Friday, December 5, 2014

Goofy foot?

When it comes to things like snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing, skimboarding etc. being "goofy foot" is when you ride with your right foot forward, and "regular foot" is riding with your left foot forward. 

I am regular foot. I do all those activities left foot first. 

When it comes to volleyball, I, odly enough, developed a goofy foot. 

A typical volleyball three step approach for a right handed person like myself goes something like this: Left--Right-Left

I, on the other hand, from the gecko have always done my approach opposite: Right--Left-Right.

I have no idea where this developed from, but I distinctly remember from day one of learning to approach a ball, that it felt way more natural for me to go right foot first. Thankfully this goofy foot, right foot first approach, has always worked well for me, because let's be honest, I'm too far gone to try to correct it now, but I find myself wondering, why did it feel more natural this way in the first place, when everything else I do is regular foot.  

Amongst discussing this with my women's 6s volleyball team, it turns out one of our middle hitters is left handed in her day to day activities, yet, she is a dominant hitter in volleyball with her right hand, and she is able to swing a raquet (i.e. for tennis) equally left or right handed. 

My husband is similar, he is right hand dominant in life and most sports. He hits in volleyball with a right hand (mostly) and yes has the proper footing to go along with it too, he plays golf right handed and baseball right handed, however, when he picks up a hockey stick, he plays as if he is left handed, and he skimboards (as well as surfs and snowboards) right food forward, i.e. goofy foot).

Where do these "unnatural" tendencies come from?

Do any of you have an unnatural "goofy foot"? I'd love to hear about it!!


-Linds




2 comments:

  1. It's not so much a "goofy foot" as "goofy feet"...Fun fact: Samantha has two different size feet!!! Hahaha one of my feet is like 1/4 size bigger than the other, and it's usually fine but some brands run their sizes funny so I literally have to buy a half size different for my left foot...
    ~ Samantha

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha that's awesome Samantha! I know it's pretty common to have slightly different size feet, but to have to buy separate shoe sizes, that's pretty crazy!

    ReplyDelete