- Joined
- Jul 26, 2016
I have started skating again after a many decades pause. For a variety of reasons, its taken me a while to work up to just simple forward stroking and beginning crossovers, but I found my feet were in a lot of pain and that I couldn't really stop properly. After a while, I figured out that the skates themselves were part of the problem.
I was skating in a boot/blade combo (not lowest level recreational, but intro level instructional) with plastic soles. I realized that the blades were not positioned consistently on each boot, which may be part of my challenge and explain why my left foot is more tilted to the inside edge than my right foot. They were also just not very comfortable, even though I had gone to the well-known skating boutique in our area to be fitted.
I decided the skates weren't working for me, so I recently got fitted for full custom boots at Harlick with orthotics, which should alleviate the myriad of complaints I had about the existing boots, especially the arch cramping due to excessive pronation and tongue twisting.
I would like very much to start proper learn-to-skate lessons as I feel I need proper instruction to get back into it and make some progress. However, I'm not really able to skate properly in the current boots and frankly I am in excrutiating pain in my arches after about 15 minutes and I need to get off the ice. i don't expect to get my Harlicks until mid-late September and then I'll need to take some time to break them in, so it will be probably October before they are fully ready for lessons.
The seasons usually start in early September, so if I sign up for lessons, I'll have to start on the crappy skates that I have. Given that they are confirmed to be a poor fit for my feet (and the blade positioning is wacky and can't be fixed on plastic bottom skates), would I be making things worse by trying to to do lessons on messed up skates? Should I just wait until my new skates arrive, break them in, and then start with the lessons (understanding I will have missed the first few weeks and have to pay for them anyway). I don't want to get into bad habits because of the bad skates, but maybe its not too much of a concern? Your thoughts would be appreciated.
I was skating in a boot/blade combo (not lowest level recreational, but intro level instructional) with plastic soles. I realized that the blades were not positioned consistently on each boot, which may be part of my challenge and explain why my left foot is more tilted to the inside edge than my right foot. They were also just not very comfortable, even though I had gone to the well-known skating boutique in our area to be fitted.
I decided the skates weren't working for me, so I recently got fitted for full custom boots at Harlick with orthotics, which should alleviate the myriad of complaints I had about the existing boots, especially the arch cramping due to excessive pronation and tongue twisting.
I would like very much to start proper learn-to-skate lessons as I feel I need proper instruction to get back into it and make some progress. However, I'm not really able to skate properly in the current boots and frankly I am in excrutiating pain in my arches after about 15 minutes and I need to get off the ice. i don't expect to get my Harlicks until mid-late September and then I'll need to take some time to break them in, so it will be probably October before they are fully ready for lessons.
The seasons usually start in early September, so if I sign up for lessons, I'll have to start on the crappy skates that I have. Given that they are confirmed to be a poor fit for my feet (and the blade positioning is wacky and can't be fixed on plastic bottom skates), would I be making things worse by trying to to do lessons on messed up skates? Should I just wait until my new skates arrive, break them in, and then start with the lessons (understanding I will have missed the first few weeks and have to pay for them anyway). I don't want to get into bad habits because of the bad skates, but maybe its not too much of a concern? Your thoughts would be appreciated.