Last week I attend my first class at The Breathing Project with Leslie Kaminoff. I used his anatomy book as a part of my yoga teacher training, and since then have been curious about his renegade style and obsession with how we breathe. In traditional yoga classes, we learn the 3-part breath by filling up the belly, then the chest, and then the collar-bone area. Leslie flips that around, literally and figuratively. He advises students to fill up on breath from top to bottom. At this suggestion, my brain began to twist and turn, trying to rewire its thinking about breath.
Similarly, last week I began reading intensely about barefoot running after an article in the New York Times Magazine, The Once and Future Way to Run. I’m entering the lottery to run the New York City marathon in 2012 and looking for the most efficient way to complete my training and beat my time from the Chicago marathon that I ran in 2001. For a number of years, I’ve heard about these barefoot runners and mostly written them off as just a hair shy of completely insane.
Turns out I may be the crazy one. Heel-to-toe running, which most of us do, is just about the worst possible way to beat up our bodies. Making contact around the mid-foot / toe region takes advantage of our bodies’ natural springing motion, protecting the body from undue injury, increasing our speed, and making our motion more efficient. Like Leslie’s class on breathing, this idea from barefoot running sent my mind happily reeling toward new possibilities.
Both of these ideas ask us to harken back to childhood, remembering how we used to act as children and how we have been misled as adults. We pick up so many bad habits on our journey into adulthood and sometimes we forget to question the new learnings that generate these bad habits. The result of losing our courage to question conventional wisdom? Harming our own bodies and minds.
This questioning of how to breathe and how to run, two very basic actions that we all do all the time, got me thinking about all the other “truths” that I may have accepted to easily. Business is loaded with them. “Experts” tell us that we MUST have a fully baked business plan, perfect products, and so much market research that we scarcely have time to look at all of the findings, much less make sense of them. Phooey!
What if we try this: go against the grain. Go ahead and put some kind of business plan in place, and then be prepared to change every blessed word of it. Launch good-enough products as quickly as possible to get real-time input on design from a live market, and then commit to iterating future versions just as quickly with real feedback. Forget market research composed of focus groups and other traditional methods. Make the business one giant market research experiment.
Here’s what would happen: our rate and level of innovation would increase, more people would create things of value to others, more people would take their futures into their own hands through entrepreneurship, and we’d all learn more. Oh, and we’d have a greater rate of jobs creation – quite possibly the biggest hot-button economic issue in our country today.
What do we have to lose by ditching conventional wisdom? Bad habits – we’ll breathe more fully, run with greater ease, and have a healthier economy. The value of taking conventional wisdom at face value? Staying right where we are.
IN BRIEF
Author, journalist, digital product manager, and licensed New York City tour guide. Creator and host of NYC's Secrets and Lies. Alumna of the University of Pennsylvania (BA), the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia (MBA), Arizona State University (Biomimicry), and the University of Cambridge (MSt in Sustainability Leadership).
I build digital media platforms, report on urban climate resilience and biodiversity, and produce live narrative experiences that connect communities to history, nature, and place.
THE DEEP DIVE
My work centers on a single thread: building systems and stories that foster deep connection to our shared world. Across digital streaming, environmental reporting, and live civic storytelling, I design experiences that help people understand complex ideas and the environments around them.
DIGITAL PRODUCT STRATEGY & MEDIA LEADERSHIP
At Carnegie Hall, I serve as Digital Product Manager, leading product strategy, operations, and technical delivery for the video streaming platform Carnegie Hall+. I translate artistic mission into scalable, high-performance streaming architecture that reaches audiences globally. Previously, I led agile product and delivery teams across operations and compliance at American Express, managed Broadway theatrical productions and national tours, and guided strategic initiatives across cultural institutions.
ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALISM & AUTHORSHIP
As a freelance journalist, I investigate how living systems, urban infrastructure, and human culture intersect. My reported features on urban decarbonization, biodiversity, coastal resilience, and biomimicry appear in publications including Smithsonian Magazine, The Washington Post, Mongabay, Natural History Magazine, and Foreign Policy Magazine. In fiction, I write the Emerson Page young adult novel series, alongside upcoming historical fiction and nonfiction works on New York history, mythology, and human resilience. I also write Togetherhood, a LinkedIn newsletter focused on urban ecology and community restoration, and co-host the podcast Frameworks in the Wild.
LIVE EXPERIENCE & CIVIC STORYTELLING
As a licensed New York City tour guide and live event producer, I transform urban landscapes into shared narrative encounters. I created, produce, and host NYC's Secrets and Lies, an interactive live storytelling series staged across cultural landmarks including the New York Transit Museum, the South Street Seaport Museum, and the historic tall ship Wavertree. I also design and lead site-specific walking tours exploring coastal ecology, food history, and neighborhood evolution, often with partners at Climate Week NYC and the Natural Areas Conservancy.
DOUBLE OR NOTHING MEDIA
Through my independent production studio, Double or Nothing Media, I develop ventures across media, ecology, and public history:
Digital Products & Strategy: Architecting scalable digital platforms, streaming experiences, and operational models for mission-driven institutions.
Environmental Reporting & Publications: Delivering long-form reporting, books, and newsletters grounded in climate resilience and regenerative design.
Site-Specific Live Storytelling: Producing immersive live shows and educational walking tours that engage public audiences in community history.
CONNECT
Website & Production Hub: doubleornothingmedia.com and christaavampato.com
Newsletter: Togetherhood on LinkedIn - linkedin.com/newsletters/togetherhood-7273771832221089792/
Instagram & Threads: @christarosenyc
Emerson Page Novels: emersonpagebook.wordpress.com/
View all posts by Christa Avampato
3 thoughts on “Beginning: Learning How to Breathe, Run Barefoot, and Ditch Conventional Wisdom”
I read the same article on barefoot running and thought that it was something that I would try. I’ve been an active runner for 41 years. I’m 45 days away from completing my first “streak” of running every day for a year..I would not suggest that you run the marathon barefoot….I’m sure while its a great training tool, the blisters, cracked feet and other issues would be to much….best of luck and as always glad to read wht you write….
WOW!!! Congratulations!! 365 days of running. What an awesome, amazing accomplishments.
I have no intention of running the marathon barefoot. (Could you imagine – and on the streets of New York City no less?!) I do think the technique is very interesting and I’d like to see if (with shoes) it would help me prepare. Always fun to try out new ways of doing things I’ve done for so long.
I read the same article on barefoot running and thought that it was something that I would try. I’ve been an active runner for 41 years. I’m 45 days away from completing my first “streak” of running every day for a year..I would not suggest that you run the marathon barefoot….I’m sure while its a great training tool, the blisters, cracked feet and other issues would be to much….best of luck and as always glad to read wht you write….
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WOW!!! Congratulations!! 365 days of running. What an awesome, amazing accomplishments.
I have no intention of running the marathon barefoot. (Could you imagine – and on the streets of New York City no less?!) I do think the technique is very interesting and I’d like to see if (with shoes) it would help me prepare. Always fun to try out new ways of doing things I’ve done for so long.
Cheers to you and your running!
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Cheers! It is appropriate time to make some plans for the future and it is time to be happy.
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