I only realized in my 30s that I had been tying my shoelaces wrong my whole life and a super minor change in my method has changed them from coming undone multiple times per day (unless double knotted), to instead staying tied the whole day with just a standard shoelace knot [0] (also on Ian's site).
This article's web page actually has the essential note:
> NOTE: If your finished knot comes out crooked (eg. loops pointing heel-to-toe), it's probably because you tie your Starting Knot the opposite way to mine. This will result in an un-balanced knot, which sits crooked and comes undone more easily. See my Granny Knot page for more information.
Back when I still used to browse Imgur, there was a post illustrating how to identify and fix this easy to make mistake. It turns out that I was starting with the lace left-over-right as opposed to right-over-left (or vice-versa, not sure off-hand).
This quite literally changed my life, just a small muscle memory tweak and now my laces easily stay tied the whole day with a regular knot which is also super easy to release as well.
Learning this has also changed my life, but maybe not for the better. Now every time I see someone I know and their shoes are tied in a granny knot I have to waste a bunch of calories deciding if they'd appreciate me telling them.
I encounter this all the time, I just want to help people and pass along things I’ve learned but it’s not always received well. For sure, many adults would not want to be told how to tie their shoelaces.
My only advice is to start by approaching the problem. “Hey, do your shoelaces come untied often?”
The thing about many of the "proper" headphone roll-ups is they are dependent on a particular level of minimum bending radius, tension tolerance, and elastic deformation in the cords.
To put it more simply, many of them will simply ruin your headphones if they're done with reasonable frequency.
For thin earbud type cords, just coil them loosely in a small plastic bag or use a loose bundle secured with a broad velcro strap.
I've been using Ian's for the past few months since it was last posted here. It's quite good to the point I prefer it but wouldn't say it's changed my life.
I tried writing a similar comment. Yours is much clearer. This 100%. As a runner I used to have to re-tie multiple times per run. I corrected my mistake with this same fix probably a decade ago and haven’t had a loose shoelace since.
Back when I was running, I used the "lace lock" method[0] because a loose heel would drive me to distraction (and because I wore clown shoes with wide toe boxes, there's no pressure from the front to keep the foot stable.)
For sure. I've taken to using a similar method over the last couple of years as I've increased miles and needed to take steps (ha) to take better care of my feet over longer distances. I wouldn't recommend this setup for more active sports with lots of change of direction, but for steady plodding it provides a very consistent and dependable stride for a lot of miles.
> coming undone multiple times per day (unless double knotted)
You have bad laces. I thought this too before I tried different laces. Turns out different tensions and elasticities give different strengths of knots.
For example I have some military boots which came with slightly stretchy laces. They NEVER come undone, ever. They were the first pair that switched me on to this, and since then I have always bought laces with slight stretch to them, and the knots always stay done up.
In contrast when you buy a pair of fashion trainers, the laces in them are usually terrible and come undone several times per day as you have noted.
No, it had absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the laces.
It was because I was essentially tying a granny knot instead of a reef knot and anyone who knows anything about knots would realize that of course they would keep coming undone.
And for the record, since learning how to tie the correct knot (over 10 years ago now), I’ve had no problem with laces that have come with any of the following brands of shoes:
"On" brand running shoes have great laces for knot-holding, but they're so thin it's awkward to manipulate them to actually tie the knot in the first place.
Before your muscle memory is updated, all you need to remember is how to “quality check” the knot when you’re done. If the loops are perpendicular, it’s wrong, they should be aligned with the laces.
If it landed up perpendicular, start over (i.e. the part before you make the loops) with doing the opposite of what you did before e.g. right-over-left rather than left-over-right.
For me it was very easy to fix the pre-loop stage, trying to change the loop stage seemed way harder to me as I was already so practiced at it.
I do a similar quality check when tying a square knot (right over left, left over right but without the bows - probably the default knot for something you don't intend to ever untie and don't have a Scout's encyclopedic knowledge of more specialized knots) - since it doesn't have the bows, the quality check is that it should have a line of symmetry whereas if you repeat the same direction twice the finished knot is more of a spiral, having no line of symmetry.
Stumbling across Ian's site almost two decades ago was kinda-sorta life-changing, because I'd been tying the "granny knot" my whole life and had to resort to double-knotting to keep my damn shoes tied.
My problem with this knot, is going from step 2 to 3, I get a bit of slippage from the orginal starter knot (step 1). For my running shoes, getting the tightness just right is critical, so not sure how to dial this in?
According to my App Store history, on May 30, 2010, I downloaded the app "Ian's Laces — How to tie and lace shoes (Lite)". Since then, I've very rarely had to tie my shoes :)
I never taught my children anything but the '(Fast) Ian knot', so they know no other way. They are older now, but when they were younger, they were often the friends of 'first resort' when it came to getting their shoelaces tied when they came undone.
They've also taught many other children 'their way' of tying their shoes.
I should probably donate. It's a small thing, but definitely something that has made our lives (and those around us) better.
It's like world smallest (and funniest) superpower. While people are still tying their shoes I'm ready to go. It feels a bit like magic when you touch the laces and they're just made.
This is definitely the go-to knot over secure knot. Been using it every day for 13 years. Yes, it comes apart every so often (maybe a few times a year), but the tying time savings far outweighs those few instances.
Plus you get to have rare "wait what, how the heck???" encounters if anyone around you pays attention randomly. It looks like magic compared to the usual methods people learn.
I tried to embrace this knot especially since I grew up sailing and know all kinds of ways to tie knots but I just can't seem to keep the tension as well as the traditional way. I can sometimes get ankle slip on my shoes so I like to have it tight at the top (not all shoes have lock lace holes).
The same concept applies to anything with two loops as well. You can use it to quickly and easily tie together garbage bag loops, or grocery bag loops etc.
I use this knot usually but it doesn't work for my pisgah range laces. They have their own recommended knot, which does work, but it's annoying to tie and asymmetric. I'll be trying this "secure" knot now.
That's a lot of work. Just reverse the first foldover you make from the direction you were taught as a kid, but do everything else the same (i.e., square knot). If the bow ends up perfectly horizontal to your foot, then you did it right, and it likely won't come undone.
Ian's has it's place in like camping and hiking and such, but for everyday use, it wastes precious seconds and you have to have the dexterity of a surgeon to pull it off efficiently.
Happy to chime in and say that years ago now I learned both Ian's Fast Knot and Ian's Secure Knot, and when I use shoes that I have laces, I enjoy both!
Here's my story about the secure knot: I used to do a lot of road cycling, and I got back from my first 100mi/day ride pretty tired and went to untie my shoes. I couldn't, because I'd used the granny knot I learned when I was a kid-- so I wound up cutting them off. I'd learned Ian's Fast Knot before then, and decided to see about the Secure Knot. Well, happy to say, over the next 6+ century rides, Ian's Secure Knot was a dream-- it stayed put the entire day and always came undone for me-- a TERRIFIC knot!
I've been rocking these almost daily for three years now. No other sandals like it. My feet feel extremely free.
They are also extremely easy to make; all you need is soling material, barge cement (if you're slapping two soles together), paracord and scissors.
Vibram soles can be had on Etsy or from cobblers. You'll probably want a molded EVA midsole if you want arch support; I haven't made sandals with any, so YMMV.
Leather's a great upper and can be found at leather shops (Tandy's here in Houston is great, and they deliver). You can also use EVA or the inside of a bottom sole as an upper for more friction.
I primarily use these for walking. (They're awesome for running; my knees, not so much.) The arches in my feet are as flat as tables. Getting the knots right enough to prevent the heel strap from stretching out was a massive challenge that I recently figured out. Once I did, these became unbeatable.
I've been debating making a video on the entire process. I'll do it if there's enough interest here. (I don't post on Reddit anymore.)
When I was six or seven my older brother untied my shoelaces when I wasn't looking, and I tripped on them and almost fell down. This was apparently a traumatic event for me since it has affected my behavior ever since. I've double-knotted my shoelaces every time since then, usually remembering why. For about the last 57 years. When I was about 12 the same brother tried it again and failed due to the double knot. It was a moment of triumph.
But the double knot still sometimes comes untied somehow so I've never been entirely happy with it. Maybe if I take the effort to overcome my muscle memory and learn Ian's knot, it will quell the PTSD from being victimized at a young age and I can find inner peace.
I'm excited for you - this knot works incredibly well at staying tied, but what's even better is that compared to the standard "double knot" this is much, much easier for you to purposely untie - simply pull the string like the "traditional" knot.
Now, maybe that would have been a flaw with that pesky prankster brother of yours around, but I bet it'll be a positive now. Try it!
I adopted this about a decade ago as what I tie shoes with, and I have done it for things like my kids' athletic shoes. And the advice about the accidental granny knot[1] is really life-changing. For anyone whose bow sits vertically after tying and whose shoes come untied spontaneously, you need to spend the 5 minutes to understand this. It's a free life upgrade.
On a related note, I have taken to replacing standard shoelaces on all my shoes as soon as I buy them with these elastic shoelaces with buckles[2]. You don't even have to unbuckle them, basically all your shoes become slip-ons. Probably not applicable if you're playing basketball or running track, but they work fine, look clean, and completely remove the need to ever tie laces. Highly recommend and you can buy them for like $1 each from sites like aliexpress or temu, I'm sure Amazon has them for $7 or so too.
I always use this site as a canonical example of The Good Internet. The kind of site that is rare today but used to be most of the internet, and we're all worse off for the change.
Lightweight handmade HTML and CSS. Very little JavaScript. The site is fast as hell, instant transition between pages, it'd make a React SPA blush.
The URLs don't change. The navigation is familiar and unchanging. Back button works as expected. Bookmarks into the site don't break.
It costs him almost nothing to run, so he isn't compelled to fill the pages with bullshit ads that disrupt or interrupt. It's got a handful of ad banners at the top and bottom, as ads used to be. I'd prefer it had no Google ads, since surveillance is part of the deal one makes with Google, but it's not the worst offense.
Edit: Also, because it uses core/standard web technologies exclusively, he has never been required to change it to keep it working or update a bunch of stuff for security reasons. Maintenance cost is effectively zero...whenever he wants to work on the the site, he can. He's never been compelled to drop everything to perform npm acrobatics to get a security update rolled out.
> I spend probably 60 hours a week continuously improving this website, answering visitors' questions, solving their shoelace problems – even granting permission for my material to be re-used by other educators.
> All of this effort earns me less than 1/5 of the Australian National Minimum Wage.
> I'm thinking of calling this my “Million Dollar Website” – not because it's worth a million dollars but because it has cost me a million dollars compared to what I could have earned at a regular job (based on an average Australian annual wage of $50,000 × 25+ years).
Granted it seems like you're commenting just on the cost of maintaining the site's HTML/CSS, and I agree that making the website simpler reduces those costs. But even with more complex websites the development costs are often less than the cost of developing good content, attracting people to your site, paying for hosting, etc.
Content creating is not maintenance. And hosting of a static site is dirt cheap, caching works flawlessly.
It could've been a two-million-dollar website if he'd tried to roll his own CMS and Javascript framework, for zero benefit over the one-million-dollar website he actually built.
Wow, he even made navigation that puts the links on little shoelace ends. Indeed, this is the kind of thing that was widespread, and which the soulless modern net never has.
That's the worst thing about Google Ads. Google keeps an absurd amount of the money, and they punish your users. And, of course, ads in general became so abusive and intrusive that everyone uses an ad blocker, making ads less effective as a revenue source.
But, I don't see how a static HTML site could be a struggle to keep running. It costs almost nothing to host something like that, even with a lot of traffic. I guess if one wanted to make a living off of it, it'd be a struggle.
Thank you for the link! Just donated. That site changed my life in a small but persistent way — my shoelaces haven't come undone in more than a decade now.
The secure/double skip knot that's linked in the story. I practiced it a few times (making sure the knots are in opposite directions took a bit of retraining muscle memory) and can tie it by heart now.
Ah, yeah, Sheldon Brown was great. I was sad when he passed (nearly two decades ago, now). I'm glad to see someone cares enough to keep his site running all these years later. It hasn't ever stopped being useful information.
> The kind of site that is rare today but used to be most of the internet, and we're all worse off for the change.
To me, it is not that these sites are rarer today than they once were. In fact, I think they are more of these today. It is just that the internet today is way bigger than it once was, and a lot of crap came with it. In fact, the web page dates back from 2000, and believe it or not, what is now known as enshittification was well on its way, though it was more Flash than Javascript. It was the peak of the dotcom bubble after all. The time such websites were "most of the internet" was more of a 1990s thing.
A site like Ian's Shoelace Site is not representative of its time any more than it is now, in that it was, and still is unusually good.
> Also, because it uses core/standard web technologies exclusively, he has never been required to change it to keep it working or update a bunch of stuff for security reasons.
On the client side, sure. On the server side, there is still maintenance to be done, especially with https where you have to manage certificates and their expiration, even though certbot make it simpler. But arguably, that's his host job and he just has to upload a bunch of html file, so you are right on that point. He still kept his page to modern standards, even though he wasn't required to (HTML 1.0 still works!).
The good thing about those ads is, it's your choice if they're allowed to run on your machines or not. Assuming your "user agent" isn't really an "ad industry agent".
Yes, Ian doesn't do any bullshit with ad block detection or blocking. The site works fine with ads blocked. I'm reminded that there should be a tiered ad block tool. I would like to be able to not block traditional ad banners (an img tag and a link, maybe with an affiliate ID), like the ones on the sidebar of Ian's site, while still blocking the surveillance ads like Google serves. I know traditional ad banners don't perform all that well, but, as a user, they don't bother me at all...and, I'm far more likely to click them if they're really relevant to the site I'm looking at.
Honestly, the old way of doing ads was also The Good Internet. No surveillance, the people placing the ads needed to actually think about where to spend their money, the sites had to decide personally whether the ad fit their audience and ethics. The ad surveillance networks launder all the ethical questions into a wash of hateful attention stealing and tracking user behavior.
> I know traditional ad banners don't perform all that well
I’m not sure that’s always true. We have our own homegrown adserver that’s almost 100% context based (a few ads for stores do rudimentary IP geo-targeting, all purely first-party though), and it does well with both banners and text based ads. It’s in the digital photography niche. I’d assume generally places that are strongly oriented towards a niche can do a lot with context based advertisment. CTR is much better than for Google ads (that we also run).
Yeah, I think publishers/advertisers are actually leaving money on the table by using Google ads instead of bespoke targeted ads from direct sponsors. It's a lot harder to manage ads without Google doing all the work, but they're better for readers and advertisers if there's a human with good taste and judgement in the loop.
I switched too and love it. It's arguably just a bit faster then the one I learned in childhood, but it's so much more reliable. I got couple of snickers I use daily and don't untie them at all, and the Ian's Knot [0] stays firmly knotted for months!
I learned it around 5 years ago and it just makes tying my shoes feel so effortless, I also feel like it holds on a little better than the previous knot I was using. It took me a while to get the mechanics down.
It never occurred to me that I could tie shoes with a different knot. This is excellent. It takes a bit of practice to undo a lifetime habit of tying my shoes with a weak knot. Well worth it!
For some reason I have a pair of sneakers that they will always untie way many more times than any other shoes that I ever had, no matter how hard you make the regular knot. No more!
I've used this knot for almost 2 decades now since learning about it from this exact website. It looks really nice, easy to take apart on purpose, and has never come undone. I run 4 to 5 times a week and used to run marathons. That's literally 10k+ miles over that timespan and it has never come apart unintentionally.
I can still remember as a teenager having to bend down and re-tie my shoes multiple times a day, and then in my early 20s I received Ian's hardbound book[1] as a gift, learned this knot, and just like that, I simply never had to do that again. What a gift of time!
I've been using this knot for years; I want to say since college (at least 10 years now). It's stupid fast to do once you learn it and it doesn't slip off ever.
Came here to post this one. I intentionally tried to train myself to do this about 10 years ago and the muscle memory came a lot quicker than I expected. It's a very secure knot and the sides hang to the side, not wonky like the ones most of us learned.
It took me a few months to nail it; jealous you got it more quickly than I did!
This was kind of like learning Vim. I struggled with how to computer for two weeks and lost the desire to learn literally anything else after mastering it. (I still prefer Vim with my plugins over VSCode!)
This is an interesting knot, the thing with knots though, you have to spend enough time with them to get familiar with tying them blindfolded from memory. My experience is most people don't care enough to do it.
So I have a simple alternative to tying my shoes that you can teach and learn easily. Knots are all about the number of turns or wraps, so when tying your shoes instead of crossing the laces over once, do it twice. When you wrap around the loop, do that twice too. You may have to try it to understand, but it is easy and readily understandable to anyone who can already tie their shoes. The best part is the way you tighten it down and untie are are exactly the same as you have always done. It almost never comes untied, but still releases easily.
Alternative view: it works best for flatter laces. I have a pair of running shoes with thicker round laces that don't stay tied unless I use the traditional method.
I'm curious about the physics involved to cause such an obvious and singular failure.
This is the best knot. Looks amazing aesthetically and simply does not come undone. Unless you want it to, in which case a quick pull on one end unties it instantly.
Switched to this knot a few years back for any day when we're walking/hiking a lot. I also tie my children's shoes this way if they're having a struggling day.
If anyone's playing with this you may find that after you tie the loops together they're sitting funny; you basically have to swap the sides the loops sit on!
It's just a good knot. The only downside is that it is very slightly more complex than a regular shoelace knot (you pass-through both loops instead of just one). But otherwise, it's only upsides: completely secure, unties exactly as easily and quickly as a regular shoelace knot, and it even lays more horizontally than a regular shoelace knot.
Learned this about five years ago on HN and it's the only way I've tied my shoes since. It's so fast and perfect every time. It's worth the ten minutes in your living room learning to tie your shoes again like a child!
Runner here. I found some time ago that starting out the classic shoelace tie right-hand dominant and finishing it left-hand dominant results in a very stable knot. Lacing them high enough to keep the ends short helps too. It has been thousands of miles since my last loose shoelace.
I have truly never had a shoe come untied after switching to this knot years ago. My friends think I’m crazy when I rave about shoelaces to them and try to get them to see the light. Jokes on them! They’ll be left behind re-tying their shoes till the last day their feet walk the earth.
Friend shared this site with me like 10+ years ago, I've been using this knot ever since. Kind of amazing it's so generally unknown given how good it is.
depending on your sole preferences, I bet you would like the Xero Prio Coast shoe. I just got a pair – elastic laces, slip-on ergonomics, barefoot sole, large toebox. They are fantastic.
I'm still hoping we could collectively agree that it's childish to view technologically superior Velcro as childish, and then replace shoelaces with Velcro.
That's how I've been doing it since I was a kid (in the '80s) without anyone telling me about it. It's interesting how people put their names on some common-sense stuff! Disgusting!
Great knot and amazing site. It has a distinct "old internet" feel to it, and I mean that as nothing but a compliment. I miss those days, pre platforms capturing everything and making us angry at each other for their engagement metrics.
Learned the Ian knot back in my early 20s (25 years ago now). Pound for pound this is easily in my top 10 highest value things I've ever done/learned. My shoes do NOT come untied anymore, period, ever.
Funny thing is, if you don't know how to tie it, you probably just notice how it looks when it's done (almost exactly like the granny bowtie) so you (understandably) assume it's just a different method to arrive at the same result, like how bunny-ears and rabbit-goes-around-the-tree do. Of course it's not the same result at all.
"Double Slip Knot" (ABOK 1219 p. 221) is the canonical name with prior art. Calling it [your name] knot is pompous "discovery" of lands already occupied revisionist history. The main problem with it is that the free ends and loops cannot be balanced easily like a standard Bow Knot (ABOK 1214 p. 220). A Bow Knot may also be fixed by adding an opposing Half Knot ("The Shoeclerk's Knot" (ABOK 1215)) while losing the slip feature that the Double Slip Knot retains.
Years later I found out that my new knot was not new and that I had simply re-invented an existing knot, which appears elsewhere under two different names:
“Double Slip Knot” (#1219) in “The Ashley Book of Knots” by Clifford Ashley;
“Seaman's Shoelace Knot” (or “Seemännische Schuhbandschleife”), which appears in the German book “Knoten, Spleißen, Takeln” by Erich Sondheim.
I'm pretty sure knot techniques can't be copyrighted, so nobody owns it or has the exclusive right to name it. Someone can call it the Ham Sandwich knot if they want. Who cares?
Besides, I'm pretty sure Ian has done a lot more to spread the knowledge of this particular knot than anyone else in history.
I only realized in my 30s that I had been tying my shoelaces wrong my whole life and a super minor change in my method has changed them from coming undone multiple times per day (unless double knotted), to instead staying tied the whole day with just a standard shoelace knot [0] (also on Ian's site).
This article's web page actually has the essential note:
> NOTE: If your finished knot comes out crooked (eg. loops pointing heel-to-toe), it's probably because you tie your Starting Knot the opposite way to mine. This will result in an un-balanced knot, which sits crooked and comes undone more easily. See my Granny Knot page for more information.
Back when I still used to browse Imgur, there was a post illustrating how to identify and fix this easy to make mistake. It turns out that I was starting with the lace left-over-right as opposed to right-over-left (or vice-versa, not sure off-hand).
This quite literally changed my life, just a small muscle memory tweak and now my laces easily stay tied the whole day with a regular knot which is also super easy to release as well.
[0]: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/standardknot.htm
Edit:
I see he has a page dedicated to this mistake here: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/grannyknot.htm
Learning this has also changed my life, but maybe not for the better. Now every time I see someone I know and their shoes are tied in a granny knot I have to waste a bunch of calories deciding if they'd appreciate me telling them.
I encounter this all the time, I just want to help people and pass along things I’ve learned but it’s not always received well. For sure, many adults would not want to be told how to tie their shoelaces.
My only advice is to start by approaching the problem. “Hey, do your shoelaces come untied often?”
OMG same!
It's like when you learn how to roll up headphone wires or properly clean glasses.
The temptation to do it for others (and get rejected) is way too high.
The thing about many of the "proper" headphone roll-ups is they are dependent on a particular level of minimum bending radius, tension tolerance, and elastic deformation in the cords.
To put it more simply, many of them will simply ruin your headphones if they're done with reasonable frequency.
For thin earbud type cords, just coil them loosely in a small plastic bag or use a loose bundle secured with a broad velcro strap.
Gonna need a description of the correct way to do these things. I have a feeling I'll be one of today's lucky 10,000.
Please explain. I want to know if I'm doing those 2 things correctly...
> deciding if they'd appreciate me telling them
This is me daily.
I've been using Ian's for the past few months since it was last posted here. It's quite good to the point I prefer it but wouldn't say it's changed my life.
I have this problem too!
It could make their lives so much better, but kind of awkward to broach. Perhaps sholladay‘s advice will work well.
Don't tell them. Just use the information to silently judge everything they say or do, and have ever said or done. It's gotten me where I am today.
I tried writing a similar comment. Yours is much clearer. This 100%. As a runner I used to have to re-tie multiple times per run. I corrected my mistake with this same fix probably a decade ago and haven’t had a loose shoelace since.
Back when I was running, I used the "lace lock" method[0] because a loose heel would drive me to distraction (and because I wore clown shoes with wide toe boxes, there's no pressure from the front to keep the foot stable.)
[0] e.g. https://www.coachweb.com/gear/running-gear/heel-lock-lacing-...
For sure. I've taken to using a similar method over the last couple of years as I've increased miles and needed to take steps (ha) to take better care of my feet over longer distances. I wouldn't recommend this setup for more active sports with lots of change of direction, but for steady plodding it provides a very consistent and dependable stride for a lot of miles.
> coming undone multiple times per day (unless double knotted)
You have bad laces. I thought this too before I tried different laces. Turns out different tensions and elasticities give different strengths of knots.
For example I have some military boots which came with slightly stretchy laces. They NEVER come undone, ever. They were the first pair that switched me on to this, and since then I have always bought laces with slight stretch to them, and the knots always stay done up.
In contrast when you buy a pair of fashion trainers, the laces in them are usually terrible and come undone several times per day as you have noted.
No, it had absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the laces.
It was because I was essentially tying a granny knot instead of a reef knot and anyone who knows anything about knots would realize that of course they would keep coming undone.
And for the record, since learning how to tie the correct knot (over 10 years ago now), I’ve had no problem with laces that have come with any of the following brands of shoes:
- Nike
- New Balance
- Asics
- Converse
- Vans
Do you have a brand of those laces? The original ones on my Brooks runnign shoes are usually pretty good, but overtime they start getting more loose.
I mean, yes, the lace quality is important too. But strictly speaking, not tying a granny knot will improve your results regardless of choice of lace.
"On" brand running shoes have great laces for knot-holding, but they're so thin it's awkward to manipulate them to actually tie the knot in the first place.
>Right-over-left, left-over-right,
>Makes a knot both tidy and tight.
I think I'd find this harder to remember than the principle.
Before your muscle memory is updated, all you need to remember is how to “quality check” the knot when you’re done. If the loops are perpendicular, it’s wrong, they should be aligned with the laces.
If it landed up perpendicular, start over (i.e. the part before you make the loops) with doing the opposite of what you did before e.g. right-over-left rather than left-over-right.
For me it was very easy to fix the pre-loop stage, trying to change the loop stage seemed way harder to me as I was already so practiced at it.
I do a similar quality check when tying a square knot (right over left, left over right but without the bows - probably the default knot for something you don't intend to ever untie and don't have a Scout's encyclopedic knowledge of more specialized knots) - since it doesn't have the bows, the quality check is that it should have a line of symmetry whereas if you repeat the same direction twice the finished knot is more of a spiral, having no line of symmetry.
Stumbling across Ian's site almost two decades ago was kinda-sorta life-changing, because I'd been tying the "granny knot" my whole life and had to resort to double-knotting to keep my damn shoes tied.
Ditched the granny knot for the Ian's Secure Knot (https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm), and have been using that ever since for every pair of laced shoes I own.
This is my choice knot too, works really well
My problem with this knot, is going from step 2 to 3, I get a bit of slippage from the orginal starter knot (step 1). For my running shoes, getting the tightness just right is critical, so not sure how to dial this in?
I learnt about this knot 16 years ago from a comment on cpbotha's blog :
https://cpbotha.net/2010/04/07/weekly-head-voices-20-a-lamar...
It has changed my life. I was also part of mountain rescue at the time, and nobody in the team knew about it. Now everyone swears by it.
So if you're part of any kind of first responder team - please tell your colleagues about this knot!
According to my App Store history, on May 30, 2010, I downloaded the app "Ian's Laces — How to tie and lace shoes (Lite)". Since then, I've very rarely had to tie my shoes :)
I use Ian's (Fast) Knot and that's good enough for me.
https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm
Same here.
I never taught my children anything but the '(Fast) Ian knot', so they know no other way. They are older now, but when they were younger, they were often the friends of 'first resort' when it came to getting their shoelaces tied when they came undone.
They've also taught many other children 'their way' of tying their shoes.
I should probably donate. It's a small thing, but definitely something that has made our lives (and those around us) better.
It's like world smallest (and funniest) superpower. While people are still tying their shoes I'm ready to go. It feels a bit like magic when you touch the laces and they're just made.
This is definitely the go-to knot over secure knot. Been using it every day for 13 years. Yes, it comes apart every so often (maybe a few times a year), but the tying time savings far outweighs those few instances.
Plus you get to have rare "wait what, how the heck???" encounters if anyone around you pays attention randomly. It looks like magic compared to the usual methods people learn.
The best part of this is that you forget you're tying your shoes differently, so when the "how the heck" moment arrives you're also surprised!
I use this one as well. It took me a few moments to learn it, but it almost instantly became muscle memory.
I just tried to do the old fashioned knot, it might be the first time I've tied it in two decades.
I tried to embrace this knot especially since I grew up sailing and know all kinds of ways to tie knots but I just can't seem to keep the tension as well as the traditional way. I can sometimes get ankle slip on my shoes so I like to have it tight at the top (not all shoes have lock lace holes).
The same concept applies to anything with two loops as well. You can use it to quickly and easily tie together garbage bag loops, or grocery bag loops etc.
I use this knot usually but it doesn't work for my pisgah range laces. They have their own recommended knot, which does work, but it's annoying to tie and asymmetric. I'll be trying this "secure" knot now.
This is a life changer. I've literally had friends ask me how I tie my shoes so fast a few times after learning this method.
I also use this one, it's great.
I learned his fast knot about a decade ago and never looked back. It's probably saved me dozens of seconds over that time.
That's a lot of work. Just reverse the first foldover you make from the direction you were taught as a kid, but do everything else the same (i.e., square knot). If the bow ends up perfectly horizontal to your foot, then you did it right, and it likely won't come undone.
Ian's has it's place in like camping and hiking and such, but for everyday use, it wastes precious seconds and you have to have the dexterity of a surgeon to pull it off efficiently.
Happy to chime in and say that years ago now I learned both Ian's Fast Knot and Ian's Secure Knot, and when I use shoes that I have laces, I enjoy both!
Here's my story about the secure knot: I used to do a lot of road cycling, and I got back from my first 100mi/day ride pretty tired and went to untie my shoes. I couldn't, because I'd used the granny knot I learned when I was a kid-- so I wound up cutting them off. I'd learned Ian's Fast Knot before then, and decided to see about the Secure Knot. Well, happy to say, over the next 6+ century rides, Ian's Secure Knot was a dream-- it stayed put the entire day and always came undone for me-- a TERRIFIC knot!
If you love this, you'll love learning about tying huarache running sandals:
- http://borntorun.org/shop/howtotie.html
- https://xeroshoes.eu/pages/tarahumara-sandals
- https://importantbutnotatall.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/huarac...
Infinitely many ways to tie these.
I've been rocking these almost daily for three years now. No other sandals like it. My feet feel extremely free.
They are also extremely easy to make; all you need is soling material, barge cement (if you're slapping two soles together), paracord and scissors.
Vibram soles can be had on Etsy or from cobblers. You'll probably want a molded EVA midsole if you want arch support; I haven't made sandals with any, so YMMV.
Leather's a great upper and can be found at leather shops (Tandy's here in Houston is great, and they deliver). You can also use EVA or the inside of a bottom sole as an upper for more friction.
I primarily use these for walking. (They're awesome for running; my knees, not so much.) The arches in my feet are as flat as tables. Getting the knots right enough to prevent the heel strap from stretching out was a massive challenge that I recently figured out. Once I did, these became unbeatable.
I've been debating making a video on the entire process. I'll do it if there's enough interest here. (I don't post on Reddit anymore.)
When I was six or seven my older brother untied my shoelaces when I wasn't looking, and I tripped on them and almost fell down. This was apparently a traumatic event for me since it has affected my behavior ever since. I've double-knotted my shoelaces every time since then, usually remembering why. For about the last 57 years. When I was about 12 the same brother tried it again and failed due to the double knot. It was a moment of triumph.
But the double knot still sometimes comes untied somehow so I've never been entirely happy with it. Maybe if I take the effort to overcome my muscle memory and learn Ian's knot, it will quell the PTSD from being victimized at a young age and I can find inner peace.
I'm excited for you - this knot works incredibly well at staying tied, but what's even better is that compared to the standard "double knot" this is much, much easier for you to purposely untie - simply pull the string like the "traditional" knot.
Now, maybe that would have been a flaw with that pesky prankster brother of yours around, but I bet it'll be a positive now. Try it!
Every person has many such events in their childhood. Just previously we called that "learning", now we call that "victim" and "PTSD".
Like many I also discovered this about 10 years ago and love.
One other thing I've been doing lately is also to use bar lacing instead of cross lacing. A small change that makes shoes much more comfortable.
I adopted this about a decade ago as what I tie shoes with, and I have done it for things like my kids' athletic shoes. And the advice about the accidental granny knot[1] is really life-changing. For anyone whose bow sits vertically after tying and whose shoes come untied spontaneously, you need to spend the 5 minutes to understand this. It's a free life upgrade.
On a related note, I have taken to replacing standard shoelaces on all my shoes as soon as I buy them with these elastic shoelaces with buckles[2]. You don't even have to unbuckle them, basically all your shoes become slip-ons. Probably not applicable if you're playing basketball or running track, but they work fine, look clean, and completely remove the need to ever tie laces. Highly recommend and you can buy them for like $1 each from sites like aliexpress or temu, I'm sure Amazon has them for $7 or so too.
[1] https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/grannyknot.htm
[2] https://www.aliexpress.us/w/wholesale-elastic-shoelaces.html...
I always use this site as a canonical example of The Good Internet. The kind of site that is rare today but used to be most of the internet, and we're all worse off for the change.
Lightweight handmade HTML and CSS. Very little JavaScript. The site is fast as hell, instant transition between pages, it'd make a React SPA blush.
The URLs don't change. The navigation is familiar and unchanging. Back button works as expected. Bookmarks into the site don't break.
It costs him almost nothing to run, so he isn't compelled to fill the pages with bullshit ads that disrupt or interrupt. It's got a handful of ad banners at the top and bottom, as ads used to be. I'd prefer it had no Google ads, since surveillance is part of the deal one makes with Google, but it's not the worst offense.
Edit: Also, because it uses core/standard web technologies exclusively, he has never been required to change it to keep it working or update a bunch of stuff for security reasons. Maintenance cost is effectively zero...whenever he wants to work on the the site, he can. He's never been compelled to drop everything to perform npm acrobatics to get a security update rolled out.
> It costs him almost nothing to run
> Maintenance cost is effectively zero...
His estimates[1] of ongoing costs seem different:
> I spend probably 60 hours a week continuously improving this website, answering visitors' questions, solving their shoelace problems – even granting permission for my material to be re-used by other educators.
> All of this effort earns me less than 1/5 of the Australian National Minimum Wage.
> I'm thinking of calling this my “Million Dollar Website” – not because it's worth a million dollars but because it has cost me a million dollars compared to what I could have earned at a regular job (based on an average Australian annual wage of $50,000 × 25+ years).
Granted it seems like you're commenting just on the cost of maintaining the site's HTML/CSS, and I agree that making the website simpler reduces those costs. But even with more complex websites the development costs are often less than the cost of developing good content, attracting people to your site, paying for hosting, etc.
[1] https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/support.htm
Content creating is not maintenance. And hosting of a static site is dirt cheap, caching works flawlessly.
It could've been a two-million-dollar website if he'd tried to roll his own CMS and Javascript framework, for zero benefit over the one-million-dollar website he actually built.
OK, that feels like a choice.
Wow, he even made navigation that puts the links on little shoelace ends. Indeed, this is the kind of thing that was widespread, and which the soulless modern net never has.
A tremendous amount of care went into the site, and it shows.
The site owner, Ian, says he is seeking an alternative to google ads. Seems the site may be struggling financially.
https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/support.htm
That's the worst thing about Google Ads. Google keeps an absurd amount of the money, and they punish your users. And, of course, ads in general became so abusive and intrusive that everyone uses an ad blocker, making ads less effective as a revenue source.
But, I don't see how a static HTML site could be a struggle to keep running. It costs almost nothing to host something like that, even with a lot of traffic. I guess if one wanted to make a living off of it, it'd be a struggle.
Thank you for the link! Just donated. That site changed my life in a small but persistent way — my shoelaces haven't come undone in more than a decade now.
Which knot do you use?
The secure/double skip knot that's linked in the story. I practiced it a few times (making sure the knots are in opposite directions took a bit of retraining muscle memory) and can tie it by heart now.
Yes, agreed. Website made out of love instead of desire for profit. Insanely useful information that's hard to find elsewhere. Timeless.
another one I loved...I guess still love too https://sheldonbrown.com/fixed-conversion.html
Ah, yeah, Sheldon Brown was great. I was sad when he passed (nearly two decades ago, now). I'm glad to see someone cares enough to keep his site running all these years later. It hasn't ever stopped being useful information.
> The kind of site that is rare today but used to be most of the internet, and we're all worse off for the change.
To me, it is not that these sites are rarer today than they once were. In fact, I think they are more of these today. It is just that the internet today is way bigger than it once was, and a lot of crap came with it. In fact, the web page dates back from 2000, and believe it or not, what is now known as enshittification was well on its way, though it was more Flash than Javascript. It was the peak of the dotcom bubble after all. The time such websites were "most of the internet" was more of a 1990s thing.
A site like Ian's Shoelace Site is not representative of its time any more than it is now, in that it was, and still is unusually good.
> Also, because it uses core/standard web technologies exclusively, he has never been required to change it to keep it working or update a bunch of stuff for security reasons.
On the client side, sure. On the server side, there is still maintenance to be done, especially with https where you have to manage certificates and their expiration, even though certbot make it simpler. But arguably, that's his host job and he just has to upload a bunch of html file, so you are right on that point. He still kept his page to modern standards, even though he wasn't required to (HTML 1.0 still works!).
> A site like Ian's Shoelace Site is not representative of its time any more than it is now
It very clearly is, though.
You missed the most important part: the site provides something for free.
There's no "if you want to keep learning check my book/course". It's not a funnel entrance, it's not adversarial to you as a reader.
I really really miss being able to enjoy content keeping my guard down, not wondering what is a scam, astroturfing, political propaganda...
I would totally buy his book, even if it was only an offline copy of his site.
> I'd prefer it had no Google ads
The good thing about those ads is, it's your choice if they're allowed to run on your machines or not. Assuming your "user agent" isn't really an "ad industry agent".
Yes, Ian doesn't do any bullshit with ad block detection or blocking. The site works fine with ads blocked. I'm reminded that there should be a tiered ad block tool. I would like to be able to not block traditional ad banners (an img tag and a link, maybe with an affiliate ID), like the ones on the sidebar of Ian's site, while still blocking the surveillance ads like Google serves. I know traditional ad banners don't perform all that well, but, as a user, they don't bother me at all...and, I'm far more likely to click them if they're really relevant to the site I'm looking at.
Honestly, the old way of doing ads was also The Good Internet. No surveillance, the people placing the ads needed to actually think about where to spend their money, the sites had to decide personally whether the ad fit their audience and ethics. The ad surveillance networks launder all the ethical questions into a wash of hateful attention stealing and tracking user behavior.
> I know traditional ad banners don't perform all that well
I’m not sure that’s always true. We have our own homegrown adserver that’s almost 100% context based (a few ads for stores do rudimentary IP geo-targeting, all purely first-party though), and it does well with both banners and text based ads. It’s in the digital photography niche. I’d assume generally places that are strongly oriented towards a niche can do a lot with context based advertisment. CTR is much better than for Google ads (that we also run).
Yeah, I think publishers/advertisers are actually leaving money on the table by using Google ads instead of bespoke targeted ads from direct sponsors. It's a lot harder to manage ads without Google doing all the work, but they're better for readers and advertisers if there's a human with good taste and judgement in the loop.
I switched to Ian's original shoelace knot about ten years ago. It's saved me something like four hours of shoelace time since then. Bloody brilliant.
I switched too and love it. It's arguably just a bit faster then the one I learned in childhood, but it's so much more reliable. I got couple of snickers I use daily and don't untie them at all, and the Ian's Knot [0] stays firmly knotted for months!
[0] https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm
I learned it around 5 years ago and it just makes tying my shoes feel so effortless, I also feel like it holds on a little better than the previous knot I was using. It took me a while to get the mechanics down.
It never occurred to me that I could tie shoes with a different knot. This is excellent. It takes a bit of practice to undo a lifetime habit of tying my shoes with a weak knot. Well worth it!
For some reason I have a pair of sneakers that they will always untie way many more times than any other shoes that I ever had, no matter how hard you make the regular knot. No more!
I've used this knot for almost 2 decades now since learning about it from this exact website. It looks really nice, easy to take apart on purpose, and has never come undone. I run 4 to 5 times a week and used to run marathons. That's literally 10k+ miles over that timespan and it has never come apart unintentionally.
It's also just so simple to learn.
I can still remember as a teenager having to bend down and re-tie my shoes multiple times a day, and then in my early 20s I received Ian's hardbound book[1] as a gift, learned this knot, and just like that, I simply never had to do that again. What a gift of time!
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Laces-100s-Ways-Pimp-Kicks/dp/1402752... - it even comes laced with a set of special laces on the front to learn with, that uses the 2 colors his diagrams use.
This is a doubled-up version of Ian's Knot: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm
I've been using this knot for years; I want to say since college (at least 10 years now). It's stupid fast to do once you learn it and it doesn't slip off ever.
Highly HIGHLY recommend learning it.
Came here to post this one. I intentionally tried to train myself to do this about 10 years ago and the muscle memory came a lot quicker than I expected. It's a very secure knot and the sides hang to the side, not wonky like the ones most of us learned.
It took me a few months to nail it; jealous you got it more quickly than I did!
This was kind of like learning Vim. I struggled with how to computer for two weeks and lost the desire to learn literally anything else after mastering it. (I still prefer Vim with my plugins over VSCode!)
This is an interesting knot, the thing with knots though, you have to spend enough time with them to get familiar with tying them blindfolded from memory. My experience is most people don't care enough to do it.
So I have a simple alternative to tying my shoes that you can teach and learn easily. Knots are all about the number of turns or wraps, so when tying your shoes instead of crossing the laces over once, do it twice. When you wrap around the loop, do that twice too. You may have to try it to understand, but it is easy and readily understandable to anyone who can already tie their shoes. The best part is the way you tighten it down and untie are are exactly the same as you have always done. It almost never comes untied, but still releases easily.
More than 10 years ago, somebody shared this clip with me: https://youtu.be/zAFcV7zuUDA?is=QDFb5Wxd_tJ-pJ61
Been tying my shoelaces like this ever since.
This is the classic Terry Moore 3 minute video. It boils down to "tie a square knot". It changed my life too!
I love this video because it's both the perfect TED video and the perfect parody of a TED video.
Delete the ?is=... part because it's tracking information that uniquely identifies you.
I learned about this site from the TV show "Going Deep with David Rees" (episode 2)! I recommend that show if you haven't seen it.
Alternative view: it works best for flatter laces. I have a pair of running shoes with thicker round laces that don't stay tied unless I use the traditional method.
I'm curious about the physics involved to cause such an obvious and singular failure.
This is the best knot. Looks amazing aesthetically and simply does not come undone. Unless you want it to, in which case a quick pull on one end unties it instantly.
Switched to this knot a few years back for any day when we're walking/hiking a lot. I also tie my children's shoes this way if they're having a struggling day.
If anyone's playing with this you may find that after you tie the loops together they're sitting funny; you basically have to swap the sides the loops sit on!
There's a 'tying neatly' section on the technical info page:
https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknottech.htm#observat...
I learned the fast shoelace knot from this site years ago. Highly recommend it: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm
It’s both functional and a great party trick.
I have some athletic shoes that come undone so easily and I think this knot will help me out a lot.
But when will we have Marty's self-tying shoes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liI1E_ZZV5w
Ten years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_Mag
Looks like it could have been an Apple product also. Same design language.
It's just a good knot. The only downside is that it is very slightly more complex than a regular shoelace knot (you pass-through both loops instead of just one). But otherwise, it's only upsides: completely secure, unties exactly as easily and quickly as a regular shoelace knot, and it even lays more horizontally than a regular shoelace knot.
Learned this about five years ago on HN and it's the only way I've tied my shoes since. It's so fast and perfect every time. It's worth the ten minutes in your living room learning to tie your shoes again like a child!
I always refer to this site when I get a new pair of Adidas to get them laced up cool.
Runner here. I found some time ago that starting out the classic shoelace tie right-hand dominant and finishing it left-hand dominant results in a very stable knot. Lacing them high enough to keep the ends short helps too. It has been thousands of miles since my last loose shoelace.
I have truly never had a shoe come untied after switching to this knot years ago. My friends think I’m crazy when I rave about shoelaces to them and try to get them to see the light. Jokes on them! They’ll be left behind re-tying their shoes till the last day their feet walk the earth.
I've been tying this for years. Good knot. I only have failures if I hit a snag (and no easy-release knot is going to be able to get around that)
Been using this knot exclusively since 2013, it's stood the test of time.
I find taking the rabbit around the tree twice also works well.
I just switched to slip-ons the moment I could buy my own shoes.
Fine for slippers or driving shoes but no good for active wear.
I got elastic (?) self-holding laces for my running shoes, which effectively make them a slip-on as well.
Friend shared this site with me like 10+ years ago, I've been using this knot ever since. Kind of amazing it's so generally unknown given how good it is.
I have been doing this for...12 years to great success
Animated: <https://www.animatedknots.com/shoelace-bow-knot-fieggen-meth...>
Although that's a different knot (I use the one originally referenced), I taught my kids the knot in the animation and it's worked out well.
Added benefit: adults are impressed when they see my kids tie their laces.
that's different.
Oops, you’re right.
You can also tie two knots but in the opposite directions:
https://youtu.be/8DBhTXM_Br4?t=1711 (Veritasium)
Veritasium is owned by private equity.
It is, but luckily, private equities don't decide whether knots untie or not, so the video may still be helpful.
My kids learned to tie their shoes this way from this site and never knew differently. They're 20 and 17 now.
Best investment in the last 5 years for me - elastic shoelaces. Never have to tie my shoes again
Bet they pair well with cargo shorts
Better! swimsuit :)
depending on your sole preferences, I bet you would like the Xero Prio Coast shoe. I just got a pair – elastic laces, slip-on ergonomics, barefoot sole, large toebox. They are fantastic.
I'm still hoping we could collectively agree that it's childish to view technologically superior Velcro as childish, and then replace shoelaces with Velcro.
That's how I've been doing it since I was a kid (in the '80s) without anyone telling me about it. It's interesting how people put their names on some common-sense stuff! Disgusting!
the moment this clicked after reading it a few years ago its been my daily driver. that resource is a treasure
Agreed 100%. But for me it was many, many years ago. But this is my daily shoelace knot and it works amazingly well.
Ian Fieggen's fast knot changed my life.
Great knot and amazing site. It has a distinct "old internet" feel to it, and I mean that as nothing but a compliment. I miss those days, pre platforms capturing everything and making us angry at each other for their engagement metrics.
Learned the Ian knot back in my early 20s (25 years ago now). Pound for pound this is easily in my top 10 highest value things I've ever done/learned. My shoes do NOT come untied anymore, period, ever.
Funny thing is, if you don't know how to tie it, you probably just notice how it looks when it's done (almost exactly like the granny bowtie) so you (understandably) assume it's just a different method to arrive at the same result, like how bunny-ears and rabbit-goes-around-the-tree do. Of course it's not the same result at all.
From the site "The finished Ian Knot is identical to either the Standard Shoelace Knot or the Two Loop Shoelace Knot."
Some previous discussion:
Secure knot 2024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42155457
General Shoelace Site
4 Months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46848231
"Double Slip Knot" (ABOK 1219 p. 221) is the canonical name with prior art. Calling it [your name] knot is pompous "discovery" of lands already occupied revisionist history. The main problem with it is that the free ends and loops cannot be balanced easily like a standard Bow Knot (ABOK 1214 p. 220). A Bow Knot may also be fixed by adding an opposing Half Knot ("The Shoeclerk's Knot" (ABOK 1215)) while losing the slip feature that the Double Slip Knot retains.
From the site:
I'm pretty sure knot techniques can't be copyrighted, so nobody owns it or has the exclusive right to name it. Someone can call it the Ham Sandwich knot if they want. Who cares?
Besides, I'm pretty sure Ian has done a lot more to spread the knowledge of this particular knot than anyone else in history.