Tattooed Passion

Yesterday I wrote a piece about an article published by Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald. That piece detailed the recent barefoot/sports shoe debate. Article aside, it got me thinking that it may be time to purchase another pair of my preferred barefoot shoe, the Vibram Five Fingers.

So I made my way over to Vibram’s website to check out their latest wares, clicking on the North American part of the site (Yes I live in Australia but don’t get me started on how we get ripped off on price, that is another piece altogether). However, before I even got a chance to look at Vibram’s latest and greatest, an image slid across the page and immediately caught my attention. It appeared to be a man getting the Vibram logo tattooed to the bottom of his foot. Knowing this could have been nothing but “click-bait,” I could not help myself and clicked the image.

What I found was a video of a man by the name of Adam Downing, in what seems to be a direct attempt to appeal to the CrossFit market. The video shows Adam in a gym that has all the trappings of a traditional affiliate: gymnastic rings, slam balls, bumper plates, plyo boxes, chalk, barbells on the wall, ropes on the floor, Concept2 rower, GHD’s and kettlebells: you get the idea. At one shot you even see Adam displaying a CrossFit logo on his shorts while he jumps on top of a five-foot high wooden wheel, and proceeds to do a series of impressive double kettlebell shoulder presses.

We next see Adam with his foot on the table, while a man begins to tattoo his foot. Adam states in the video, “The reason why I decided to get a tattoo is to really display what we have done in the health and fitness industry through five fingers, and here we are today and I’m getting a tattoo to commemorate it.”

Throughout the video we hear the music playing in the background. The music seems both ironic and fitting, as when he is actually getting the tattoo we hear the lyrics “tomorrow, tomorrow,” over and over again. I only hope (if this is real) that Adam does not wake up “tomorrow” and regret having some companies logo tattooed on his foot.

You can check out the video for yourself below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ctR8W3AfgqY