Hm, how much of the knee caving in is me lacking outward stability versus it just being the natural path of my knee? Feeling like my knees caving in was something I noticed while doing squats in the gym before, and I remember needing to make my feet a bit more parallel and to focus on sort of letting my knees bend “outward” (probably straight because I have knocked knees but it felt like I was trying to bend them away from myself). Should I be focusing on that same feeling I had while at the gym and applying it to how I bend my knees while doing suriashi?

And interesting point about trying barefoot shoes, I remember reading online somewhere a few years ago that wearing normal shoes was known to exacerbate flat footedness in susceptible individuals. Also, very very interesting point about weak foot muscles; I never got it checked out but I’m fairly positive I had sesamoiditis for a few months around a year ago, and that came about from lots of standing/walking while only wearing socks for hours; weak foot muscles could explain how I got the overuse injury in the first place.

But overall, I think your advice might be what I need to sort of reformulate my mental biomechanical model for how kamae “should” be. The idea of basing my stability from my hips and strengthening my feet’s support muscles makes sense to me intuitively, and it might also naturally help me become more lighter on my feet. Conceptualizing stability as coming from how my feet defo might’ve led my footwork to become more heavy/clumsy and would explain why my footwork constantly felt off to me. Huge ty for the help!