The Perfect Myachi Shoes

by Crazy Ivan

The quest to find the perfect Myachi shoe is essentially an unending one.  Whenever I convince myself that the perfect Myachi shoe has been found, Maverick unearths another small indie-shoe company that has crafted slightly better Myachi footwear.

Now, like most of the questions that I tackle on the blog, there is no single answer here.  Personal preference is a big thing in shoes (obviously) and not many people are selecting their shoes solely based on how easy it is to do a Clipper Delay with them.  Things like style, comfort, fit and personal taste are clearly going to be the deciding factors when choosing a shoe, but there are some general rules that every Myachi player should know when they're looking for new kicks.

 #1) Material

There is no "perfect" material, but there are some that are clearly easier to work with than others.  Canvas tends to be mad slippery so most people prefer something like a suede for Myachi.  The key is to have a material that grips your Myachi so an easy test is to just set a Myachi on the shoe and shake it back and forth slightly.  If the Myachi stays in place, you've got a workable material.  If it slides off easily then you're not dealing with Foot Stall shoes.

Of course, many shoes have "composite" materials or use several different materials on the shoe.  A shoe that is suede on the sides might have a slippery toe.  A shoe with good grip on the instep might have terrible grip on the outstep.  Be sure to check all four of the common foot stall surfaces (instep, toe, outstep and heel).

 #2) The Sole

The Sole is not a super important factor when choosing a Myachi shoe.  Ideally you want as flat a sole as possible but unless you're name is "Bones" you probably won't be doing a ton of tricks on the sole.  That being said, the Sole Stall is hard enough even if your shoes are perfect so there's no reason to make it harder than it has to be.




Favored by many footbaggers, Adidas' Rod Lavers have spectacular soles, toes and insteps.  The material
is a little slick compared to suede, but these are classic foot stall shoes.


Basically, any tennis shoe or skate shoe is going to have a flat enough sole to work these tricks, but double check and make sure.

 #3) Weight

The single most important factor when selecting Myachi shoes is the weight of the shoe.  Even small differences can easily be felt when you start working tricks like the Osis, the Toe 360 or any of your various Clipper variations.  You want as little weight as humanly possible.

Macbeth makes some of the lightest shoes available on the market.  These
suckers tend to have great grip as well and are currently favored by the
majority of Myachi Masters.  This is, of course, subject to change.

At the highest level of the game, every gram counts.  That being said, unless you're super-advanced with your footwork, all you need to do is make sure the shoe isn't particularly heavy.  Obviously you're not going to want to shred in steel toed boots, but most tennis shoes and skate shoes are light enough to hit all the fundamental foot tricks.

 #4) Shape

I suppose it sounds weird to say that the shape of your shoe makes a big difference.  After all, shoes are shoe-shaped and that's pretty much it.  However, you will want to take a really close look at all the surfaces on the shoe.  What you're looking for is a flat on concave surface on the Toe, Instep and Outstep.

Shoes that are rounded will clearly be harder to stall with and they make for less accurate kicks as well.  It might not be possible to find shoes that are flat on all three surfaces, but at the very least you'll want a shoe that's flat on the toe and the instep.

 #5) Padding

This one is pretty important if you wear skate shoes.  For obvious reasons, most skate shoes are heavily padded on the toe and might also have a lot of excess poof on the inside and outside as well.  This makes stalling much tougher but it can make kicks a little easier at the same time.

And if you're going with skate shoes, don't go with DCs...  I hear they're all corporate now.

Many Myachi players swear by their skate shoes, but by and large most players prefer something with as little padding as possible.  Whatever shoe you get used to will work fine, but you should keep in mind that if you get used to jamming in padded skate shoes you're probably going to want to stick with those for a while.

 #6) Laces

Not much to say about the laces except make sure the shoes have laces.  You can obviously play in velcro shoes (heck, if you want you can play in loafers), but if you want to maximize your foot tricks, you'll want shoes that you can lace.

There's a pretty solid reason for this.  Hackey Sack players have spent years finding all kinds of cool ways to relace shoes to add surface and traction.  I'd go into a bit more detail, but there's so many different ways to "optimize" your lacing that it really deserves a blog entry of its own.