alt Hacker NewsI 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
Replies
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.
> 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.
>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.
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.