I've been wearing this type of shoe for tai chi teaching and practice since the mid-1970s, and for wearing around the house, though nowadays when teaching I often wear Discipline martial arts shoes. The good news about these slippers is that they're cheap enough to buy a few pairs at once, and they allow for being able to feel the floor beneath your feet. A pair generally lasts me a few months. As one reviewer noted, they're not optimal for outside wear because the soles will wear out quickly; also, you really don't want to get them wet. You absolutely cannot wash them. Another problem, as noted by a few reviewers, is that the soles are narrow. In the larger sizes, which I wear, or if you have wide feet, this means that the soft upper overlaps the edge of the sole. You want them to fit snugly, so don't order up. It's a pain if they slip off during practice. If you live near a Chinatown, you can buy them for about half the price charged here, though I will say that the quality of the pairs I've bought from Karate Depot is consistently pretty good; this isn't always true of the ones bought in Chinatown.