EXPERIENCE

We bought the Rooty almost six months ago. After it arrived, our initial fears and insecurities of how it would look, and whether or not we hadn’t perhaps bought a white elephant and got sucked into some advertising trick that focused on “the most valuable thing”, our health, soon disappeared. I have to admit, we all fell immediately in love with the rug here at home. At first we were so enthusiastic that we had it in front of the TV and we stepped on it while we watched TV. The kids also spent lots of time on the rug…

We received a lovely blue Elephant Rooty Rug to try out earlier this summer to the great excitement of my little girl.  As a committed barefoot family and a yoga practitioner I am always keen to try anything that helps with our foot health. The Rooty aims to keep feet active and to bring the positive aspects of walking on natural, uneven surfaces into the home. Walking across the rug forces the feet to exercise in a subtle and random way and is a fun way to build muscle strength.  It is particularly helpful where children suffer from weakened foot…

Friday September 23 was a turning point for us and was a tremendous motivation for our work. We had the luck of a short encounter with Dr. Christian Larsen, a respected leader in modern physiotherapy. If you haven’t heard of Dr. Larsen, allow us a few words of introduction. Christian Larsen is a Swiss doctor and scientist, and the co-founder of Spiraldynamik, the concept of 3-dimensional, clear, and systematic “anatomically correct movement”. He has written several books, e.g. well-known book is “Healthy feet for your child”. (German issue: Gesunde Füße für Ihr Kind) We spoke about human feet and the…

Our kids received the rug with enthusiasm. As soon as I put it on the kitchen floor, it was immediately occupied by dinosaurs, animals, and cars. The “roots” were declared mountains and befitted with their new residents. Wrinkles gathered on my forehead when I saw that instead of the kids walking on the new “miracle”, they sat absorbed in their play for hours. But since the rug is portable, over the next few days I found it in unexpected places as well, depending on where the mountains were needed at the time. But everything has its own time; the kids…

I decided on the RootyRUG after a while, when I tried to walk barefoot or in minimalist shoes (thanks to the enlightenment of Janka Tóthová). I realized that due to the predominantly flat surfaces that surround us, it wasn’t enough… I felt the hard and flat terrain as annoying and tiring for my legs, joints, and spine. I placed it in the corridor, where we pass through most frequently and where the children have their “running track”, chasing each other from one end of the apartment to another. The rug is strong and has a rough surface. I chose the…