Helping the shoes bend where you do.

Sometimes, when someone has a foot that is a half or whole size smaller and the shoe doesn't bend where their 1st MTP joint bends, you have to perform shoe surgery. Rather than throwing a pair of shoes away because its causing pain at the joint (and you have ruled out all other causes and this is the only pair of shoes that bothers them), sacrifice a few hundred miles on the newer shoes and make it bend where your client bends.

ADDENDUM to video:
Sometimes, when someone has a foot that is a half or whole size smaller and the shoe doesn't bend where their 1st MTP joint bends, you have to perform shoe surgery. Rather than throwing a pair of shoes away because its causing pain at the joint (and you have ruled out all other causes and this is the only pair of shoes that bothers them), sacrifice a few hundred miles on the newer shoes and make it bend where your client bends.

ADDENDUM: we recieved a good question about this, as to "Where and how deep etc" to make the cut.

the shoe bends momentarily before the toe bends, so i like to create the cut (start little, just enough for the client to feel the shoe now bends easier and is creating less pressure into the joint) , i like to create the cut about 2mm to where the metatarsalphalangeal joint bends, proximal on the sole of the shoe...... since the shoe will begin to flex at heel lifting before much toe dorsiflexion occurs. But, as ivo said, they are not bending at the regular build in toe break of the shoe (where it naturally breaks/bends) so you will typically be proximal to that toe break interval. And yes, start small, because the cut will grow larger, and often fast........so the shoe will trash out sooner. I encourage folks to return the shoe if it is new, it was a bad shoe fit......but if they have 50 miles or more on it and the shoe is not working, rather than trash them........play surgeon and learn ! The client will most likely say "that was it, the shoe bends easily now, i can toe off comfortably".......... until the cut extends and ruins the shoe. In my experience that is about at another 150 miles