Frustration Vent

After just a couple of times wearing them around the house, the boots fit fine. In fact, if anything, they may be a little too roomy. That may be able to be fixed if I want to send them back to Joe. He guarantees the fit, regardless of how many adjustments he has to make. (I love his company name, BTW: Maranatha, Inc. What a name for a figure skate dealer!)

My frustration is with the left blade. Typically, blades get "center-mounted." Sometimes you buy them separate from the boot, and sometimes you can buy the boot/blade package. Either way, you generally have them mounted to line up with the toe and heel seams on the boot, then adjust from there. The front and back sole plates each have sliding screw slots as well as round ones. If you just mount the blade with the sliding slots, you can move it one way or the other until it's right where you need it. Well, I pronate so badly on my left knee and ankle that sliding the blade as far to the inside as the sliding slots would allow was not in far enough. We probably moved it about 1/4 inch total. (That doesn't sound like a lot, but believe me -- it is!) There is only about 1/8 inch left to go before the inside edge of the front sole plate is even with the edge of the boot. But we have to redrill the holes to get it there. Mandy is loathe to do that. She thinks I need to work on realigning my balance instead. I've lived with my pronation for 51 years. I have no desire to completely retrain myself to stand, walk, sit, and skate when a simple 1/8 inch blade move will give me what I want.

I told her I'd give her 2 weeks of trying to skate on the blade as it is. After that, I'm getting out my cordless mini drill! (I redrilled my old ones, by golly. I can do it again!) In the meantime, I can hardly maneuver on the blade. I can't hold a flat, much less an outside edge. I can't stop to save my life - very unsafe! The outside of the toe pick scrapes on everything I try to do. It's very scary because I feel like I'll go head-over-toepicks at any moment. Last night I managed some very tentative circle pumps, a few careful grapevine swizzles and slaloms, some crossovers and 3-turns at the boards. That's about it. It's a waste of my ice bill money ($17/hour), my lesson money ($40/hour), and my brand new skates ($250) if I can't skate on them properly. Lisa even put them on and skated around in them for about 10 minutes. While she was able to find the outside edge, she agreed that the left blade hooked horribly to the inside.

For now, I miss the energy of skating all out, and I miss doing my spins and jumps. I want to run through my program in the worst way. Instead, I'm hanging onto the boards like a frightened beginner! Mandy is reluctantly allowing me to wear my old skates for Learn-to-Skate. I can't be trying to teach new skaters who can barely stand up when I can't even stand up myself!

Maranatha!