Mid month update

After my blade was re positioned last week, I was able, this week, to skate twice. I needed to fined tuned what the bootfiter adjusted. He looked mostly at forward outside edges because those are the biggest issue because of my pronation, so I checked all the other edges doing all forward/ backward the turns in my repertoire. The alignment is not perfect but I think and hope it may be good enough. I won't put in yet the permanent screws, but  I hope I can block myself to think about the blades and just skate.

The last months I was at least half the time focused on the blades, with a little intention towards exercising the muscles and a little social skating.

I want now to dust off my skating technique. I want to put together a list of skating exercises starting with the easier ones and built on that.

Fingers crossed!

Adjusting the blade

So I finally bit the bullet and hired a bootfiter to adjust the blade. He is not located at a rink, but comes to the rink for an hour for a fee of $90.

On my old, collapsed boots, after I rebuilt them I adjusted the blade myself. I tried on these new boots, only I felt the temporary screws that allow adjustments had to be moved. 

Here comes an extremely long story...  My right foot is size 5, the left is 5.5. I've chosen to buy boots size 5 because I figured trough trying different boots, plus the custom that felt too big, that Riedell changed the toe box on the current models and I've felt that added a 1/4 size. Also the size 5.5 I tried felt too large in volume. This size 5 fells just a tiny long for my right foot, and a tiny small for my left foot, and that was stretched out. The volume feels a little bit larger at the ankle than my old boots. I have hypermobile ligaments, that means I need a small volume boots, otherwise I don't feel supported. To add to the difficulty, I pronate, on both feet, more on my right foot.

The blade on both my boots felt unsupported under the inside of the heels, the left foot more. The left foot felt also too forward on the blade and also crooked between the front of the blade and back.

I've met the bootfitter, I asked if I should tell him what I think or to let him come to it himself. He said to tell him, and then he will observe himself. We started with the right foot, and he asked me to glide forward on it while balancing on the sweet spot on the blade that is at the back side of the foot's arch. I was slowly sliding towards left, so falling towards inside. He played with the placement of the boot several times. He also added a wedge inside the boots, under my insole, and outside the boots, between the blade and the boot. I was doing some exercises after all these adjustments, going straight forward, sustained long outside edge (like in dance), the outside forward entry in bracket and power pulls. We came to exactly what I was feeling and that was to move the back of the blade towards inside, by moving the screws. He drilled a hole a little more from the previous hole, so the screw can catch and not collapse into the old hole. We came into something that held the elusive outside edge... I hope everything else is balanced too, we were running out of time I haven't got the chance to try turns, but power pulls weren't perfectly stable.

As almost an hour had passed, he said let's look at the left. And through same "judgment"  he agreed that I needed the heel of the blade moved in by moving the screw, only there was not enough space. It could be mounted more towards the edge using the permanent screws... only we weren't sure exactly how much the blade towards inside. That is what the temporary screws are for, adjusting. To complicate the matter, the sole of this left boot is fabricated slightly smaller than the right, plus that boot was stretched forward, I felt I was forward on the blade... so we came to the "crazy" solution, that he never tried before, to mount the blade sticking out on the front of the boot. That will give space in the back for the blade to be moved "in" and also will put me more "back" on the blade, as I was feeling off balance, too forward.  In order to do this, he needed to take the boots to his shop, plug in the holes, let them dry and the mount the blade catching half of this plugged old hole, half on untouched sole.

I picked the boots up the next day and went skating. I again didn't have time to go through every edge and turn, but... Big relief that the left blade seems to be in the right spot, I may still have to play with adjustment but there is true hope. The right boot was hurting a little, I think because there are so many insoles in, it lifted my foot. It also felt crocked?

Well, I woke up next night with intense foot, ankle and knee pain. I knew immediately that the culprit must be the wedge inside the boot... and yes it was. This was not a simple wedge,  it continued with an arch that it seems interfered with my regular insoles arch. The next day I hurt all day, thankfully the second day it calmed down. 

So at this point, hopefully I have the screws in the right spot so I can continue with the blade adjustment.

Monthly skating review: progress and goals adjustment

Last month, as I reported already, I didn't skate the first week. The following 2 weeks I was able to skate I think 3 times per week. 

Last week there was a lot of skating to watch, the national championship and european championship on tv/ peacock, and the the Midwestern Synchro Sectionals on usfsa fun zone. I chose to watch live instead of skate, because... there is no replay.

Going back to my skating, I am in my new boots for few months now. While I wasn't able to skate regularly I skated enough to considered them broken in. But during the times when I was able to skate 3 times per week, including these last weeks, I've realized I can still work on tightening them more, so mold them a little more. That will give me a more secure fit. And I need the best fit I can get out of them, before adjusting the blade. I am pretty sure that the left  blade, and maybe the right too, need to be moved towards inside more that the temporary screws allow, so I'm happy I make progress into figuring that out.

While on ice, I'm feeling occasionally of balance (when I goo too deep into edges). That makes me be cautious.  I'm able to do my regular warm up exercises, dance exercises and even run the last moves I tested. I don't feel it is worth it to work on the next level dance and moves elements. I also don't jump since I'm in temporary mounted blades. I also can barely spin forward since the blades is not align I feel I'm "falling in", cannot hold the edge. The back spin feels better, though it was never a strong spin for me.

What I can do is work on old dances, since I've forgotten the steps on some that I tested already, and continue learning steps from new ones. Also, skating the warm up and the comfortable moves helps as exercise, improves my muscles and stamina. Hopefully I can get the blade aligned and feel comfortable to do more soon.