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icepixieMy first thought on getting out on the ice in my new skates: Oh, so this is what edges feel like!
My second thought on getting out on the ice in my new skates: Oh god, where did all my skills go?!?! (Relevant video link.)
Some of them came back, albeit slowly. I thought for sure I would be faceplanting over the relatively ginormous toepicks I have now, but that didn't happen. The threat of it did make me very careful about bending my knees and keeping my weight as far back as possible, though. Slaloms were pretty nifty that way (did I mention I have edges now?), and stroking wasn't too bad. Swizzles, half-swizzles, and backwards-butt-wiggles went reasonably well, and bizarrely enough, the skates drastically improved my backwards airplane curves. Less so my forward ones, but there's a definite difference.
My two-foot turn has disappeared completely, but I think that may be because I'm terrified of tripping over it until I get used to these blades. My snowplow stop has...I think it's gotten better, actually, in that I was scared to actually go all out and do it, but even a timid little foot-poking managed to stop me almost as well as going all out in the rentals did. So that's handy.
I was not brave enough to try spinning, and definitely not brave enough for crossovers. I think those are going to have to wait for the weekend.
The boots do feel better when I'm skating in them--the knee bend really does serve to push the heel further back and give a little more toe room--and I think they'll break in nicely over the next month. I ran into my instructor in the lobby as I was leaving and he said to give it a month before doing any punching in the toebox, which I hope I can manage. We'll see.
My second thought on getting out on the ice in my new skates: Oh god, where did all my skills go?!?! (Relevant video link.)
Some of them came back, albeit slowly. I thought for sure I would be faceplanting over the relatively ginormous toepicks I have now, but that didn't happen. The threat of it did make me very careful about bending my knees and keeping my weight as far back as possible, though. Slaloms were pretty nifty that way (did I mention I have edges now?), and stroking wasn't too bad. Swizzles, half-swizzles, and backwards-butt-wiggles went reasonably well, and bizarrely enough, the skates drastically improved my backwards airplane curves. Less so my forward ones, but there's a definite difference.
My two-foot turn has disappeared completely, but I think that may be because I'm terrified of tripping over it until I get used to these blades. My snowplow stop has...I think it's gotten better, actually, in that I was scared to actually go all out and do it, but even a timid little foot-poking managed to stop me almost as well as going all out in the rentals did. So that's handy.
I was not brave enough to try spinning, and definitely not brave enough for crossovers. I think those are going to have to wait for the weekend.
The boots do feel better when I'm skating in them--the knee bend really does serve to push the heel further back and give a little more toe room--and I think they'll break in nicely over the next month. I ran into my instructor in the lobby as I was leaving and he said to give it a month before doing any punching in the toebox, which I hope I can manage. We'll see.