Entitled to Heel: The Heel Effect
In 2016, a London receptionist, Nicola Thorp, became famous for campaigning for a law change so women couldn’t be forced to wear high heels to work. Her employer, PWC, was “entitled” to set a dress code, including the height of the heels. That petition was rejected by the UK Parliament in 2017.
While women all over the world continue challenging the regulations requiring the wearing of high heels, and “flats” have been taking over the street fashion, there is one heeled shoe that is unlikely to be out of fashion or use any time soon, and their manufacturers can rest easy:
Tango heels.
Of which I am a living proof.
About ten years ago, after I became a mother of three, I decided that I had to do something else with my life. I started my journey as a Feldenkrais practitioner. One of the first changes I noticed during my professional training was how much I began looking for sensory comfort in daily life. That included changing my wardrobe for nicer textures and more comfortable fits. When it came to my footwear, I gradually got rid of anything that restricted my feet or their movement in any way, and anything with heels. This included what most people would call “flats”: 0.5 cm heeled shoes.
There was, however, one category of high-heeled shoes I kept, even if I didn’t use them at the time. My beautiful 7.5-9 cm tango heels that travelled with me from Kazakhstan (where I started dancing) to New Zealand. I loved them to bits and hoped to use them again one day.
When the day came, though, I had already become a fully converted minimal footwear enthusiast. My foot changed its shape and even size. I already reaped the benefits of allowing my feet to move freely: for my feet themselves, my knees and hip joints, my walking, my spine and pelvic floor. I didn’t want to compromise on the way I felt (good!), and I was thinking about how to approach those tango heels without suffering the consequences and paying the well-being price tag they come with.
But let’s detail the price tag first.
What actually happens when you wear ANY heeled shoe?
A. Heels move your Centre of Gravity forward
It means your forefoot has to support more of your weight, causing excessive strain on the ball of your foot (up to 40%). The higher the heel, the higher the pressure. This can strongly contribute to issues such as bunions, Morton’s neuroma, and metatarsalgia.
This makes you create (very personal) compensations in your axis / posture - anywhere in the joints between your ankle and your head.
Any elevation of your heels above the forefoot will tighten / shorten your Achiless tendons and the calf muscles.
B. Heels make you narrow your Base of Support
It means that, in addition to moving you out of the “natural” axis, heels reduce the amount of ground surface you can count on for support, and you are more likely to put your feet closer to each other in standing.
Your balance is then destabilised, and you have to use more muscle activity to maintain it. You also use more energy for walking.
As a consequence - greater risk of falling and strained ankles.
You have to adjust your gait pattern - whatever your nervous system considers safer and more stable.
C. Hells make you adjust nearly everything about the way you walk
You take shorter steps
You are highly likely to have less “rolling” movement in your ankle and your feet in general
Therefore, you are less able to use your powerful glutes for propelling yourself forward
Your first metatarsal receives more ground force and a more excessive load
Your walking speed is reduced
The “elasticity” and overall efficiency of your walking are impacted
The altered “posture” makes you place excess force on the inside of the knee, a common place of osteoarthritis among women
D. Heels make you underuse your intrinsic (internal) foot muscles
(as any conventional shoe, but more)
Absence of sufficient loading makes your feet weaker
This may manifest as collapsed or flattened foot arches
A very high arch might mean that your foot intrinsics are overly tight, which doesn’t equal “strong and functional”
You might develop balance issues
You can overwork your extrinsic foot muscles (those that originate in the lower leg but insert into the bones of the foot) to make up for weak intrinsics (that originate and insert within the foot)
Over time, this can lead to excessive stress on the plantar fascia, metatarsals, and surrounding structures
E. Narrow toebox weakens and deforms your feet further
Not enough room for your toes to extend and spread as necessary while walking.
(A simple and fun exercise to do would be to spread your toes, trace your bare foot on paper, and see how the shoes you wear compare in your “toe department”)
Some shoes (think pointy noses - they are everywhere) will even crunch your toes together
This can lead to hammer toes, more bunions, and more neuromas …
If you ask me, this all sounds like a recipe for disaster. So much so that some people call wearing high heels a “self-imposed disability”. And in the world of tango, more and more followers respond by switching to more comfortable sneakers and flats: “I never wear heels now”.
But other people in the tango world will tell you that heels have a purpose in the biomechanics of movement:
Our axis is moved forward relative to its base and shared with our partner, depending on the embrace
We mostly walk backwards, and wearing heels means spending less time and energy on finding the ground for support
We have to pivot a lot on the ball of the foot
For many followers, it will mean less strain on their calves and Achiless tendons.
And there is truth in that, too. The dance evolved when heels (although not as high as 9 cm) were a normal part of women’s fashion, and it was only natural for tango leaders and followers to take full advantage of what was available from the perspective of movement biomechanics.
But at this stage of my tango and movement journeys intertwined, I believe that you should be able to dance in any shoe you fancy - high heels, flats, or anything in between. Not necessarily from the vantage point of aesthetics, but by making that judgement from what feels comfortable in your body. Because your felt body is your most important dancing tool, and you keep it sharp by providing yourself with plenty of quality sensing and moving opportunities. Then you’ll be able to adjust your dance to either heels or flats. Both are extensions, but not the tool itself.
And while some important things can be said about adjusting your technique (as well as cultural stereotypes and social conventions) when dancing in flats, and I am expecting my first pair of tango barefoot shoes to arrive, I focus right now on thinking about my longevity in dance while dancing on high heels.
The more I learn, the more I am convinced that wearing tango heels must be earned.
One must become entitled to heels.
In my next two blog posts, I’ll expand and explain what I mean by this.
The second part will cover the various strategies that tangueras from all over the world shared with me to address the pain and discomfort from wearing heels on the dance floor.
In the third part, I will share my own tools and tips, and extra resources that I found useful.
In the meantime, if you’d love to get this project's updates straight into your inbox and receive my 4-part video series with very doable foot care "routines" and fun movement explorations, you can subscribe here.
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References, resources and further reading:
The effects of high-heeled shoes on gait parameters in healthy adult women (Research article, Tanigawa, 2025)
The higher the heel the higher the forefoot-pressure in ten healthy women (Research article, Speksnijder, 2005)
The effect of high-heeled footwear on the induction of selected musculoskeletal conditions and potential beneficial uses in prophylaxis and management (Review paper, Wójcik, 2019)
How does wearing heels affect your feet and the rest of your body? (Infographics by Pursuit Physical Therapy)
Katy Bowman, Whole Body Barefoot - contains a great visual explanation of what happens to your “alignment” when wearing heels, and what compensations you might make