This entry was published on July 30, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
I recently published a blog on the 6 elements of balancing. First on the balancing list, the essential elements are healthy, stable and sensitive feet. In this article, I will present yoga on foot, to help you give your feet the TLC they deserve.
I was lucky to have many longtime yoga students. Many have taken my lessons for over 10 years, some for over 20 years. It is a privilege to move through inevitable ups and stockings of life with such a solid nucleus of wise and wonderful humans.
I met one of these students – I would call her Patricia – in the late 80s. At that time, she was around fifty. She came regularly to lessons for more than 20 years, participating fully in the late 1970s. Balancing on one leg was her only sworn enemy. For decades, she supported herself against the wall in order to practice staples such as the laying of trees.
Yoga and balance
In the early 2000s, the professor based in Washington DC, Jenny Otto, taught a workshop in Salt Lake. She started each class with a five -minute feet massage which included the propagation of the toes; Massage the toes, the balls, the arches and the heels; And roll a tennis ball under each foot. She preached the importance of taking care of our feet every day as we age – a process that happens to us all, no matter when we were born.
The following week, I brought Jenny’s foot massage to my lessons. My students loved it and we practiced it regularly. Six months later, Patricia settled on a leg – without the wall – for the first time in her 20 years of practice and more.
Yoga feet and healthy aging
Shortly after Jenny Otto introduced me to the feet massage, an article in The New Yorker (“The way we get older now”, on April 30, 2007), described how the greatest geriatrician, Dr Juergen Bludau, spent most of the initial examination of a new patient looking at his feet. He said that a person’s feet of the feet tells an important story about his general health. According to the article, the greatest risk for most of us as we age is not what we could think. Our greatest overall risk is decreasing.
The author of the article, ATUL GAWANDE, writes: “Each year, about three hundred and fifty thousand Americans fall and break a hip. Of these, forty percent end in a bad balance, and twenty percent are never able to walk. have almost a chance per hundred. I find these dirty figures, so to speak.
Our incredible feet
At the beginning of June, I reconnected with Mark Bouckoms, a New Zealand yoga teacher who co-formed a teacher at training here with Donna Farhi in 1996. In his workshop, he spoke of the importance of the feet in the traditional practice of yoga. Our feet are our most powerful source of energy, he said. They contain a plethora of Marmoise points, bridges towards connective tissue and nadisThe subtle lines that channel energy towards each cell of the body. The 72,000 Nadis and their 108 Marma points are the Ayurveda response to the Chinese meridian system.
In Mark’s workshop, we started each training to take care of our feet. In my classes, even if we do not go through the complete feet diet, we always start each class by rolling peanuts under our feet to stimulate connective tissue via marmatic points. Most people feel marked differences on both sides of their bodies after simply riding a massage peanut under a foot for about 30 seconds.
Beautiful things you can do for your feet
Walk barefoot. Direct contact, in particular with unequal surfaces, stimulates connections between the 11 detection muscles of your feet and your brain.
Avoid high heels. I am well aware that the heels are rigor For many special occasions. (I recently read on some women who were denied access to the red carpet during a chic show because they wore apartments!) And some people just like to wear them. But there are many ways whose heels can cause major damage to your feet, your knees, your hips, your back and all that is above, but that is another article. If you want to wear them, do it sparingly.
I hate saying this because they are a summer favorite for so many people, but flip flops are not great either. Your toes must work very hard to prevent them from falling. This creates a lot of tension in your feet and toes. It is good to wear them to do shopping and for short walks, but stay with sandals or more substantial shoes for a thorough walk.
Massage your feet
- Sit on the ground with your legs extended. Fold your right knee and place your ankle on your left thigh. Put your fingers of your left hand between your toes.
- With your fingers between your toes, surround your ankles about 8 to 10 times each direction. Then flex and extend the balls with your feet 8 to 10 times and turn them 8 to 10 times.
- Remove your fingers and massage the balls from your feet and toes for 15-30 seconds or more. Find your point of “bubbling spring” (kidney 1 in Chinese medicine), a pronounced depression located between the first and second metatarsals just below the ball of your foot. It’s easy to find. It is a point of power which, when stimulated, sends a spiral of power through your body. Spend time – 30-60 seconds – it now.
- Massage your arches. One of my students, a body worker who knows reflexology, says that it stimulates and calms your “guts”, the vital organs.
- Return your leg and let it sit. Repeat on your left foot.
- Keep and roll a tennis ball under each foot for 30 to 60 seconds. After your first foot, take a moment to feel differences between both sides of your body, to your neck and shoulders.
We count on our feet all day, much more than we think or appreciate it. Take time – five minutes – every day to give them a little TLC. Your feet will make the same by keeping you stable and straight.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell discovered yoga in 1982 and started teaching in 1986. Charlotte is the author of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyding Practice and Yoga for Meditators, both published by Rodmell Press. His third book is entitled Hip-Healthy Asana: The Yoga Pratitioner’s Guide to Protect of the Hips and Avoid Si Joint Pain (Shambhala Publications). She writes a monthly chronicle for Catalyst Magazine and is online Yoga U publisher. Charlotte is a founding member of the board of directors of Greentree Yoga, a non -profit organization that brings yoga to poorly served populations. Musician for life, Charlotte plays an oboe and an English horn in the Salt Lake Symphony and the Sextuant Folk Red rock Rondo, whose DVD won two Emmy Awards.