The key detail is to not end up with a granny knot. The way you tie your initial overhand knot needs to match so that it sits correctly and doesn’t come untied.
It's really excellent, my shoes never come untied and I don't have to double-knot
I can reliably teach an 8 year old Cub Scout how to do a reef knot and a clovehitch and that's about it.
For my shoelaces, I was making two buddy ears and just tying them together. I'd seen the Ian knot in a TED video as well as on this site and just couldn't get it. I tried over and over again only for the laces to flaccidly flop out of my hands, or for me to end up with a simple overhand knot.
It struck me one day, like a bolt of lightning, all of a sudden I was able to tie it. And boy am I glad I did. I think I was able to piece together how I needed to avoid a granny knot, but otherwise the inspiration was completely inexplicable.
Tying my laces with the Ian knot is such a small thing, but if you piece together enough of those little things your life will change drastically - for the better. If you can only do one thing for yourself this week, learn the Ian knot.
Just checked and another of my photos is one of the Best Of ones, that's neat.
It's time we stopped calling those aberrations "walled gardens" but rather damp dungeons.
I recommend it if you have enough extra focus-energy left in your day to put some thought into shoelaces.
This site was one of the top sites on Dogpile and then Google in its heyday. Google was the better search engine when it was new, but it wasn't impossible to find things on the early internet before that unless you knew someone.
Now I just leave my shoes tied and slip them on and off. The knots come loose once a year or two.
Ian's Shoelace Site - >>35377589 - March 2023 (4 comments)
Ian Knot (2003) - >>27728002 - July 2021 (66 comments)
The “Granny Knot” - >>26867300 - April 2021 (255 comments)
C.I.A. Lacing (2014) - >>24091391 - Aug 2020 (89 comments)
Ian Knot - >>16454796 - Feb 2018 (47 comments)
Ian's Shoelace Site - >>13399095 - Jan 2017 (116 comments)
Shoelace knots - >>10200917 - Sept 2015 (43 comments)
Shoe Lacing Methods - >>9966073 - July 2015 (5 comments)
Shoelace Knots - >>1914731 - Nov 2010 (1 comment)
Fast. Easy. Clean. Shoelace Knot. - >>1063086 - Jan 2010 (41 comments)
How to tie world's fastest shoelace knot - >>111756 - Feb 2008 (11 comments)
I doubt he invented that, because I've been tying my shoes with that knot my entire life and I'm 70 years old. My dad showed me this because it's the way he tied his shoes and he was born in 1912.
It doesn't use the "Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot", but it shows that for the typical way of tying your shoes, there is a "strong form" and a "weak form", and shows you how to tell the difference.
I got lucky and have been tying the strong form my whole life, but it's sorta 50/50 depending on how you learn.
Make sure you tie it balanced!
It is sad to see that Ian is struggling to fund the site: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/support.htm
> The whole twisted mess of the previous drawing will rearrange itself into exactly the same finished knot as my Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot.
I did glance at the Ian's version for sanity, but somehow missed that part in the link I posted; thanks.
"Ian's Secure Knot" is just a rebranding of a knot that is also known as the "Berluti knot", "Tibetan Trekking Knot", "Sherpa Knot" or the "Double slip knot".
It's a great knot, the best way to tie your laces, but spin it as much as you like it's just a bow with a double twist on the second twist, and has existed since long before Ian or Berluti tried to claim it as their own.
There are only so many ways to twist a string, and practical knots tend to be simple, knots get reinvented all the time before ending in a book. This is also why there there is no approximation in knox tying. If your knot is slightly different than what's on the book, it is probably another knot (see: square knot, granny knot, thief knot, grief knot), or just a mistake no one bothered to give it a name.
And I second that it's the best knot for tying laces. Especially if you have synthetic laces (common on some trekking shoes) that come undone easily.
US adults (and, to a lesser extent, those in Europe—I gather the loafer caps out a bit lower there as far as how “high up” you can dress it) can get away with wearing slip-on shoes a whole lot of the time, while also looking smarter-dressed than sneakers or what have you.
Doesn’t get you away from laces entirely, but can seriously cut down on how often you have to fiddle with them.
(Or you can come at it the other way and become a Crocs Guy, of course)
I actually discovered this stuff via a real-life physical book (complete with practice laces built into the cover!) which was published sometime more than 15 years ago.
Edit: Fixed the name of my favorite knot.
I will also recycle a comment from there:
> There's a certain kind of sci-fi premise of "what if every intelligent species has something they're particularly good at."
> Naturally, most stories revolve around something impressive (or damning) for humanity like "war" or "kindness", but in the past I've wondered what kind of story one could make if the answer was "knots".
> Perhaps that's a question for mathematicians, and whether some facility for topological knot-thinking might be very handy in some kind of physics or engineering.
Wonder if there is a way to get the loops to stay sideways. With thick/stiff laces, they seem to end up orienting themselves up-and-down.
IIRC the reason was "yield" - I found my Ian knots were often wonky. So you save 2-3 seconds but the tradeoff is mental energy for doing "QA" on your shoelace knot!
But that was many years ago, I should try again. Maybe you just need more practice.
I've been tying my shoes for a couple of years now with his "Ian Knot" method, and it works very well. I never mastered the asymmetrical single-loop method, so all my life I'd been doing the bunny ears. Maybe the asymmetrical method doesn't make sense to me for a symmetrical knot. The Ian Knot makes more sense and is easier and faster.
Others in the family tried it too, but I don't think it stuck with them.
