I've been tying my laces all wrong

When I was young, I had trouble doing something that most young children struggle with - tying my shoe laces. I am left handed and my parents are both right handed which made learning even more difficult for me than for other children. Eventually, an older boy who was also left handed taught me and the rest was history.

Except that’s not the end of this story - I always had problems with tying shoes ever since. To be clear, it wasn’t the tying of the shoes that was a problem as I grew into my teens and beyond - it was the fact that my knots always seemed slack, which led to me having to re-tie my shoes constantly, and then eventually giving up and just tucking them in, leading to backpain and bad posture.

It was only a few weeks ago when my girlfriend forwarded a 3 minute long TED video by Terry Moore entitled “How to tie your shoes”, where he explained how many of us have learned how to tie the weak form of the knot, and that by tying the loop of the knot the opposite way, you can produce a stronger, better looking knot which won’t constantly come undone. The result for me has been astounding! My shoes aren’t constantly coming undone, I’m getting less blisters and I feel like my posture is improving. It’s amazing how a three minute TED video can improve your life.

As Mr Moore himself puts it: “A small advantage some place in life can yield tremendous results someplace else.”

You can watch the video in question here: