back

by buzzy_hacker·4y ago·view on hn ↗
> A few years ago, I found out I'd been tying my shoes wrong for my entire life. I thought laces came undone easily and didn't usually look very good. At least that's how mine were, and I never paid much attention to anyone else's. It took a couple of weeks to re-train my hands but now I have bows in my laces that look good and rarely come undone.

I’m equally interested in this as the HTML. Any clue what the author is referring to?

6 comments
Likely the author was tying granny knots instead of slipped/bowed reef knots

If your first cross is left over right you need to make your second cross right over left, or vice versa. I found an image showing the difference for the un-slipped version, but it's the same with a bow: http://www.tikalon.com/blog/2020/square_granny_knots.png

Granny knots untie themselves and the bow will end up perpendicular to the knot instead of parallel.

Aw... you didn't read to the end ;)

> The right way to tie your shoes is with a square knot. It's easy to confuse this with the granny knot, which is the wrong way. The square knot is a simple and sound knot with many uses. The granny knot is an unsound knot whose only known uses are to make your shoelaces look crooked and to trip you.

Possibly the Ian knot https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm

You look goofy trying to relearn to tie your shoes, but it really is fast and sturdy.

It was apparently the square knot, but I'm a big fan of the Ian knot. I learned it about a year ago and at the very least, tying my shoes is more fun now. I'm not yet convinced it's better than the old-school method, but it looks impressive when you do it and it's more fun.
What immediately came to mind for me was this (short) Ted talk https://youtu.be/zAFcV7zuUDA
Not sure what he's referring to, I'm not familiar with the parallel posts. I just do the "rotate around the loop" part twice. I have had untied shoelace approximately twice in the last 5 years.