In 2010, Piers Kwan became a certified hardstyle kettlebell instructor under Pavel Tsatsouline. He started with RKC and now represents StrongFirst. He learns and teaches with Tim Anderson and the Original Strength team.
Piers currently enjoys pickleball, delving excessively deeply into random interests, and hanging out with his lovely wife and three fantastic daughters.
Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Piers Kwan about how barefoot shoes can handle pickleball and other court sports.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
– How Original Strength focuses on restoring natural movement patterns to help individuals move as they were designed to.
– How people can transition from sedentary and physically restricted states to vibrant and capable individuals.
– How Original Strength serves as the foundational framework, enabling individuals to pursue various physical activities without hindrance.
– Why inexperience sports participants, especially those lacking stability and a connection to the ground, are prone to injury.
– why wearing minimalist footwear can improve foot strength, reduce running injuries, and provide an active recovery.
Connect with Piers:
Guest Contact Info
Instagram
@qldkettlebells
@pierskwan
Facebook
facebook.com/QldKettleballs
Links Mentioned:
qldkettlebells.com.au
Connect with Steven:
Website
Xeroshoes.com
Twitter
@XeroShoes
Instagram
@xeroshoes
Facebook
facebook.com/xeroshoes
Episode Transcript
Steven Sashen:
There’s some things that barefoot shoes just aren’t right for like tennis or pickleball, court sports, basketball, any of those things, because you just need support and all that lateral control, things like that. Oh, really? Well, we’re going to find out on today’s episode of the MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting feet first, those things at the end of your legs. And we break down the propaganda and the mythology and the flat-out lies you may have been told about what it takes to run, or walk, or play, or do yoga, or CrossFit, or maybe play court sports and to do that enjoyably and efficiently and effectively. And did I say enjoyably? I know I did because it’s a trick question. If you’re not having fun, do something different until you are because you’re not going to keep it up if you’re not having a good time.
I am Steven Sashen co-founder co-CEO of Xero Shoes. And we call this the MOVEMENT Movement because we including you, I’ll tell you more about that in a second, are creating a movement about natural movement, letting your body do what it’s made to do instead of getting in the way, which can cause a bunch of problems. So how do we, and includes you, help with the movement? It’s simple. Spread the word. So here’s an easy way to do it. Go to our website, www.jointhemovementmovement.com. Nothing you need to do to join. There’s no secret handshake, there’s no money involved, just the domain that I got. But you will find previous episodes of the podcast, all the ways you can find us in social media and engage with us there and all the different places you can find the podcast if you don’t like the one that brought you here to begin with.
In short, give us a review. Thumbs up, like, five star something or other. Hit the bell icon on YouTube. You know the gist. If you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe. All right, let’s jump in to the other side of the world. We’re going to be talking with Piers. Piers, do me a favor, tell people who you are and what you’re doing here.
Piers:
Yeah. So I run a gym in Britain.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, wait. Start with who you are.
Piers:
Who am I? So I’m Piers.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, that’s easy. What,-
Piers:
I have been cruising around with movement related stuff for about 15 years. Prior to that I was just doing it without getting any payment for it. And so I run a gym and I go around teaching people about Original Strength and then also for StrongFirst and GMB, which are all fantastic systems that I love.
Steven Sashen:
Do you want to do me a favor? I mean that’s how we got introduced. Do you want to kind of like touch on those three things to describe what they are and how you put them together in your current practice, if you will?
Piers:
Sure. So Original Strength undergirds everything that I do. So Original Strength is all about helping the body to move the way it was designed to be moved, taking the brakes off, using the movements that we used as kids to take ourselves from the sedentary broken people that we often have today to being the vibrant, capable people that we’re all capable of being. So Original Strength, undergirds everything. And then on top of that, I like to stack StrongFirst and StrongFirst is an organization that’s really good at taking what elite power athletes do and then bringing it down and making it accessible to everyday people. It’s also really good at taking complex movements and giving safe progressions so people don’t have these gaps where they have to make a jump that’s not available to them. And then finally, GMB. GMB is all about physical autonomy. That’s their thing. It’s the idea that you should be able to do the things that your body wants to do and they give really accessible, call it gymnastic style movements for everybody because there’s an entry point that will work for you with GMB stuff.
Steven Sashen:
It’s funny you bring that up. I did a recording earlier today, it just so happened with a friend of mine who’s a research physical therapist and clinical physical therapist. And we are talking about the value of being an all-around athlete, being strong sort of for everything that you might encounter. And I brought up that I had just gotten an email from a guy who’s a sprinting coach showing videos from the Polish weightlifting team, the Olympic weightlifting team. And these guys were better gymnasts than anyone I’ve ever seen. Not anyone I’ve ever seen, but certainly better than your average high school gymnast. They were doing things that had nothing to do with weightlifting just to become all-around strong, capable movement-friendly people that translated into their weightlifting. If all you’re doing is that one thing, any little variation can set you off if you’re strong across the board. And starting with the idea of Original Strength, just doing the, for lack of a better term, baby-level things.
Piers:
Sure.
Steven Sashen:
And I don’t mean that they’re simple. Some of these things from Original Strength, not simple. And then building in the part that you mentioned about from StrongFirst, which of course you have a kettlebell on your shirt and that’s a hint about what StrongFirst is all about. And for people who haven’t heard that episode, check it out because it’s with the guy who is one of the first kettlebell teachers in America and super, super interesting. But I am kind of curious, because I have this image in my head of babies hurling kettlebells around. So clearly tell me, I’m just desperately curious, how did you find that interaction? What does that look like?
Piers:
In terms of marrying StrongFirst and Original Strength?
Steven Sashen:
Yes, the Original Strength idea of let’s call them baby-inspired movements and then taking a 24K kettlebell and doing whatever you do with that.
Piers:
Yeah, I mean, so I first off, I actually came into, I found Tim through the Kettlebells. So Tim is the founder of Original Strength as you’re aware. But so for me, I spent the time working with the Kettlebells and doing that stuff. And for the majority of people, the progressions that I had were fantastic. But there was a subset of people whose bodies just didn’t, they just didn’t have access to their body. They didn’t know how it was meant to move. They couldn’t feel what was going on. And so I spent well over 20,000 Australian dollars. These days, it’s about 50 cents US, but it’s,-
Steven Sashen:
I was going to say $6.23 cents. I think the exchange rates changed.
Piers:
Yeah. But I spent, at the time it was equivalent about 20 grand US trying to find ways to help these people that just didn’t move naturally. And what I found was as we went through that, I brought Tim and Jeff out to Australia. And so at the time they came across and they ran a day and a half workshop. We were about six hours into that workshop and I had people coming up to me and talking about, “I’ve had this hip issue when I’ve squatted and it’s been with me for years, and all of a sudden it’s just gone and I couldn’t lift my arm overhead without discomfort and now it’s not hurting me.” And so the other money wasn’t wasted, but it certainly helped to highlight just how incredibly effective our body doing what it’s meant to do is. And so Original Strength sets the foundation, it’s the roots of the tree and that allows us to do whatever we want above the surface.
Steven Sashen:
I love it. That was a brilliant and poetic answer to the question. So, so, so before we get to the whole question about court sports and minimalist footwear, when did you get hip to the whole idea of minimalist slash barefoot footwear?
Piers:
Yeah, so I have grown up, when I was two or three mom reckons that I was just about walking on my ankles.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, wow.
Piers:
So I was so flatfooted. So I was in orthotics from the time I was about four or five. And so I was in orthotics and I wore those. And around I reckon 2008, I first ran into my first pair of minimalist shoes and I liked the idea of them. I’d been training barefoot for a little while because I’d been looking at the kettlebells, but I didn’t actually, sorry.
Steven Sashen:
Wait, I got to pause. 2008, there was only a couple of options. Vivobarefoot who was previously Terra Plana, they had some stuff ish and then FiveFingers and there wasn’t much else. There was the New Balance Minimus, that was out, which was then a mostly minimal issue. Not so much anymore. There’s something else. Was there something else that you found?
Piers:
No, no. It was the first two that you’d mentioned there, so.
Steven Sashen:
There you go.
Piers:
So the FiveFingers, I had the option and I ran into those first and they were cool. But there’s something socially awkward about walking around with your toes out.
Steven Sashen:
So you’re suggesting that you didn’t enjoy the birth control aspect of wearing those?
Piers:
I didn’t mind it, but I was in the early stages of courtship with my wife and she was more self-conscious about it, so.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. In the early days when we started Xero Shoes and I bumped into someone who had said they’ve been wearing FiveFingers, I would say, “So when did they start to fall apart? And is your relationship being strained by the smell?” And there was answers to both of those questions at the time.
Piers:
My first set of FiveFingers were incredibly resilient.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, yeah?
Piers:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Piers:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Well, for me, had they fit my feet, we would’ve never started Xero Shoes, but they never quite fit my feet. But I tried them every six months for a couple of years. When you go to the fridge late at night and there’s nothing that you want, and then you come back five minutes later and there’s of course still nothing that you want, but you’re acting like the fridge is a psychic replicator from Star Trek, so.
Piers:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
All right. So anyway, so that’s what got you. So actually I want to back up because this is an interesting thing. You were in orthotics from the time you were four. What made you even think to try a minimalist shoe? Because for most people, that idea seems absurd if they’re in the situation that you’re describing.
Piers:
Yeah, I mean reading Pavel’s stuff. So Pavel from StrongFirst, he talked about the receptors in our foot, talked about the value of the arch and the strength of the foot. And I thought, well, if I can put myself in a position where I can use my feet intentionally when I’m lifting weight, then surely I can learn to walk in a way that facilitates a stable base for me as well.
Steven Sashen:
So you were burdened with the psychological problem called logical thinking?
Piers:
Yes. It’s a common issue sometimes.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. I have found that it does not help you make friends very often, not the way one would think. This is a tangent. My best friend called me like 30 years ago to inform me that my enjoyment of letting people know when they’re factually inaccurate does not make them like me. I said, “Oh, that explains it.”
Piers:
It took a theology degree for me to realize that people’s feelings were important.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. If you could just make some notes about that, that’d be really helpful.
Piers:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
So. So, so, all right. So you got hip to, you got yourself in a pair of FiveFingers, and what’d you discover?
Piers:
Yeah. Look, I found, I mean, it made logical sense. So initially I used them and it was not a major issue. I didn’t use them for sport. That didn’t make sense to me because I had so many reps and I didn’t think that my feet were going to be strong enough to handle the load, which as time’s gone on, I’m really happy with that choice. And it was a stage over a few years where I would wear orthotics in like sport specific shoes. And then eventually we were probably, I think it was probably 2011, I was interacting with a gentleman who was a marathon runner, and he was very good. I think his best time was around two hours, 10 minutes. So,-
Steven Sashen:
More than pretty good.
Piers:
Walking fast.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Piers:
Yeah. And so he said, look, he looked at my gate, he looked at what I was doing. He said, “I think you just need to rip the bandaid off and start spending time doing things that are a little bit more energetic in barefoot shoes.” He said at the time, “You walk like you think you’re a big man,” because I would have my feet out to the side wandering around like I was a bodybuilder. I don’t have a bodybuilder physique at all.
Steven Sashen:
Hold on. Wait. Sorry. You just gave me another flashback. I’m remembering being in second or third grade and literally, so what am I? I don’t know. 10? No, no, seven, eight, something like that. And I’m walking around the halls trying to figure out how to walk like someone who is a bigger person because I was tiny, and I’m like, how far out do my arms have to go? How much am, like I have this vivid memory of trying to figure out how to walk and be physically impressive, which it would be humiliating and embarrassing if I got humiliated or embarrassed.
Piers:
Yeah. No. Well, apparently that’s what I was doing subconsciously.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Piers:
But I think it was just me hunting for stability because I’d been in the orthotics. I’d never actually learned to be stable in and of myself.
Steven Sashen:
Interesting.
Piers:
But yeah, so I spent that time there and then over time I transitioned to playing touch football, which is similar to rugby, but just with tags. In Australia, it’s its own game. I shifted across to some innovates that have the cleats on them for that, and they were really great. And then I shifted across to some other shoes for futsal and then some other shoes for basketball. And so as I made that transition, my feet were tired, but they handled it just fine.
Steven Sashen:
So what’d you notice over time, like how long until you felt comfortable enough to not think about wearing some shoe with a big, thick sole, et cetera, et cetera. What was the evolution like for you?
Piers:
It was pretty quick, in all honesty, once we got to that. So once I’d shifted to, and those sports, I did one at a time. This was probably over the course of 18 months, but within that sport it was two or three weeks. And then I would feel pretty natural in the shoe. The fatigue, it was just like any old muscle soreness after you’ve exercised.
Steven Sashen:
Perfect.
Piers:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Piers:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
And I love that you recognized it that way. How do I want to put it? Making the transition is different for everybody. When people say, how long till I’m going to be able to do, fill in the blank in a pair of barefoot shoes, I go, “I don’t know.”
There’s actually, it’s an old Indian story slash joke of a guy he’s walking and doesn’t know how much longer he has to walk and sees a farmer and yells to the farmer, “Hey farmer, how long to Bombay?” And I’m not going to do an Indian accent because people get mad at me even though I can do it really well. And a bunch of Indian friends. And the farmer looks at the guy and just goes back to farming and the guy’s confused. He yells again, “Farmer, how long did Bombay?” And the farmer looks at him and just goes back to farming and the guy just storms off and the farmer yells “Two hours.” And the guy stops. He goes, “What the, I asked you twice how long to Bombay, you wouldn’t tell me. Why suddenly when I’m leaving do you tell me?” And the farmer says, “Oh, I didn’t know how fast you walked.”
And so we’ve all got our thing. And it sounds like you are relatively, not that what you’re describing is any way necessarily unusual, but I have a sneaking suspicion what I’m about to say is accurate and let me know. I have a suspicion that you’re pretty good at picking up movement patterns.
Piers:
I am now.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, interesting. Say more.
Piers:
Yeah. So I can only assume its Original Strength. Absolutely, 100%. So I first ran into the Original Strength stuff when it was becoming bulletproof in 2010. Prior to that, I like sport, but I was not good. I was a solid B team player. And so I would have to win because I was able to figure out a strategy that was ahead of the person in front of me. And that was the only chance I had. So it was 2010, it would’ve been probably 2012, 2013 before I started to go, hang on. I’m starting to actually get things. It might’ve even been later than that. I’m going to say it might’ve been five or six years later after I started that, that I started to notice I was picking things up faster than other people. When I started to learn snowboarding, I was on the bunny slope for over a day. Yeah. I’m not a natural athlete, but I’ve become much closer to it.
Steven Sashen:
That is wonderful to hear because many people do think of their childhood experience as a, not even a limitation, but just like that’s the way it is. I’m not someone who can fill in the blank. So I love that you discovered that. By the way, I did a podcast episode with Tim Anderson from Original Strength sometime in the past, early on, probably when I just reached out to the people that I knew well to get them on here. So people who are listening, you can go track that down. So okay, let’s go to the thing that we teased everybody with at the top of this for the fun of it. At what point did you decide to even try some sort of court sport? And of course, I want to know which one in a pair of women’s shoes.
Piers:
Yeah, I mean, the first one would’ve been futsal. First one would’ve been futsal in probably 2015, 2016
Steven Sashen:
Pause there. For Americans who have no idea what you just said, please,-
Piers:
Sure.
Steven Sashen:
There are a few who will, but not a whole lot.
Piers:
Yeah, it’s a form of indoor soccer. So in Australia we’ve got two different forms of indoor soccer. One is indoor soccer, which has nets on the side and the ball can bounce off it. And this one’s on a court like a basketball court and essentially you play soccer, but it’s indoors.
Steven Sashen:
It’s super fast. I mean, it’s crazy fast. I mean, the ball is doing insane things that doesn’t happen when you’re playing out on a field. It’s a blast. And if you haven’t, do me a favor. This is going to be funny because I’m not going to do it. I’m going to ask you to spell futsal so people can look it up and see what we’re talking about because I think they’re going to go, ooh, I want to try that because it’s fun.
Piers:
Yeah, futsal is great. It is F-U-T-S-A-L. So I’m guessing it’s some sort of Portuguese word that we’ve adopted along the way.
Steven Sashen:
Oh. It never occurred to me to look that up. By the way, for no apparent reason I’m going to give you a challenge. At some point in the next 24 hours, see if you’re going to work, jai alai into a conversation.
Piers:
What does jai alai mean?
Steven Sashen:
Oh, you don’t know jai alai. So,-
Piers:
I don’t.
Steven Sashen:
I’m just thinking about odd sports and somehow I made a reference to jai alai a while ago. Jai alai, aye yai yai, how to describe this? It’s like the fastest sport in the world. Super, super dangerous. So you have this big curved thing that you catch the ball in. So think like, I’m trying to think of a good example. Think like,-
Piers:
-lacrosse almost, but without the stick.
Steven Sashen:
Kind of in a way. But no, it’s like just imagine if your entire arm was just a giant curve, is the best way I can say,-
Piers:
Okay.
Steven Sashen:
Holding that thing. It’s a big, big, I don’t remember what the hell they call it. It’s a big, big thing, but think like racquetball, except that A, it’s a much bigger space. And B, you have this thing that whips a ball at like 120 miles an hour and it is insane. So now you have to look up jai alai, J-A-I-L-A-N-Y. I don’t remember something like that. It’ll get you started.
Piers:
Okay.
Steven Sashen:
And then for no reason, work it into a conversation. And I say this is a challenge for everybody because it was just an obscure reference that I made yesterday or the day before, and I like obscure references. So now here’s my challenge. Find a way to work that in. Anyway, sorry. So backing up to futsal. So that was your first attempt, and again, what made you think, okay, let’s give this a whirl? Did you have any trepidation, any concerns, or just like, yeah, why not?
Piers:
I think I just felt really good playing touch football in the minimalist cleats. And so it seemed like a logical progression. I’d already spent years at this point using minimalist shoes in everyday life. My wife had tricked me, not tricked me. My wife liked running, and so she’d convinced me to run a couple of 10K races with her. And so I’d run those in minimalist shoes with absolutely no Ill effect at all. And yeah, so it was just the logical progression to give it a try.
Steven Sashen:
I love what you just said because even though she did trick you into it, and I got your back on that one, the thing that many people do is they rush a process based on some imaginary goal. Like, Hey, I want to run a marathon in three days and I just switched to minimalist shoes. Like, whoa, whoa, slow down, sparky. So it sounds like for you it was just this kind of continual evolution as you found yourself comfortable. It’s like, oh, here’s something. What the hell?
Piers:
Yeah. Yeah. But I think also good strength training.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Piers:
You have very active feet.
Steven Sashen:
Yep.
Piers:
I’d been using good strength training methodology for half a decade, over half a decade at this point. So I’d been not just walking around day-to-day in minimalist shoes, but I’d been teaching my feet how to be strong as well. And so I had a good foundation and then I’d experimented along the way. So futsal rolled out and it just made sense.
Steven Sashen:
Okay.
Piers:
And it was good.
Steven Sashen:
All right. Is there anything else before we get to the magic of court sports?
Piers:
I mean, not really basketball, but let’s get to,-
Steven Sashen:
Let’s do it.
Piers:
To the sport that I play these days. So these days, I spend an inordinate amount of time playing pickleball.
Steven Sashen:
I knew you were going to say it. It’s the P word. It is fastest growing source of injuries in America and but, and this is relevant. I say it as a relevant comment for this conversation. I don’t know what’s happening on the other side of the planet, but here people are talking about the fact that there’s all these pickleball injuries in the fastest growing sport in America, or what’s affectionately referred to as giant ping pong or tiny tennis. And they’re saying it’s because of the sport. And I say that is not the case. I say it’s because of the shoes that people are wearing for said sport. So when you decided to start playing pickleball in a minimalist shoe, what’d you discover?
Piers:
Yeah. Well, for starters, I didn’t have any shoes that weren’t minimalist shoes at this point. So if I wanted to play pickleball, this was the option that I had. So I started playing and I thought, you know what? On this surface, it’s an artificial surface. There aren’t many surfaces like this on earth. I’m going to get some shoes that have a little bit more cushioning to them. So I went out and I bought ones that were what, they had one centimeter of sole. So I figured I hadn’t done anything but literally within, so I’d been playing for about three months. Went and got these shoes with a little bit more sole. Within about two weeks, my knees were hurting, my ankles were hurting. I couldn’t interact with the ground properly once I had extra sole in my shoe.
Steven Sashen:
Yep.
Piers:
So and for me, it was obviously the wrong choice to try and build up. Whereas I’ve played an inordinate amount of hours in the meantime of pickleball with literally the smallest, lightest, minimalist shoe I can find. I burn through them in about every two months. I’m just wearing the sole through and it doesn’t matter what shoes I’ve got, I’m burning them up playing pickleball, but,-
Steven Sashen:
We’d have to see what we can do about that.
Piers:
Yeah. But I absolutely cannot play with a built up sole. If I do, my body doesn’t like it. It’s not a win for me.
Steven Sashen:
It’s funny, my wife and I have friends who we met soon after we started the company. So about 13 years ago. Never wore our shoes. We never asked them, they never said anything. Didn’t even come up in conversation, would’ve never occurred to me. They moved away a little while ago and got into pickleball and the husband and wife each sent us basically the same email that said, “We never wore your shoes. We’ve been playing pickleball, been getting a bunch of injuries, and at least we thought, maybe it’s the shoes because we’ve been hanging out with you guys so long that that was at least in our mind. So we went to Zappos.com and American Footwear online seller and looked for pickleball and a couple of your shoes were on the list of things they recommended. So we bought them all because Zappos has a free return policy.”
So they said, “Tried on the first 12 shoes that weren’t yours, didn’t really like them. They weren’t comfortable. Put on yours and went, oh my God, these are incredibly comfortable, but I don’t think we can play in these.” So they said, “All right, let’s just try it. We’ll go out, we’ll bring our regular shoes just in case. Let’s see what happens.” And they each said the same thing, totally independently. They said, “Forgot I was even wearing them. And within a week all those issues that I had gone.” And they have not looked back. And backing up to the whole thing where people are saying pickleball is the cause of injuries, like this is not rocket science. The higher you get off the ground, the tippier you are. And just like basketball players, you catch an edge on a shoe with a flared sole like the one I’m holding up in my hand right now.
Piers:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
And you’re going to fall over it and there goes your ankle or you’re just sliding on the foam or you’re squeezing your toes together. I mean, all the things that are problematic with a “Normal shoe for running,” exacerbated even worse for something like a court sport. And people are not even questioning that right now. It’s just mind-blowing.
Piers:
Yeah. Particularly in a sport where you’re shifting laterally,
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Piers:
People who haven’t necessarily played sport in a long time. We see so many people that do hurt themselves playing pickleball. The ones who have come in, it’s the first weekend they’ve ever played it. They’re not particularly stable. They’re walking around on brand new clouds that they’ve bought, and their connection to the floor is imaginary. And so it’s not shocking when they shift to the side and then their feet get caught up and they tumble off. Yeah. That’s absolutely where we see it happen.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. It never occurred to me that the fact that it is giant ping pong, mini tennis gives people a false sense of their ability to do it because they’re having flashbacks to being younger, and they’re not as young as their brain is telling them. I think that may be a part of the problem as well, like just jumping in and going for it faster and harder than they’re ready for in general.
Piers:
I think so. I think the other issue is that it’s a really accessible game.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Piers:
You play the first game that you play and you can kind of figure out the game to a reasonable level the first time you play it. There’s obviously levels beyond that, which is why people keep playing, but it’s not hard to become base level competent in it.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Piers:
And that leads to the false sense of security that you’re talking about.
Steven Sashen:
That’s a good point. Our not directly next door neighbors because if that were true, I’d shoot myself. But four houses down neighbors have a court in their backyard and I mean, happily we don’t hear them banging around on it, but talk about accessible. You could build a pickleball court in your backyard. It’s not overwhelming. I mean, it’s silly, but you can’t do that with a tennis court very easily unless you have a lot of money.
Piers:
Yeah, it’s a big difference in size, isn’t it?
Steven Sashen:
Yes, it is. So how long have you been playing pickleball in shoes that are actually good for you?
Piers:
Yeah, just over two years now.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, wow. So you were an early adopter.
Piers:
I was in Australia. For Australia, that’s early on. I wish I’d started six months earlier. I would’ve been that much better for when the pro leagues arrived in Australia.
Steven Sashen:
Well, that’s an interesting question. Everyone’s trying to create some pro league and make it a big thing like tennis. And I’ve talked to a number of people who go, yeah, pickleball is not like that. People aren’t going to watch pickleball on TV. People who play and don’t watch it on TV, they’re not going to go watch pro players. It’s a community thing. It’s an individual thing. So there may be some money on the circuit because people think there might be money on the circuit. So right now people are getting paid, but I’m really curious to see how it evolves because it’s so much more a personal thing than a spectator thing.
Piers:
Yeah, I think I saw something the other day that there’s 36 million people in the US playing it, and they’re getting about 4 million people to watch it worldwide.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, I mean, that’s proof in the pudding. And we were just in an event, an event called the Running Event. It’s actually for shoe companies selling into running shoe stores, but there were three companies who staked their entire everything on pickleball. It’s like, “We sponsored these three pickleball guys. We’re making a shoe for these four pickleball guys for the professional whatever pickleball thing.” And I’m going, “Yeah, you just threw your money away. No one cares about that pro league.”
Piers:
It’s a brave bet.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, it was a hell of a bet. So we’ll see where that goes. So when you’re out on the court, which is a term that I almost use loosely given how tiny it is, when you’re out on that little tiny thing,-
Piers:
On the patch.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, on the patch that people play on, how do people respond to you when you are in a minimalist shoe? I mean, I know with runners early on, they would say, you can’t do that, as we ran right by them. What happens on the court?
Piers:
Yeah. I mean, initially people were a bit surprised. They would look at it and go, “Do you get hurt doing that? Are your feet okay? Do you roll your ankle much?” And those were the common questions. Nowadays, I guess I’ve been around long enough that I’m a known oddity.
Steven Sashen:
But so that’s the big, I mean, the impetus for my question was less how much are they hassling you then how much are people going, huh? Maybe this is something I should try. Are you starting to see more people try it, or is it just like you’re the lone minimalist on the court?
Piers:
At the moment, it’s just me.
Steven Sashen:
Crazy. Why do you think that is?
Piers:
Well, I don’t know. I think that for a lot of people, adopting it too quickly would be a problem.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Piers:
I think for everyone, everyone should be walking around day to day in minimalist shoes, unless your job is one where it’s so image focused that you just can’t find a legitimate piece, everyone else, there’s little benefit to them to not being in minimalist shoes. But I think playing sport, I think there’s good logic to following a structured introduction into it.
Steven Sashen:
Sure.
Piers:
So even if that was for them to warm up in minimalist shoes and then hop into their club hoppers after that, but I think some of them may adapt. I know there’s a physio, a physical therapist, sorry, we call them physiotherapists in Australia.
Steven Sashen:
Just look, every now and then make people work for it. That’s what I wanted to,-
Piers:
Yeah. Yeah. So we’ve got a physio who I think at some point may decide to jump across, and there’s people, but I think they’re probably all a little bit unsure. And they may also just view me as an extreme outlier.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Piers:
I’m fairly fit. I’m very enthusiastic when I’m running around the court. I seem like an unusual character, which is possibly accurate.
Steven Sashen:
One day I’m walking into the office, I’m in the parking lot. I catch my reflection in the window. I’m wearing a pair of ratty shorts that I’ve had, God, since the 1940s probably. I’ve got my Xero Shoes T-shirt on, but it was not in its best shape. My hair was particularly large that day. I’m in bare feet and I catch my reflection in the mirror and I just stop dead in my tracks and I go, “Oh, I’m that guy. Oh, I did not know that.”
Piers:
Marriage has helped me to look far more like someone with a home.
Steven Sashen:
Wait, I’m not sure if you’re saying that as a comparison to me, but I’ll take it either way. I’m thrilled that my wife, as much as she would love for me to dress like a human being still stays with me after 20 plus years, given that I dress like I’m a high school kid because I just don’t care. So t-shirts and shorts. I have three pairs of identical pants that I’m currently just rotating because I like them and I don’t have to think and I don’t care. Now, she likes the pants. Those are nice pants, but five days a week, I’m in a Xero Shoes t-shirts and she puts up with me.
Piers:
Yeah. No, look, this is my only, no, I have two shirts that are not black. This is one of them. And then like last year I found a pair of shorts that I like. So I bought eight pairs of those, and so I’ll just grab those out.
Steven Sashen:
I only decided to buy two new pairs of pants basically to fill out that collection of now I have three because it was a pain in the ass when those were getting washed and I had to wear something else that I didn’t like as much. So at some point, I will go through my closet and get rid of everything I haven’t worn in at least two years, which will reduce my closet to effectively nothing.
Piers:
Yeah. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Which will make my wife happy because that will give her more room in the closet for her incredible wardrobe, which is a beautiful thing that I do not understand at all.
Piers:
Look, I’d rather she was looking pretty than if I was looking pretty.
Steven Sashen:
Absolutely. I like it when people notice her and aren’t paying any attention to me. It’s much more fun that way.
Piers:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Although I do have the problem with having the long curly hair thing where people do recognize me, and it’s become a bit of a brand. Like Lena and I have been a number of times somewhere where someone will walk up to her as we’re standing next to each other and say to her, “Isn’t that the guy that was on Shark Tank?” And it’s like, and she goes, “Yeah, I’m standing right next to him the whole time.” So there is that component. And she told me she’d leave me if I cut it, so.
Piers:
Well, that’s a good incentive to leave it alone.
Steven Sashen:
I trust that woman implicitly. I’m not going to test that theory.
Piers:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
We’re just rambling. But what the hell? My father offered her $1000 for every inch I permanently cut off. And she said, “I don’t think you get it. If he did that, I’d stop sleeping with him.” And it was the perfect thing to say, just to stop my dad totally in his tracks. Nothing else would’ve done, so. Well,-
Piers:
That’s the most expensive couple of thousand you’d ever own, right?
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. So okay, so you’ve been playing pickleball in a minimalist shoe, which is awesome. Is there something next on your horizon, or are you just like, I’ll pickleball all the time?
Piers:
Look, I want to get reasonably good at it. We have a draft coming up for one of the leagues in Australia soon, so I’m hoping to get selected for that.
Steven Sashen:
What would that mean? If you’re in the league, then what happens?
Piers:
Yeah, so it would mean that I’d be a part of a team and we’d play in 10 pool rounds before we played in the finals. And if we won, then there’s a reasonable prize for that. But it would be just a chance to compete with some of the better players along the East Coast of Australia.
Steven Sashen:
That is a very interesting thing about pickleball that I really do like. And I don’t play yet, at least, mostly because I’m still sprinting and I don’t want to do anything where I could do something stupid and then be off the track. But I think having a competitive outlet is really important, and there’s very few chances, especially as you get older, to find something where you can demonstrate a certain level of competence and be competitive in a way that’s enjoyable. I mean, how old are you now?
Piers:
I am 38.
Steven Sashen:
What is that in the US dollars?
Piers:
Yeah. Yes. Not that old. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
So at 61, one of the things that I love about Master’s Track is we’re all stupidly competitive, but we’re old enough to know how stupid it is, and therefore it makes it fun. It’s like, oh, we’re going to go out here. We’re going to race. There’s no prize money involved, and we just want to kick each other’s butts. That’s cool. Let’s have a good time.
Piers:
Yeah, collaborative competition. You’re friends with the people that you compete against generally.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, because again, it’s like having a secret handshake. It’s like, oh, you’re another idiot out here doing this stupid thing. Welcome to the club. You’re my friend. I’ve literally never met anyone on the track who I don’t adore because we’re all doing this crazy, crazy thing.
Piers:
Yeah, great.
Steven Sashen:
Go ahead. Sorry.
Piers:
No, I agree. And I think that’s part of what I’ve enjoyed is one of the best players in Australia, he was playing in the top professional league. Most recently was, he’s in his 60s.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, wow.
Piers:
And Martin’s a good player. He’s a very good player.
Steven Sashen:
I don’t know about pickleball, but I do know from tennis, I knew some older players and they were just so good that they’d run you around the court. I mean, it was very rare that you’d get a shot that they wouldn’t be able to. I mean, they’re rarely having to run to make a shot because they’re not giving you the opportunity to return something in a way that would make them run. I mean, they’re playing you, not playing with you.
Piers:
Well, and I mean, the best version of pickleball is doubles. All right. And in tennis right now, the number one doubles pairing in the world is 43 and 36.
Steven Sashen:
Interesting.
Piers:
So when the whole sport is on a smaller court, you remove some of the power aspect by forcing people back that little bit. All of a sudden, the capacity for people to be really good, that little bit older goes up hugely because it’s about being nimble, not just athletic.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That’s really interesting. I mean, sports like that, I’ve frankly never really gotten into a sport where it’s not just me. Not that I’m narcissistic or self-involved. It’s not that, it’s just that I was always an individual sport athlete. It’s like, if I’m going to win, I want it to be on because I worked harder and did better than that guy, not because they played me in some way but,-
Piers:
You got to the right team. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Yeah. But I love what you’re saying about it. Oh man, I’m going to have to knock on my neighbor’s door at some point this summer, see what happens. But it is admittedly interesting, not just because it’s fastest growing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but it’s something that I’ve just never done at all. And so I like trying things that I’ve never done, but enough about me. Back to you for the win. So sorry, when again, are the tryouts?
Piers:
So there won’t be tryouts. There’ll be a draft on the 3rd of February.
Steven Sashen:
So wait, how does that work? There’s no tryouts, but there’s a draft.
Piers:
So basically a lot of the players will have submitted applications and the captains will have seen people playing around the place. And so they’ll draw from a pool of known or unknown players, but whose pedigree they’ll have been able to figure out from what they’ve put forward.
Steven Sashen:
I see. Oh, that’s fascinating. Well, once again, when?
Piers:
Third of Feb. Yeah. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Oh my gosh. Right around the corner.
Piers:
Yeah, real soon.
Steven Sashen:
Holy smokes. Good luck.
Piers:
Thank you.
Steven Sashen:
That’d be really quite fascinating. So did we leave anything out either about your professional journey of what you’re doing with Original Strength and StrongFirst and Kettlebells and GMB or your court sports soon to be semi-professional world, hopefully? Or anything else that we can think of?
Piers:
No. Look, I think that’s about it. At some point in the not-too-distant future, I’m hoping to have resources available for people who are looking to be safe and stable on the pickleball court because we want people doing the things they want to do healthily and safely. But that’s about it.
Steven Sashen:
That’s enough. I’ll tell you my thing that I do with people who I bump into who are committed to wearing what I refer to as stupid shoes or foot coffins, is I don’t try to convince them to do anything that interferes with what they think they need that shoe for. So I’ll say something like, when I talk to mostly even runners, I go, cool, run in whatever the hell you want, but when you’re done, the most valuable thing you can do to keep your feet and the rest of your body happy, is some active recovery, which involves moving, getting the circulation going, getting the muscles still, moving and getting the metabolites just flushed out of there. And the best thing you could do for that is being like in a minimalist shoe or barefoot. And oh, by the way, there’s research showing that just walking in a minimalist shoe builds foot strength as much as doing an actual foot exercise program, which you would never do, even though it only takes five minutes and you could do it while you’re watching TV.
Piers:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
This way, it takes no time out of your life. Oh, and by the way, if you’re a runner, that exercise program, the strength you get from that is shown to reduce running injuries by 250%. So just get out of your regular shoes, wear these for recovery and for building strength. And oh, by the way, it’ll make those crazy expensive shoes you just bought last longer. And people are like, oh, okay, because they think I’m going to try and talk them out of running in some giant thick, maximalist shoe, which I would love to. But I have found that as an ineffective method of communicating back to my thing of I like to tell people when they’re factually inaccurate and that does not make me friends. So here’s my way of meeting them, knowing that it’s a Trojan horse, knowing that once they start wearing these things, they’re going to go, oh, I can’t put on those other shoes that squeeze my toes and I can’t feel the ground and et cetera, et cetera.
Piers:
Yeah, that makes so much sense.
Steven Sashen:
Give it a whirl. Let me know if it works.
Piers:
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Just the idea that someone can step off the court, let their toes splay, and then let their Achilles have a rest from being,-
Steven Sashen:
Jacked up. Yeah.
Piers:
That’s so good.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty effective in real life. I’m trying to make it more effective in non-real life at scale through ads and everything else just to get people, my whole goal with ads is they have people to go huh. As long as I can get them to consider something, we’re on the right path. And so it’s the argument that I make to, not the argument, it’s the point that I make to a number of people of like when they get a pair of our shoes and they send us an email about, “Oh my God, these changed my life in 24 hours.” I go, “Yeah, you might want to keep that to yourself for a couple of weeks because otherwise you’re going to piss off your friends. I promise you.” Wait until it’s sunk in and they’re asking you otherwise, your evangelism will not necessarily work to your advantage. Or it will. What do I know?
Everyone’s going to do their own thing. But either way. Well, Piers, this has been a total, total pleasure, and thank you for getting up early to chat. And if people want to get in touch with you, see what you’re up to, whether they’re, doesn’t matter where they’re on the planet, how can they do that?
Piers:
Yeah. So there’s a website, which is www.qldkttlebells.com.au, which is the business, or you can find me on Instagram, which is @P-I-E-R-S-K-W-A-N. My super easy to spell name.
Steven Sashen:
Well, we’ll put that in the show notes. But for the first website, was it QLD kettlebells? Is that what you said?
Piers:
Yeah. Yep. So QLD is the abbreviation for our state Queensland.
Steven Sashen:
Yep. Got it. And kettlebells plural or singular? I didn’t hear.
Piers:
Plural.
Steven Sashen:
Perfect. QLD Kettlebells. So anyway, once again, thank you. For everybody else, check out what Piers is up to. The reason that I even brought him slash you, talking to you Piers on here is because normally I don’t want to talk to anyone who hasn’t kind of figured out something unique on their own from wherever it took them. And you had. I mean, putting together Original Strength and Kettlebells alone, the StrongFirst thing, that in and of itself was like, okay, most people wouldn’t go there. And so I really liked that. But also knowing that you had done some experiments in minimalism that are above and beyond the average human as well, I knew that we had a lot of fun with that. So I hope people do hunt you down and ask you what happens with the draft and follow you to do the extent that they can if you’re drafted. And we’ll take it off from there. So once again, absolute pleasure.
Piers:
Thanks, Steve.
Steven Sashen:
And for everybody else, just a reminder, head over to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. That way you’ll find previous episodes, all the places you can engage with us on social media, other places to get the podcast if you don’t like the one you currently found this on, or if you didn’t have one. And if you have any questions, comments, requests, I say this every time, if you can find someone who wants to talk to me who thinks I have a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome, the phrase I’m looking to make popular, you can drop me an email. I’m at move, M-O-V-E@jointhemovementmovement.com. But either way, most importantly, go out, have fun and live life feet first.
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