and we have to nail them on, otherwise they would not wear them! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   13. Hey Ken, do you recommend walking my dog barefoot? Of course. But, how long has your dog been wearing shoes?. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   14. Shoes are a great environment if we want to incubate bacterial and fungal communities. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   15. The road to health might just be littered with discarded footwear! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   16. Anyone who was born with shoes on their feet, or who grew shoes on their feet – as a natural response to running, is probably not suited to Running Barefoot. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   17. If you want an “expert” opinion about Running Barefoot, do not ask the man behind the curtain selling shoes or orthotic supports! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   18. If running barefoot on modern surfaces is unnatural, then running on modern surfaces in shoes is even more unnatural. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   19. The most unnatural way to run on any surface, is without the feeling of our soles interacting with the surface. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   20. Running Barefoot is probably not for everyone, only for people who were born with senses and bare feet. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   21. Despite the widespread addiction to shoes in our society, I’ve never heard anyone say, “Make yourself comfortable, put your shoes on!”. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   22. Someday the shoe manufacturers will design a shoe so smart that it’s sole will have the ability to sense precisely how our foot is interacting with the ground, and these signals will be sent to our brain, so that we can make adjustments to the way we run in response to changes in the terrain – oh wait, we already have a system that does that! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   23. I’m not saying that shoes are the root of all evil, but, if you always wear shoes, there is no way you can accurately judge if they aren’t the cause of any, or every problem you have?. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   24. I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am. – Joseph Baretti

   25. Comedians often speak the truth hoping we’ll laugh. Politicians often tell lies, hoping we won’t laugh… – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   26. Everything is changing. People are taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke. –Will Rogers

   27. Everyone will, and probably should, offend others, at least occasionally. The idea that we should not do anything that offends others, offends ME! There is no way around offending others, except perhaps, being dead, and some people look at dead people with disgust! There are just so very many wonderful people out there, with so many varied and wonderful points of view. If we try not to offend one group, or one individual, we will surely offend another group, or another individual. Since I have no control over what offends others, I believe I should be myself, tolerate others, even those who are offended, and I will not only offend fewer people, I might actually earn the respect of all truly honorable creatures! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   28. Our freedom ends where we deny another individual their freedom. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   29. When a prejudice is popular we call it “common sense”. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   30. I’ve occasionally been accused that I only run barefoot because I “don’t know any better!” I once completed a full marathon in running shoes – all ten toenails turned black, and fell out, every bit of both my feet (except the soles) was blistered and/or raw, and I couldn’t wear shoes comfortably for two weeks! My accusers are correct; I know that running in shoes is certainly not better than running barefoot! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   31. If there’s one thing I would like to be remembered for, it is having helped people learn to enjoy what they do. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   32. 
       

       After running barefoot for much of my life, racing hundreds of races, barefoot, for more than a decade, over a variety of terrain, from roads to trails, over hill and dale, from a few short races on tracks, to a 50 kilometer race on trails of gravel, and paths of rock-solid granite, I still do not know better – than Running Barefoot! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   33. Don’t be afraid to relax, and rest a bit. Running, besides propelling us forward, should also be fun. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   34. I’m really just a person who enjoys running, specifically, barefoot, because I enjoy NOT getting massive blisters, bleeding abrasions, and blackened toenails, like I did when I ran most any distances in shoes! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   35. Common sense is frequently nonsense. Real sense is uncommon. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   36. Except for the brain, our two feet are the only parts of the human body, for which we cling to the odd misconception that protecting them from exercise will keep them strong and healthy! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   37. Would you protect your brain from thinking in order to build reasoning skills? Well perhaps you would – if you used the same kind of reasoning that led to the silly notion that feet need arch support, and protection from flexing and exercise, to keep them strong and healthy. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   38. We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. – Albert Einstein

   39. 
       

       Oddly, most of the time I have been running barefoot, people have been asking “experts” (usually folks who sell footwear) to confirm or deny that running barefoot was O.K…. Since Chris McDougall’s book came out, people actually ask me if it’s O.K. to run in shoes. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   40. Much of the “wisdom” we have grown to accept without question, is pretty darn, if not completely, idiotic! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   41. Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. –Oscar Wilde

   42. When you pay a high entry fee to run barefoot in a race, no one mistakes you for a vagabond. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   43. Popularity isn’t about being reasonable, it’s about following the current fashion. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   44. Unlike many other activities, running barefoot shouldn’t “cost an arm and a leg”. In fact, if we do it correctly, sanely, with, not too much, but just the right amount of enthusiasm (too much enthusiasm injures more beginning barefoot runners, perhaps, than anything else), Running Barefoot shouldn’t even cost a foot. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   45. When a restaurant, or any institution, bans bare feet because of some fictional health code regulation, I wonder, first of all, if I really want to eat where the management does not know the health code regulations (or would lie about them), and secondly, how what I am wearing, or not wearing, on my feet, has any influence on the sanitation of the food being served? (are they scraping my meal off the floor?) (are those shoes, which you haven’t washed in years, really cleaner than my bare feet, which I washed today) – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   46. We do not like criticism. Criticism means that something might not be working, and that we may need to change the way we do stuff. That is why backward political regimes tend to lock up those who criticize their policies. And it’s precisely the same reason we imprison our own two feet! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   47. In great part because we use the term, “jogging” as a synonym for running, it has become easy for us to accept bouncing, jarring, pounding, jogging sensations as normal, and perhaps even necessary, aspects of running. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

       

   48. A thousand words paint a single picture. When we use words like, “jogging”, or “foot-strike”, we are painting a picture that running is naturally painful, jarring, jolting, and jogging. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

       

   49. A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions–as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all. –Friedrich Nietzsche

   50. The exciting thing about an adventure is discovering that which was not expected. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   51. Just about anything can happen, which is why very little that does happen, surprises me. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   52. An adventure which has no surprises, is no adventure. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   53. If you’re just starting to go barefoot, and don’t want to take 50 years like I did to learn, listening to what I have learned is probably as good a place as any to begin. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

       

   54. There is no footwear that has been so thoroughly tested, redesigned, retested, and working as well, for as long, as bare feet, for running, walking, and even standing. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

       

   55. The only thing worse than having everything planned, is having everything go exactly as planned! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   56. All plans are subject to change, until after they happen. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   57. “There is no point in running large distances until the athlete has learned to run correctly. I cannot emphasize this point enough. An athlete who runs correctly can train hard for years without any time lost to stress-related injuries. I have trained very hard for 45 years and have suffered only two or three injuries which have stopped me from training. My longevity is a direct result of paying close attention to the way I run, and what I put on my feet” –Gordon Pirie

   58. If you’re avoiding running barefoot because it hurts too much, then maybe you’re not running the way humans are designed to be running – and maybe you should be, if you want to avoid future injury. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   59. If the way you are running wouldn’t be comfortable on most surfaces while barefoot, then the way you are running is probably going to cause injury in the long run! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   60. It’s very odd that people wearing shoes have little concept of the temperature of the pavement they believe must be too hot for me to run on while barefoot – I’ve been asked as early as 7am on a cool day, “Isn’t the pavement too hot?” – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   61. The old joke, “Hey doctor, it hurts when I do this…” Doctor: then don’t do that.” is funny, but it is good advise. Pain is our first line of defense against injury. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   62. Chronic pain is often the result of ignoring pain, and continuing that which causes the pain. As long as the cause of pain continues (is chronic), the pain will continue (will be chronic). Pain is a message to us to pull our hand out of the fire, to stop hitting ourselves in the head with a hammer, to stop slamming our feet into the ground. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   63. I hate pain. If it hurts, I must be doing something wrong. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   64. I love pain. If it hurts, I must be doing something wrong. Pain teaches me to do things better – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   65. Tension hurts. I hate pain! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   66. Running barefoot on a little gravel each day, keeps the pounding away! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   67. If you push your foot hard into sharp debris, it will push hard into your foot! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   68. There is a tendency for us to travel along the path in the direction we are facing. Face the direction you wish to travel, or you’re likely to end up someplace else. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   69. My goal as a teacher is NOT to give each student a fish, not even to teach each of you how to fish, but to help you learn to teach yourselves how to fish. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   70. Expect the unexpected, and you’ll never be surprised. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   71. If your expectations are low enough, you won’t be disappointed. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   72. The most important safety features in any system, are not those which protect us during a crash – it is the ability to perceive potential trouble and avoid crashing. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   73. Wrapping our feet in cushions to protect us from impact while running, is like wrapping your automobile (including the windshield) in mattresses to protect us from impact while hitting a tree. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   74. We have senses to make the everyday things we do less dangerous and painful. To ignore them is to live, and run, senselessly! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   75. While running barefoot, we use the senses in our soles to help us run more safely, efficiently and gracefully. To run with our sole protected from these sensations is to run senselessly! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   76. “No doubt a brain and some shoes are essential for marathon success, although if it comes down to a choice, pick the shoes. More people finish marathons with no brains than with no shoes.” – Don Kardong

   77. In some marathons where we had a group of barefoot runners at the start, more runners finished barefoot than started barefoot! (some of those would not have finished, except in great pain, if they had not removed their shoes) – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   78. Running with shoes is senseless (we have literally blocked the senses on our soles from letting us know when we are running in a stupid manner). Ttherefore a brain is of little use to the shod runner. Running barefoot, however, stimulates the bare soles, which stimulate the brain, which stimulates us to run more sensibly – adapting our technique to reduce otherwise injurious stresses and strains. Consequently, it probably makes the brain more healthy. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

       

   79. To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. –Newton’s Third Law of Motion

   80. However hard you push your foot into the Earth, the Earth will push back against your foot equally hard. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   81. If it is not comfortable, or not easy, or not fun, then you aren’t running naturally. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   82. I don’t like to over-generalize by saying that “everyone should run barefoot. However, the most important aspect of running barefoot is the sensitivity of the soles, and their role in teaching us how to run gently, while continuously improving our running technique. Therefore, I do believe that running barefoot is only for those who have feet and sensitive soles. Others should run with extreme caution, barefoot or otherwise, and frequently check for injuries to their feet. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   83. Running barefoot, thanks to the precise feedback from our soles, is by it’s very nature (and by the nature of humans according to Dr. Daniel Lieberman) – self-correcting. So, while the concepts can be taught, the most natural way to learn, and improve all of the nuances of running barefoot, is to actually practice running barefoot, in actual bare feet, on various terrains, and listen to one’s own body and soles. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   84. May all the lucky people in the world who were born without shoes on their feet – someday realize how they have been blessed. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   85. Barefoot Runners are in touch with their soles! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   86. The willow knows to be flexible, to bend with the wind. ‘Tis the mighty oak, standing stiff, straight, and unbending that is blown over by nothing but air! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   87. The smoothest running systems are those that use every step as a test, get precise, immediate, and continual feedback along each step, and are capable of responding appropriately, immediately, and continually to feedback. This, in a nutshell, is what Running Barefoot is about. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   88. The purpose of running is not hopping up and down, bouncing higher, pronating, supinating, swinging the arms, twisting, transferring weight from one foot to the other, burning calories, etc.. The goal of running, is to move the body forward, toward the place we want to travel. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   89. Lifting our feet while running is like voting in Chicago; we should do it early, and often. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   90. The goal of running is to simply to move the body forward. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   91. The knee works better as a lever spring, than as a pogo stick! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   92. Every part of our body which we need to strengthen for running barefoot, will get used while we’re learning how to run barefoot, and therefore will strengthen while we are learning, and if we learn to run correctly, all of these parts will only need to strengthen enough to run gently, which is much less than necessary for running badly – which means, ultimately, as long as we learn to run correctly, we should be able to run further and faster sooner. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   93. Nobody runs with “perfect” technique, because there is no one single unresponsive technique for every step we take. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   94. I’m not saying that there is one single technique for everyone, but there are some basics, that are universal and can be fine-tuned by each individual by listening to their own body and bare soles. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   95. “Listen to your body.” –George Sheehan

   96. The first race I won was our annual staff day fun run/walk, at California State University, Long Beach. Perhaps being the fastest state employees is not much to brag about. I know that the competition, in that particular race, wasn’t so great, because I won it, despite wearing shoes! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   97. 
       

       I won another race, this time, barefoot. But, it was a small morning event, on the same day as our local running clubs annual summer beach party, and an evening race, only 15 miles away, with real prize money. So, most of the talented runners didn’t show up for the morning race. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   98. “Once you have decided that winning isn’t everything, you become a winner.” –George Sheehan

   99. Races are such that, except for one person, there’ll always be someone faster, or in the case of a tie, just as fast as you. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   100. The race itself is the reason everyone keeps running races, not the winning! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   101. No matter how old I get, the race remains one of life’s most rewarding experiences. My times become slower and slower, but the experience of the race is unchanged: each race a drama, each race a challenge, each race stretching me in one way or another, and each race telling me more about myself and others. –George Sheehan

   102. “You have to forget your last marathon before you try another. Your mind can’t know what’s coming.” – Frank Shorter

   103. It’s good that I have a poor short-term memory, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to run so many marathons so close together. -Barefoot Ken Bob (4 marathons in 3 weekends, 14 marathons in one year, 78 marathons from 1998-2011) – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   104. It requires much more effort to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from falling, than the Empire State Building. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   105. I hate work. If something I am doing seems like work, I know I am doing something wrong. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   106. I hate drills, they seem a lot like homework, and I hate work. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   107. A person may seem lazy at first, because it takes a bit of pondering before we figure an easier and better way to do a difficult task. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   108. We are specifically guaranteed the right to “bare arms”, but for some reason, or no good reason at all, bare feet got left in the dungeons. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   109. 
        

        And he [God] said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. -Exodus 3:5

   110. It’s all holy ground! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   111. If conventional, heavily cushioned running shoes are like boxing gloves for your feet, minimalist footwear are like gardening gloves: Yes, you can now hit the piano keys, but you still can’t play Beethoven very well. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   112. 
        

        When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. -Luke 22:35

   113. Sometimes you do everything right for a marathon, and things still goes wrong. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   114. Sometimes you do everything wrong for a marathon, and some things still goes right. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   115. Usually when you do everything right for a marathon, only a few things go wrong, but you can’t depend on that every time. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   116. Sometimes you do everything wrong for a marathon, and things go wrong… but you still have a lot of fun. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   117. Running barefoot is to running in shoes as mountain biking is to road biking: Instead of the numbers, the speed, the placing, it’s the view, the feeling, and the experience what matters most. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   118. You can have fun in many ways. It’s fun winning, being in the middle, it can even be fun losing. But when your shoes are hurting your feet, it’s no fun at all. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   119. And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia” So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. -–Isaiah 20:3-4

   120. Pain leads the wrong way. If it hurts while running, technique needs improving. If it hurts after running, body needs rest. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   121. Grass and soft surfaces are like dessert. They are a treat to run barefoot on, but not very nutritious. Running barefoot for a mile on soft grass won’t teach you as much about how to run gently, as walking slowly across 50 meters of hard rough asphalt. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   122. Running is not an endurance sport. It is not something that needs be endured. Running should be enjoyable. If it isn’t, you’re not doing it correctly. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   123. Wearing footwear while learning to walk or run is a bit like learning to speak or sing without being able to hear. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   124. Hard, smooth modern surfaces aren’t unnatural – I’ve encountered natural versions in the mountains, and once in Canada, while driving through a forest on what I thought was a paved road, but turned out to just be a large slab or rock several miles long. What is unnatural is running on any terrain without being able to feel precisely, and immediately how our soles are interacting with the surface so that we can listen and respond appropriately to what they’re feeling. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   125. Shoes are the most unnatural environment for our feet. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   126. The worst thing that ever happened to feet was shoes–or perhaps the second worst after concrete. The two products of urban civilization have finally conquered the human foot, which in it’s primitive state, crossed continents, pursued wild game and danced for days on end.” – George Sheehan

   127. Have fun, play, experiment, listen to your feet, they want to be bare, but they don’t want to hurt. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   128. You should not be running far or fast enough to injure yourself, until you have learned how to run without injuring yourself. Then you won’t be able to run far or fast enough to injure yourself. However, you might be able to run further and faster than ever! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   129. Keep on listening to your soles and to your souls, and running and life can keep on getting better and better. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   130. Can you not set a delicate crystal vase on a marble counter without breaking the vase? Is it any less difficult to set your foot, which is extremely sensitive to impact, on a rock-hard surface without impact? – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   131. I hold Running Barefoot Play-Fun-Shops because I’m really tired of running with people whose complaints about aching knees, back, etc., are drowned out only by the loud pounding as their shoes slam into the ground! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   132. The many nerve-endings in the soles of our feet stimulate the brain. As the feet are imprisoned, so too is the mind. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   133. The idea that the invention of shoes proves that human feet were flawed, could be compared to the absurd notion that the invention of refined sugar proves that natural fruit and vegetables aren’t sweet enough to provide the energy humans need. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   134. We need to pound it into people’s minds: When we run barefoot, there is NO POUNDING! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   135. 
        

        My mantra “relax, relax, relax” has recently been replaced by a new mantra, “Buy my book!” In my mind, It’s still telling me to relax, but as I chant this while passing other runners, they hear, “Buy my book!” – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   136. If one goes through life without wondering, can anything be wonderful? – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   137. One who is truly wise, knows there is much to learn.” – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   138. Bend your knees! That’s why there’s a hinge there…” – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   139. I hate when people say something like, “Gee I hope nothing happens to you, when you go on your adventure.” I mean, it wouldn’t be much of an adventure if nothing happened! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   140. Observing the technique of other runners can be interesting, informative, and even fun. But, beware of confusing byproducts with goals. We can observe bouncing up and down in every runner – that’s the nature of having both feet off the ground part of each step. Simply because a runner bounces, however, doesn’t mean that bouncing is something we should aspire to. Remember, the goal of running is to move our body, not up and down, not side-to-side, but rather in the direction we wish to travel – generally forward. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   141. Is the term, “popular wisdom” an oxymoron? – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   142. I like showers, they’re wet. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   143. It’s not that running barefoot is the only way to run well. But running barefoot is the one way that works well for most runners who have given it a fair trial. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   144. No able-bodied person was ever born to run in shoes! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   145. Fear protects us from apparent dangers. However, far too often fear protects us from living. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   146. I’m not different because I choose to be different. I’m different because I choose … to be me. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   147. Sensitivity in our soles works by helping us run more gently, efficiently and gracefully. Putting shoes on doesn’t make us safer runners. This works in much the same way as our eyes protect us from collisions with trucks. Closing our eyes doesn’t stop the truck from hitting us! Sensory input works, not by cushioning the blow, but rather by preventing it – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   148. Our eyes protect us from many things, not by cushioning us when we crash into them, but rather by warning us to avoid them. The sensitivity of our soles works much the same way, but teaching us to avoid uncomfortably slamming our bare feet into the ground – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   149. The surface we run on, is no harder than the way we push our feet into it. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   150. Traction control in our automobiles saves wear and tear on the tires, and, in fact, the entire automobile, by reducing excess and wasteful torques and stresses. The senses in our soles do much the same (and more) for our bodies and feet. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   151. The idea that running safely is all about technique, and has nothing to do with whether your soles are covered or not, is like saying that politics is all about who we elect, and has nothing to do with whether or not we know what the politicians are doing! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   152. “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

   153. You shouldn’t need any special nutrition while you’re running, as long as you get good nutrition while you are eating! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   154. Better to land gently barefoot on an occasional sharp pebble or bit of broken glass, than to land badly with each and every step while wearing shoes – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   155. You cannot eliminate the risk of living without eliminating life. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   156. I’m not willing to relinquish responsibility for my own safety and health to anyone whom does not live in my body. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   157. “A few seconds per mile during a marathon is the difference between finishing with the Kenyans and finishing with some guy named Ken” an old PowerBar poster

   158. You should be happy that you can finish a marathon with some guy named Ken. Only another elite runner is likely to finish with “the Kenyans”. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   159. Listening to too much complaining is bad for your brain in multiple ways, according to Trevor Blake

   160. I encourage people to learn how to run while barefoot, not out of blind faith, but for the same reason I encourage people to stop at intersections and look in all directions before proceeding. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton P.S. the answer is: Awareness

   161. The Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) is easy to improve. It’s so bad that almost any change, will be an improvment… – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   162. My problem with marketing is not creativity. It is ethics. It would be prohibitively stressful for me to mislead or deceive people into buying or even doing things that I don’t believe would be a benefit for them. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   163. When confronted with those infernal “shoe police” who believe it is illegal or impossible for humans to survive without footwear, I like to remember the words of Stile in Split Infinity;
        “Useless to argue with a mechanical…” – Stile in Split Infinity by Piers Anthony

   164. Embrace your eccentricities. Those who are very successful at following and fitting in with the crowd attain a level of mediocrity at best! Aim elsewhere, be yourself, be better! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   165. Trickle-Down Economics: The majority who serve a few wealthy should be delighted with the reward of a few drops of condensation trickling off the icy mugs they serve to the wealthy. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   166. • Income lost from not endorsing “Barefoot Shoes”: Thousands (maybe millions – potentially)
        • Being thanked by people everywhere I go for helping them figure out how to run literally barefoot without chronic pain and injury: Priceless

        – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   167. If you try often, you will probably only succeed occasionally. If you fail to try, it’s unlikely you will ever succeed. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   168. I may not be the most knowledgeable person in the world, but I am the only one I know of, who knows everything that I know. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   169. And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. – John Steinbeck, East of Eden

   170. It’s amazing how much effort some people make to insure others cannot practice individual freedom of choice for things that have no physical effect on them. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   171. 

        Make a serious attempt to look, act, dress, or be silly at least once a year

        The true purpose of Halloween is to insure that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Make a serious attempt to look, act, dress, or be silly at least once a year. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   172. The best footwear is something that is easily removed. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   173. Very important to focus on learning how to run, before practicing distance or speed, much like you would in a math or a spelling bee. It is absolutely no good practicing the arithmetic tables fast, if you’ve got them wrong. Likewise, why spend time practicing spelling fast, if you don’t know how to spell correctly? – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   174. If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime. ? Georg C Lichtenberg

   175. Life will give you what you need, when you need it. If it doesn’t then it is time to die. Have fun! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   176. 
        We wish to find the truth, no matter where it lies. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. – Carl Sagan, Cosmos television series, quoted from The Carl Sagan Electronic Monument

   177. Outside of the laws of physics there are few absolutes in our universe. When we hear someone talk about how we should “always” run in shoes, or “never” run barefoot, or we will “always” be injured if we run barefoot, or “never” be injured if we wear shoes (or go barefoot), that is when our skepticism should be on high alert. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   178. Wearing tougher shoes to deal with pain to your soles (or wearing your shoes out too quickly) because of the way you run … is a bit like curing a nasty habit of running into trees by wearing a blindfold! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   179. 
        There’s no more idiocy here than there is in any other organization. – Maxwell Smart, Get Smart: Season 2, Perils in a Pet Shop

   180. Health isn’t about tricking yourself. True health is about discovering yourself! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   181. Credibility is easy; just don’t promote concepts which make no sense. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   182. If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.” – Oscar Wilde

   183. If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. – Albert Einstein

   184. If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. – Lao Tzu

   185. The thinking must be done first, before training begins. – Peter Coe

   186. You will be able to run further, faster, and more frequently, sooner, if you start at the beginning. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   187. If it’s gentle on the bare soles, it’s gentle on the body. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   188. You can imagine it is hard on your feet to run the same way you run in shoes, while barefoot on a hard surface. In reality, your feet will complain immediately and emphatically, and you’ll want to run much more gently. This is the reason barefoot running has saved the feet, ankles, knees, hips, and spines of countless runners over the entire span of human existence on any planet with gravity – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   189. Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed. Friedrich Nietzsche

   190. With a bit of patience, and a relaxed handler, and about 5-10 minutes, most dogs get over hating each other pretty easily – if only humans were so easy! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   191. While I enjoy thinking of myself as a loner, an individual, a free-thinker, WE are a social species. By working together, instead of a strict competition (winner-take-all, everyone else loses) can GREAT things be accomplished by society. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   192. Competition is fine … in games. But when it comes to work, none of us are independent, and all productive work should be rewarded fairly. Actually, even in games, we often cooperate and help each other grow too. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   193. You’re not leaving. You are arriving someplace else. Have fun! – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   194. People discovering they can run easily, without injury or chronic pain, with or without shoes, is always good business for running stores!
        – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   195. While running, it’s important to lift the feet, but there’s no need to try to push your feet towrd the ground in order to land. Gravity will take care of that!
        – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   196. Has anyone who has ever supported discrimination against any individual or any group, ever believed themselves unwise for doing so? – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   197. There are times to be useless, and times to be productive. The art is in not feeling ashamed for knowing which is which. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   198. There are no secrets to barefoot running. We simply do not have the publicity budget of the shoe companies. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   199. Shoe companies are leading the debate about barefoot running … Which means most people have no understanding about barefoot running. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   200. Impatient people will wait on the phone for hours, on hold, so they can get an “immediate” response to their question, rather than spending a minute or two looking online – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   201. Bragging has nothing to do with accuracy, honesty, or humilty – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   202. I would rather convince millions of people to run or walk a few miles a few times each week, than convince a few people to run 100 mile ultra-marathon races.
        – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   203. I was wise enough to never grow up while fooling most people into believing I had. – Margaret Mead

   204. Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world–and never will. Mark Twain

   205. The purpose of society is to improve the lives of everyone. -Barefoot Ken Bob

   206. The nature of society is to make sure everyone is unnaturally conformed.
        – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   207. A truely progressive society’s goal is to progress toward fairness and dignity for each individual. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   208. If you are who you want to be it, then is pointless to ask anyone ‘Why you don’t like me?’. Because that question implies that you may be willing to become someone other than the person you want to be (thinking that person’s acceptance of you will somehow bring you happiness) – after which you might no longer be pleased with yourself. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   209. You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering. -Doctor Who

   210. If inequality and poverty are necessary to provide incentive to create wealth, why do the wealthy continue to acquire so much wealth, and the poor so little? – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   211. 
        

        There is only one important distinction between humans and other animal speciess. We believe humans are more valuable than every other animal species. This, of course, is only true from the human point of view. If we could ask this question of any other animal, they would likely tell us that they are more valuable than humans. That we believe we have evolved a special kind of intelligence, and yet cannot figure that out, is one of the most amazing contradictions of any species. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   212. We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. – Albert Einstein

   213. We cannot heal our injuries with the same techniques we used when we created them. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   214. Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity. – Marshall Macluhan

   215. How near we are to a dictatorship when it is unpatriotic or taboo to criticize our government officials? – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   216. Freedom does not produce a neat, clean, regimented society. Freedom is messy. But freedom is also wonderful. Individuals are free to be themselves, rather than conform to some artificial doctrine that benefits only those in charge. – Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   217. “Common sense, is a term we use to insult those who don’t have the same set of ‘facts’ we acquired during childhood. -Ken Bob Saxton- Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton

   218. “We are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters. -Yoda (The Last Jedi)

   219. It is our responsibility to allow others to grow beyond the limits we imagine for ourselves. -Ken Bob Saxton- Barefoot Ken Bob Saxton