I discovered this site two decades or so ago. I used it to teach my then young son—whose name is, appropriately, Ian—how to tie the fast Ian Knot. My spouse, a kindergarten teacher, used it to learn how to tie student's shoes with Ian's Secure Knot which has been very helpful as kid's shoes with conventional knots tend to come untied on the playground.
Same, I learned about Ian's knot over a decade ago myself and after a lifetime of shoelaces coming undone that finally fixed it for me. Well worth the 10 bucks donation.
"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.
It's worth noting that Ian is acknowledging that his not an the Tibetan Trekking Knot are the same (and also the double slit knot). He just says his is a different way of tying it.
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.
You're making a granny knot. If you want the loops to stay sideways, you have to reverse directions between the first and second half of the knot. If you tie the first half left-over-right, then the second half has to be right-over-left.
Yeah, the proper knot shouldn't flip up like a granny knot. Granny knot is what I did in the decades until I stumbled across Ian's website. Granny knot would always come undone.
I'll have to give that secure knot a try. My son keeps getting his shoelaces undone, and we tend to solve it with just an extra knot on top, but maybe there's a better solution.
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.
Woah, he spends 60 hours a week? That is some serious dedication. It is nice to know such passionate sites and individuals still exist on the internet today!
It is sad to see that Ian is struggling to fund the site: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/support.htm