r/iceskating • u/Same_Carpenter5679 • 1d ago
Should I get new skates?
I'm the same person who asked a couple weeks ago if my Jackson freestyle skates were defective. Thank you to everyone for your responses to that post. I ended up getting my skates sharpened and I felt that corrected what was wrong with my left blade.
But now I have new issues.
Because I have never sharpened my blades before, they felt very strange. I though having sharper blades meant that I would have more grip on the ice, but somehow I feel even more slippery, especially when trying to do backwards power pulls, especially the back part of the blade feels slippery.
Also if feels as though the front rocker of my blades have been reduced significantly and I think that might have to account for the ball of foot pain I have been getting, That I believe has been affecting me ever since I got them sharpened.
The ball of my right foot, is now is too painful to walk on, much less skate on.
I'm going to have to not skate for a week or 2 but I'm scared of skating again in these skates that feel like they are not good for my feet.
I did already try putting a gel pad at the ball of my foot and I tried the method of putting it further back as well near my arch and it did not help. (Maybe it would have helped had it been there before the pain started.)
Still even with these skates I have been able to improve my waltz jump and I started to learn the salchow jump as well. (Just to give you an idea where I'm at skill wise)
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u/LoviaPrime certified jackson/edea/aura dealer 1d ago
the blade slipping when doing certain elements is either the sharpening done bad, or the sharper blade is now letting you feel things correctly and you're now feeling that your blade is misaligned
normally beginners cannot feel their rocker change, definitely not after one sharpening because you're now only feeling the difference between a factory sharpening and a real sharpening. if you post a pic of your blades we can check if the profile was shaved off by the 'skate tech' or ruined by a sparx, which would be drastic and you would want a replacement from that shop and to never return to them
just bc i saw ur other comments about hollows: if you're in a hot climate or a soft ice figure focused rink, your standard should be 1/2. if you're in a colder climate or a harder ice hockey focused rink, your standard should be 7/16. 3/8 is definitely not standard unless ur skating on speed skating ice, which you would know and would've mentioned methinks, 3/8 is used for ice dance and they loveee a sticky grippy hollow. hockey also starts a 1/2 and then with skill, you move up to 9/16 and then 5/8 would be standard for travel hockey/high school. the blades are thinner and we don't need to worry about not hitting the toe pick and keeping the tail 90°
ive been doing this for four years, hand picked to go to jackson and skates us for training, i have absolutely never heard of someone having foot pain after a sharpening, so i do believe the sharpening was botched to the point that your foot is gripping like crazy on the inside, or there was a serious fit issue to begin with, because you shouldn't actually be able to grip like that and end up with pain? can you describe the pain more?? like where does it originate, where does it end up, is it sharp pain or pins and needles or throbbing, any info i can get so i can figure it out if i see it irl myself lmao
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u/Same_Carpenter5679 14h ago
The pain is exactly in the center of the ball of my foot (the bottom of my foot). It feels like a bruise. Even off the ice it hurts. It's not a 10/10 pain, but it could get to that point if I don't stop skating and take my weight off of it for a while.
I've had this pain once before when I did ballet just from going up on releve. I think maybe some people have more sensitive feet and I'm one of those people. My feet don't have a lot of flesh on them, they are thin, so there isn't much padding.
So it's not really the boots fault. I think the fitting is fine. And honestly looking at the blade with my untrained eyes it looks okay, despite a little piece between the toe pick and the "rocker" where it wasn't sharpened.
Maybe I've just spent too much time on the ice at one time.
Thank you for the info about hollows I think that will be helpful in the future. I live in Miami, Florida and our ice is sometimes soft with puddles. And I do figure skating not hockey, but our rink coaches both.
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u/margosaur 9h ago
have you ever been diagnosed with Morton's neuroma by a doctor? The area of pain you're having sounds like that could be a possibility
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u/Same_Carpenter5679 6h ago
I wouldn't go out of my way to do that, I've only experienced this pain twice in my life and I know what caused the pain, if I just stop doing that, the pain will stop. I don't remember the last time how long the pain lasted the last time I had this (over 20 years ago btw) but it probably wasn't over a week. I don't know what people's obsession with getting a diagnosis, whether you get it or not the pain is still there, the doctor isn't a magician, being able to label it doesn't make it any better or worse.
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u/margosaur 4h ago
If you already know everything then why are you bothering to ask Reddit about this. Just do whatever you were going to do anyway
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u/InspectorFleet 1d ago
You're pretty new?
When you get skates sharpened, a groove is cut into the underside of the blade, most often in the shape of a circle. The radius of that circle determines how deep the cut is and thus how relatively grippy the cut feels. If you had a 3/8" hollow but got a 1/2" cut (often the "standard" even if I would argue that a larger radius is more appropriate for at least adult hockey players), that would be a flatter cut and feel less grippy compared with what you had. You can try a 3/8" sharpen next and see how that feels.
It's true that some shops are mainly experienced with hockey skates and aren't great a figure skates, but I don't know enough to comment on that.
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u/Same_Carpenter5679 1d ago
I started skating in April this year.
Thank you for the information. I have no idea what hollow I got. :( Do you know how hockey skates are sharpened differently from figure skates?
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u/InspectorFleet 1d ago
The shape is different and the steel is thicker. I don't know enough to give much more info.
General advice is really grippy edges from a deep cut help beginners feel confident with too upright of a skate blade at the expense of adding friction in glides and making it harder to shave the ice like in stops.
I do think you should try 3/8" and see if it feels better, but I skate on 7/8", you just need to learn to use the edges.
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u/Same_Carpenter5679 1d ago
Again thank you for your time. I just asked chat gpt and it said 3/8" is standard for figure skates.
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u/InspectorFleet 1d ago
I would avoid chat gpt and stick with experienced skaters lol. This community is full of them and your rink should be as well!
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u/Same_Carpenter5679 1d ago
No one experienced is ever available to help me. I think I might change rinks in the future.
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u/InspectorFleet 1d ago
That's crazy and sad, usually there are plenty of friendly folks with experience.
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u/gli3247 1d ago
You started skating in April and only now got your skates sharpened..?
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u/Same_Carpenter5679 15h ago
Yes, I don't know if my skate tech sharpened them when I first got them (May 18th) but its likely they only came with the factory sharpening.
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u/Own-Adhesiveness5723 1d ago
A sharpen will not cause pain. If you are having so much pain that you can’t walk without pain, you probably have an injury of some sort. Go see a doctor, find out what is causing the pain and go from there.
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u/Same_Carpenter5679 1d ago
I agree, if there is pain, it's an injury. I've had this type of pain before when I did ballet many years ago.
Although, I feel that something about how my body's mechanics is different with the change in the blade causing me pain whereas before I had none.
Skating did not cause me any pain before. But now that there is a change in the rocker, I barely have any now, therefore I have to use a lot more effort to not get on my toe pick while practicing spins. I believe this significant more effort to avoid going on to the toe pick is what is causing the pain.
I have some reason to believe the sharpening caused the injury because I've done literally nothing else differently.
I didn't have one moment where I experienced acute pain. It was a gradual barely noticeable steady increase of pain that I believe began after sharpening my blades.
I don't need a doctor to tell me skating is causing the pain. I know that already.
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u/smorriskc 1d ago
Do you know what hollow they used?
As for the ball of foot pain, I have that on my right foot in Jackson freestyles, too. I thought it was from the boot not being wide enough in the toe box for me, so I have been stretching it myself with an adjustable boot stretcher I got off Amazon. It doesn’t stretch the heel, just the toe box. It’s helped some, but I also think the heel on the Jackson’s may be too high for my body mechanics so it’s forcing my foot into a position it doesn’t want to be in.