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@Shyheels That's great progress, and going to a cafe should be a good occasion for the first time. I think you're not that far away from it 🙂 @CrushedVamp I think such videos can help. But in my opinion the most important thing is to choose the right shoes, start low and keep practicing. The rest should basically come itself from practice. When I started, tutorials on Youtube weren't a thing yet like they are now. I just wore them. Later on i've watched such videos, but basically didn't learn anything new that I hadn't already found out myself.

I’ve seen the videos, read the articles and had advice from female friends who are extremely skilled in walking in heels and all of this is great, in the abstract, but nothing replaces the actual doing - practice, practice and practice.

Do members on here feel as if watching "how to walk in high heels' videos on Youtube helps? The reason I ask is, my wife will people-watch people at weddings and confide in me that this person or that does not know how to walk in high heels. It is not done in a nefarious way, just making a point. I have watched a few videos on youtube and they have stated what my wife has made comments about over the years like taking shorter steps, stepping with toe or heel down first when walking on certain surfaces, etc. So I know they and she seem to be lockstep on their pointers, if you will forgive the bad pun?

So true. I have made the effort recently to go to the park and practice on a paved and gently undulating footpath and straightaway noticed the difference! As you say 100 metres might as well be 1000. I did a couple hundred metres, I would guess, and very much needed a break. It was fun though. I need to go back.

Oh, yes! I've said for years that I don't care how many floors you've swept, don't care how many loads of laundry you've done, once you step out on to the street it's a whole different world, and suddenly, 100 meters might as well be 1,000. But, these difficulties are not impossible to overcome.

Yes. That’s what concerns me as I practice indoors with my 12cm boots. I love the idea of wearing them out to a cafe for coffee but have to find a way to get real world walking in before I even think about that. On the bright side, I continue to improve. I especially love cooking in heels.

Many decades ago my daughter painted my toes red when my foot/angle was in a cast. Haven't worn red since. @CrushedVamp the doctors and the staff have seen hundreds of men in colored toes, it nothing new. I have had colored toes for 2 decades now, it's no big deal. Call your wife's bluff.

My mother had something called Munchhausen Syndrome By Proxy which means she gets this odd exhilaration from her kids generating her attention. Most times it is from others having sympathy for her kids problems. That meant when nothing occurred, she started something. For me, I was her third child with an older brother and sister. I was the result of a camping trip, 13 months after my sister was born. I heard it all. "You were not worth having child birth for". "I got a son and daughter and did not need you.". "I should have aborted you". Worse yet, I was allergic to milk, so it would make me stop breathing and I would turn blue until the paramedics came. But back in the 1970's only poor people gave their kids milk, and only hippies had goat milk. For some reason people allergic to milk can tolerate goat milk. My mother was not doing those things, AND she got attention for the ambulance showing up to treat me. I nearly died so many times but until I outgrew it around age two, she kept giving me milk. But what sent me into foster care was when I was four years old. My mom baked a birthday cake for my sister and told me it was hot. I was four so I poked it with my finger. My punishment? She turned the burner on the stove and put her hand over mine and pressed my palm on the hot stove. 47 Years later my right palm is still scarred by the burn I got from her doing that. I spent years in foster care but they did nothing to her for it. But axe handles given to the to the ribs breaking them, being beaten with garden hoses when my dad was tired and mad which was several times a week, put in the basement alone and without the lights on where there were rats. My mom does NOT get a mothers day card...

Recently, I have set some mileage records for a couple of pairs of my shoes. I have decided to start a separate thread about this subject, and furthermore, I'm splitting up my top six mileage shoes into separate posts in the hopes that this will generate more traffic in general on the site. I'm always looking at ways to attract new members and more comments, not for my own sake, but for the good of the community. First up is my sixth place pair of shoes, mileage-wise. Bebe wooden mules, model name unknown. I would definitely place these squarely in the mid-heel category, as they sport 4 3/4" heels with a 1" platform, for a total steepness of 3 3/4", or about 9 cm. I have walked about 80 miles in these shoes, or nearly 130 km, over about two years' time. While they haven't caused me any trouble to speak of, they have become so worn and beat up looking in that time that I wouldn't actually wear them out in public. The stock top lifts (heel tips) lasted only about 15 miles, but their Vibram replacements have 65 miles on them, and while quite worn, still have a few miles left in them before needing replacement. Actually, they look pretty terrible, but since the rest of the shoe looks terrible as well, I have little incentive to replace them until they're worn to the wood. I guess you could say these are my version of trainers, not to be worn outside of exercise activities.

The runner up for the most miles on a single pair of high heels is my Nine West Sizzle oxfords. These have the distinction of being the only non-mule in the bunch, and also the only closed toe shoe in the high mileage bunch. Sporting a 4 3/4"(12 cm) heel with a 3/4"(2 cm) platform, they are a full 4 inch (10 cm) heel, and is among the oldest pairs of heels in my collection. Or was among the oldest. I wore them from January of 2013 until January of 2024 when one of the heels suddenly decided that after 11 years and 196.1 miles (316 km), enough was enough, and promptly snapped in half, a mile and a half from home. This was the first of three similar failures I was to have with Nine West shoes of this vintage and heel style. There is a reinforcing metal rod or tube inside the heel, but it only goes about two thirds of the way up, for some reason. Where it ends is where the plastic heel snaps in two, suddenly and cleanly. And naturally, just after I'd paid to have them resoled. I have been unable to find replacements for these in any color, and I believe they were made in 5 or 6 different colors.

At No. 3 we have. . . BCBGirls Bonny beaded wooden mules. . . Wait, didn't I just list that two posts ago? Yes, I did, but this is pair No. 4. The above was pair No. 2. Pair No. 4 has somehow managed to survive and squeak by pair No. 2 at 117.3 miles (189 km). I honestly didn't think they would make it, because pair No. 4 has had what I perceive to be weak shanks from Day 1. The heels on this particular example of the breed have always been more flexible than what I would like. I would never have guessed that they would last longer than pair No. 2. However, since 2022 when pair No. 2 yielded up the ghost, I have changed my walk significantly, and I do believe I am much easier on heels than I used to be. But wait, there's more! In the very last miles, right before I was to surpass my previous Bonny record, I tripped on an uneven part of the pavement, and both shoes went flying. Somehow, I managed to stay upright, but I lost both shoes rather violently. I thought to myself, "Well, that's the end of those, and right before I broke the record, too!" Amazingly, there was no damage to either the shoes or to me. I do not know if anybody actually saw this happen, so it may be that my pride managed to escape damage as well. A word about mules in general, as @higherheels alluded to elsewhere. To me, there are two broad categories, and I'm not talking about open toe vs. closed toe, stiletto vs. block heel. I'm talking about flappy vs. non-flappy, categories that I am claiming creation of, because I've never heard anybody else refer to them that way before. To me, it's THE most important distinction. The Bonnys are flappy mules and have but a fairly thin leather band across the toes, which means that with every step, the insole of the shoe comes away from the bottom of the back half of your foot (similar to the much-hated flip-flop), then returns with a flapping sound. We'll save sound preferences and dislikes for another time, that being an intrinsic part of the flappy mule experience. Non-flappy mules typically come up much higher on the instep, and in this way, full contact between the bottom of your foot and the insole of the shoe is maintained at all times. Non-flappy mules have a sound that is indistinguishable from any other high heel with the same heel type. Despite being flappy mules, and being very easy to kick off (and put back on) at will, they are very good walking shoes. Don't ask me to explain it, but among four pairs so far, I've got 350 miles of walking experience, and I still enjoy them for that purpose. They've even been to Chicago on vacation! Stay tuned for the runner-up spot, and the winner, coming to a forum near you.

Coming in at No. 4 are my BCBGirls Bonny beaded wooden mules (pair No. 2). I often say that these are my favorite pair of shoes ever. I don't know in my heart of hearts if that's really true, but at least in a certain category, it is true. The downside to loving these shoes is that they're not super durable. I've owned six pairs of this exact model and color (I don't know if it came in any other color), and so far I've been through four, with two in reserve. What happens is that after about 100 miles or so, the shanks break. I managed to coax 115.6 miles (186 km) out of pair No. 2 before that happened. Ironically, I was feeling energetic one evening back in 2022, and I decided to take the Bonnys out for a 5 mile spin, which I'd never done before. The route I chose was largely on a bicycle path, so the plan was to walk 2.5 miles linearly, then simply about face, and come back home. Unfortunately, about 1.5 miles into the journey, something began to feel quite mushy and strange. Yes, the right shank had snapped in half, allowing the heel to flex radically. I had to limp home very slowly, and that was the end of Bonny No. 2. I posted about it if you want to scroll back in my "Ruminations" thread far enough. I love wooden heeled mules, and I have quite a number in my collection. Why this should be my favorite, I don't know. They aren't super tall, effective steepness being less than 4 inches (10 cm), and they tend to get worn looking fairly rapidly if you wear them like I do, but they've always had a appeal for me.

I don't suppose anybody but me keeps track of their mileage in shoes, with the possible exception of running shoes. I'm not even 100% sure how or why I thought of the idea, but it stemmed from my loops that I used to walk in regular walking shoes, and somehow evolved to high heels. This was after the super painful experience in the mall that I recounted elsewhere. Maybe I got sensible and realized I needed to build up to my goals slowly. Next up, coming in at No. 5 are shoes that are so old that not only do I not have them anymore, I don't even have any pictures of them. If I ever did, they must be on some computer with a blown-up hard drive. So I had to screenshot a picture from the internet. They are, or were, my Söfft Belicia mules. I walked 107.5 miles (173 km) in them. Most of this was in 2013 and 2014. I think I'd probably gotten rid of them not too long after that. I remember that the thin straps had gotten so stretched out after that many miles that my little toes would easily escape to the outside of straps, which is not exactly a good look. Another factor was that at 3 7/8" high with 5/8" mini platform (really just an extra thick sole), these are barely heels at all by my modern standards. 8 cm barely makes it into the mid-heel category for me. Nevertheless, they did serve their purpose of training me for higher heels. I spent many enjoyable hours tooling around the neighborhood in them. They do have a couple of distinctions--they were the first heels I ever walked a total of five 2 mile loops in, and the first heels I ever did a 5 miler in. They also have the distinction of having never been reheeled for their entire service life. I have no idea what these top lifts were made of, but they were still good when I had to throw the shoes out. Other Söfft models' heels wear out normally like everything else, maybe even a little bit faster, but these are different for some reason.

I think high heels make a poignant point by themselves, with a lady, but even more so upon a man. But that being said, I think when an outfit matches the heels not only in color, but also style, it often becomes not a match that can be easily stated, but someone just knows, together that works. Your post on 08/18 kind of proves what I am saying. You just look put together in that photo, but it is the totality of it @mlroseplant