[Harumanbo Harucheonja] "Barefoot Walking, Growing into a National Movement"

Park Dong-chang, the barefoot walking evangelist, is expanding barefoot walking into a national movement. Park’s Barefoot Walking Citizens Movement Headquarters recently relaunched as the Barefoot Walking National Movement Headquarters. On the 18th, about 350 barefoot citizens gathered at Daemosan in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, where the headquarters is located, to resolve the name change and amend the articles of association.

Park Dongchang, Chairman of the Barefoot Walking National Movement Headquarters, walks barefoot every morning, afternoon, and evening. During the day, he walks barefoot in the forest for 30 minutes.
[Photo by Chairman Park Dongchang]

Park said, "As the barefoot walking movement steadily spreads, more people are walking barefoot in parks, forest trails, and mudflats across the country, and various barefoot walking groups, large and small, are emerging." He is also considering holding a ‘National Barefoot Walking Day’ event every month in a designated region to further promote the movement.

The headquarters plans to promote the enactment of related ordinances in local government councils nationwide to expand the barefoot walking movement. On the 15th, the Jeonju City Council passed the ‘Jeonju City Ordinance on the Activation and Support of Barefoot Walking,’ the first of its kind among local governments nationwide. The ordinance includes provisions to "discover and promote policies and projects to activate barefoot walking and to prioritize the creation of barefoot walking trails for at least 30% of sidewalks in large-scale apartment complexes and urban parks during sidewalk planning."

Members of the Barefoot Walking National Movement Headquarters are walking barefoot on Daemosan Mountain.
[Photo by Movement Headquarters]

Park emphasized that "walking barefoot on dirt paths and grounding (earthing) is beneficial for health," and has been engaged in legislative activities to secure grounding rights. The headquarters also plans to propose the creation of ‘walkable dirt paths’ to local government heads and council members nationwide and to provide health insurance premium discounts to people who maintain their health through barefoot walking. They aim to support barefoot walking groups in all 226 cities, counties, districts, towns, townships, and villages nationwide and to spread ‘K-Barefoot Health’ globally, including in Japan, China, and the United States.

Park graduated from Seoul National University Law School and worked in the financial industry for over 50 years, retiring as Vice President and former Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) of KB Financial Group. In 2001, while serving as the head of LG Petro Bank in Poland, he experienced barefoot walking and became an advocate for it after retiring from his professional career. He registered as a nonprofit private organization in Seoul in December 2018 and began his activities, and in April 2019, he expanded his efforts nationwide under the name ‘Barefoot Walking Citizens Movement Headquarters.’

He walks barefoot for more than an hour in the apartment yard in the morning, walks barefoot in the forest for 30 minutes during the day, and spends an hour barefoot on the barefoot walking trail along the river embankment in the evening. Since 2016, he has run the ‘Barefoot Walking Forest Healing School,’ meeting citizens barefoot at Daemosan in Seoul every Saturday from March to November.

On the 18th, citizens visiting Daemosan in Gangnam are walking barefoot. [Photo by Barefoot Walking National Movement Headquarters]

Park says walking barefoot is much more effective than walking with shoes. Walking barefoot maximizes the effects of acupressure and grounding. He explained that barefoot walking effects can be enhanced by walking on tiptoes, walking with toes raised as if saluting, and walking while spreading and pulling the toes. He recommends walking barefoot three times a day?morning, noon, and evening?like having three meals a day, but at minimum, he advises walking barefoot for at least 1 hour and 30 minutes or more than 7,000 steps daily.