Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

After fifty years of a signature shambling walk due to the fact that my shoes always come untied, my wife has shown me that I have been tying my shoes wrong. After 30 days of empirical testing, I have concluded what I knew at the beginning: She's right. I'd been putting the loop under the other loop, or maybe over it. I'm not very topological. But whatever the right way is, it requires bending your fingers 60 degrees backwards at the tips and spinning your shoes twice in a clockwise direction (counterclockwise in Australia).

In any case, my fingers know how to do it even though my brain can't follow. Not only does the knot work, but I can still release my aching dogs with a single pull on the emergency cord, unlike our son who double-knots his laces and thus wastes precious time pulling twice. I keep telling him that he's not going to get those nanoseconds back, but will he listen to the voice of experience? No, especially not when it comes from a 55-year-old adult who's just learned how to tie his shoes.

Here's a page with some knot-tying techniques. I believe I had been a victim of an ineptly tied Two Loop Shoelace Knot.