Casey
06-01-2008, 01:23 AM
Well it's been crazy crazy times. I moved to California a year ago, and spent a good many months not working and just enjoying life and pursuing causes I believe in, which was only ruined by a certain skater from Portland deciding to become a police informant about the alternative lifestyle I was living, which resulted in the state taking custody of my son and me having to go through an awful lot of crap to try to get it back (you ever wanna really screw with somebody's life for months on end, that's the way to do it). Anyways she seems to have disappeared from here on her own, and I can only hope that she's quit skating and will never cause such events to happen to anyone else again. I don't wish her any ill, but I've never experienced any sort of personal attack that bad - it really shook my faith in humanity in general for a long while. Fortunately, that's all in the past and over now! Then I ended up working at a job I absolutely hated, and that really bogged down my life more than I realized until I quit - I skated perhaps five or ten times in the entire year. Then my skates got accidentally donated to a thrift store by a well-intended friend, bought for $24 by a random person who looked up my name on the internet from the markings on the skates, E-mailed offering them back to me, and then I guess they changed their mind and kept them because they stopped responding to E-mail after failing to meet me to give them back as I was expecting. I guess they sold them instead as they were worth quite a bit, and I wasn't offering a reward. :P Oh well, despite all this that year was well-spent and I accomplished a great many positive things.
Anyways on to the good and the present! I got a new job that I love, and right next to where I live so no more riding the train an hour a day to commute! This is especially nice because it makes it much easier to skate at Oakland Ice rather than Yerba Buena - which is a far, far better rink, and less crowded too (though I still think the Seattle area has the best rinks I've ever seen). And I did buy new skates, a little while back actually prior to leaving my old job, so now that I'm settling comfortably into my new routine, I've been skating again!
It's kind of funny though when you move to a new area though - in the mornings I go in and see names on the sign-in sheet that I previously only heard announced at Sectionals/Nationals. :P
I hired a new coach, a man this time (all my previous coaches were women), and I don't know if that has any weight on the difference - maybe it enables us to communicate better - but damn, whatever the reason, he's amazing. He knows exactly when to be nice and when to be hard, and things just /flow/. When I came back to the ice I had lost so so soooooo much of my abilities from a year off, and I was doing everything wrong and couldn't remember how to fix things myself. Without hesitation or delay, he started correcting things and suggesting better practice routines and off-ice exercises. He was also the first coach to really analyze my skates and balance on them to ensure that the mounting was not causing any problems (though I got them from the same great fitter (Vicky Zander in Portland - highly recommend!) as my last pair so I wasn't too concerned). And he immediately asked me about desire to compete and was equally enthusiastic about the prospect as me (he compliments me for skating with the mentality of a child rather than a typical adult), which was really nice considering my last coach thought it was silly for adults to bother. Which isn't to say my last coach was bad by any means, she was really great in a lot of ways, but I'm just really amazed with the new one. :D
So, great rink, amazing coach, new skates, and a supporting lifestyle that's really stress-free. What more could a skater ask for? Okay, I guess maybe a sane and motivated pairs partner might be nice at some point, but I'm quite happily focusing on my own skating for now. Yay! I guess I'll be posting here more often again. :)
The observant reader might say, "hey, what sort of new skates did you get?", as I left that detail out. Well, I went with Klingbeils again (briefly considered Harlick because they're local, but I already knew I'd love Klingbeils so I decided to stick with them). Not being near my Klingbeil fitter didn't matter because they already have a last carved for my feet in New York, so that worked out nicely. :) I went with black soles this time rather than natural, which is proving to be nice in that I don't have to bother with maintaining them nearly as much. I still do prefer how my old skates looked, at least most of the time, though.
So how about them blades? Well, my first inclination was to get Gold Seals again. But if I was going to cough up that much money, I wanted gold-plating which looks really sharp with the natural soled boots, and John Wilson said that there would be a 17 WEEK delay in getting a pair made in my size and shipped over. So my mind quickly changed to "maybe later". I thought about lower-end blades, specifically I was considering Four Aces (but I really wanted an 8' rocker instead of 7') and Coronation Comets (curious about the 8.5' rocker, dreamed of skating faster...).
A crazy thought occurred to me, and I dug through my old E-mail and found Rob of Paramount Sk8s address, and contacted him about getting a pair of Paramounts. Some of you probably remember the long thread I started a couple years ago here which brought a lot of criticism and negative assumption about these blades, and ultimately resulted in Rob defending the blades personally here and arguments ensuing and just an overall lot of negativity (that thread is completely deleted now by my request, so don't bother trying to find it). Anyways I felt I owed it to Rob to try out the blades firsthand, rather than trying to make good guesses about something I'd never actually tried. So that's what I have now.
And tried them I have, although I'm still adjusting so I'll post up a more complete opinion after some more weeks on them. :) But I did want to share some impressions I've had so far, since I was so skeptical before.
1. The blades are not a drop in replacement for gold seals. The rocker is quite different, and I was actually more successful at spinning on rental skates (!) than the Paramounts in the first couple sessions I tried them in. But change is not necessarily a bad thing, and I believe thus far that it's just a matter of getting used to. But they are different, and take some getting used to.
2. The longer blades are significantly beefier than the smaller ones I'd seen before, which is really nice. The aluminum portion is thicker to compensate for the additional strain that the length of the blade introduces. Thus far, they've proven plenty strong, though I'm not working on new jumps again yet, which is where crazy landings happen and put sideways and other weird stresses on the blade sometimes. The aluminum seems thick enough though, that I'm not concerned.
3. Before when we discussed the flexibility of steel versus aluminum, I had guessed that the slight flex that steel blades have during skating might actually be a beneficial thing. But in thinking more on it, any flex in the blade would be to the sides, not up and down, so it would never aid in any way, and this sort of flex would just cause more of the blade to be in contact with the ice, which would result in more friction and slower skating. I can say now that not having flexibility in the blade is a very good thing. At first there was just a certain rigid feeling about them, and I felt pretty clumsy. But at this point, I'm able to jump as high as I ever could if not more, and I'm not even back at the same strength/stamina level yet.
4. The quality of the steel used for the runners on the blades (I got the 440's, which have the best grade of steel runner that Paramount offers) is absolutely phenomenal. I used to carry a honing stone, and would give my skates a quick sharpening prior to most sessions, just to get a little extra bite that I always liked having. And sharpened them more thoroughly either myself or professionally every few weeks, as most people do. I haven't touched these blades once since they came to me from Vicky's sharpener, and they are still VERY sharp, even more than I ever felt on the gold seals, with no maintenance. Now, I treat my blades well as I always have, and step off the ice onto toepicks and immediately put guards on rather than tromping all over the dirty rubber mats...but still, this is quite impressive. And a significant advantage over the Gold Seals. In case that weren't enough, I'm able to get deeper edges more easily now than ever before, and it's always ALWAYS secure - the blade never skids. It is a small bit more difficult to stop, but I'm adjusting to that well. And they're *fast* - I'm able to build up and maintain speed easier on them.
5. As for the weight, well, it really doesn't make much difference to me. My boots are fairly heavy on their own. I probably would have it noticed more had my strength not diminished from neglect, but as it stand's the impact is nothing to write home about.
6. I mentioned spins before...well...they still suffer. However, I've made a good bit of progress, and am finally able to scratch spin pretty decently for 10-15 revolutions before bailing out, and that's getting more centered as I learn the new balance required. 10-15 is a far sight from the nearly 40 I was at before, but I seem to be adapting. I still can't do proper sit spins due or camel spins at all. I really hope that I can get past this, because spinning was always my favorite thing to do.
Anyways, that's more than I intended to write anyways. I'll make a new post after a few more weeks with updated experiences, but I wanted to go ahead and share these first impressions.
It's great to be back!
Anyways on to the good and the present! I got a new job that I love, and right next to where I live so no more riding the train an hour a day to commute! This is especially nice because it makes it much easier to skate at Oakland Ice rather than Yerba Buena - which is a far, far better rink, and less crowded too (though I still think the Seattle area has the best rinks I've ever seen). And I did buy new skates, a little while back actually prior to leaving my old job, so now that I'm settling comfortably into my new routine, I've been skating again!
It's kind of funny though when you move to a new area though - in the mornings I go in and see names on the sign-in sheet that I previously only heard announced at Sectionals/Nationals. :P
I hired a new coach, a man this time (all my previous coaches were women), and I don't know if that has any weight on the difference - maybe it enables us to communicate better - but damn, whatever the reason, he's amazing. He knows exactly when to be nice and when to be hard, and things just /flow/. When I came back to the ice I had lost so so soooooo much of my abilities from a year off, and I was doing everything wrong and couldn't remember how to fix things myself. Without hesitation or delay, he started correcting things and suggesting better practice routines and off-ice exercises. He was also the first coach to really analyze my skates and balance on them to ensure that the mounting was not causing any problems (though I got them from the same great fitter (Vicky Zander in Portland - highly recommend!) as my last pair so I wasn't too concerned). And he immediately asked me about desire to compete and was equally enthusiastic about the prospect as me (he compliments me for skating with the mentality of a child rather than a typical adult), which was really nice considering my last coach thought it was silly for adults to bother. Which isn't to say my last coach was bad by any means, she was really great in a lot of ways, but I'm just really amazed with the new one. :D
So, great rink, amazing coach, new skates, and a supporting lifestyle that's really stress-free. What more could a skater ask for? Okay, I guess maybe a sane and motivated pairs partner might be nice at some point, but I'm quite happily focusing on my own skating for now. Yay! I guess I'll be posting here more often again. :)
The observant reader might say, "hey, what sort of new skates did you get?", as I left that detail out. Well, I went with Klingbeils again (briefly considered Harlick because they're local, but I already knew I'd love Klingbeils so I decided to stick with them). Not being near my Klingbeil fitter didn't matter because they already have a last carved for my feet in New York, so that worked out nicely. :) I went with black soles this time rather than natural, which is proving to be nice in that I don't have to bother with maintaining them nearly as much. I still do prefer how my old skates looked, at least most of the time, though.
So how about them blades? Well, my first inclination was to get Gold Seals again. But if I was going to cough up that much money, I wanted gold-plating which looks really sharp with the natural soled boots, and John Wilson said that there would be a 17 WEEK delay in getting a pair made in my size and shipped over. So my mind quickly changed to "maybe later". I thought about lower-end blades, specifically I was considering Four Aces (but I really wanted an 8' rocker instead of 7') and Coronation Comets (curious about the 8.5' rocker, dreamed of skating faster...).
A crazy thought occurred to me, and I dug through my old E-mail and found Rob of Paramount Sk8s address, and contacted him about getting a pair of Paramounts. Some of you probably remember the long thread I started a couple years ago here which brought a lot of criticism and negative assumption about these blades, and ultimately resulted in Rob defending the blades personally here and arguments ensuing and just an overall lot of negativity (that thread is completely deleted now by my request, so don't bother trying to find it). Anyways I felt I owed it to Rob to try out the blades firsthand, rather than trying to make good guesses about something I'd never actually tried. So that's what I have now.
And tried them I have, although I'm still adjusting so I'll post up a more complete opinion after some more weeks on them. :) But I did want to share some impressions I've had so far, since I was so skeptical before.
1. The blades are not a drop in replacement for gold seals. The rocker is quite different, and I was actually more successful at spinning on rental skates (!) than the Paramounts in the first couple sessions I tried them in. But change is not necessarily a bad thing, and I believe thus far that it's just a matter of getting used to. But they are different, and take some getting used to.
2. The longer blades are significantly beefier than the smaller ones I'd seen before, which is really nice. The aluminum portion is thicker to compensate for the additional strain that the length of the blade introduces. Thus far, they've proven plenty strong, though I'm not working on new jumps again yet, which is where crazy landings happen and put sideways and other weird stresses on the blade sometimes. The aluminum seems thick enough though, that I'm not concerned.
3. Before when we discussed the flexibility of steel versus aluminum, I had guessed that the slight flex that steel blades have during skating might actually be a beneficial thing. But in thinking more on it, any flex in the blade would be to the sides, not up and down, so it would never aid in any way, and this sort of flex would just cause more of the blade to be in contact with the ice, which would result in more friction and slower skating. I can say now that not having flexibility in the blade is a very good thing. At first there was just a certain rigid feeling about them, and I felt pretty clumsy. But at this point, I'm able to jump as high as I ever could if not more, and I'm not even back at the same strength/stamina level yet.
4. The quality of the steel used for the runners on the blades (I got the 440's, which have the best grade of steel runner that Paramount offers) is absolutely phenomenal. I used to carry a honing stone, and would give my skates a quick sharpening prior to most sessions, just to get a little extra bite that I always liked having. And sharpened them more thoroughly either myself or professionally every few weeks, as most people do. I haven't touched these blades once since they came to me from Vicky's sharpener, and they are still VERY sharp, even more than I ever felt on the gold seals, with no maintenance. Now, I treat my blades well as I always have, and step off the ice onto toepicks and immediately put guards on rather than tromping all over the dirty rubber mats...but still, this is quite impressive. And a significant advantage over the Gold Seals. In case that weren't enough, I'm able to get deeper edges more easily now than ever before, and it's always ALWAYS secure - the blade never skids. It is a small bit more difficult to stop, but I'm adjusting to that well. And they're *fast* - I'm able to build up and maintain speed easier on them.
5. As for the weight, well, it really doesn't make much difference to me. My boots are fairly heavy on their own. I probably would have it noticed more had my strength not diminished from neglect, but as it stand's the impact is nothing to write home about.
6. I mentioned spins before...well...they still suffer. However, I've made a good bit of progress, and am finally able to scratch spin pretty decently for 10-15 revolutions before bailing out, and that's getting more centered as I learn the new balance required. 10-15 is a far sight from the nearly 40 I was at before, but I seem to be adapting. I still can't do proper sit spins due or camel spins at all. I really hope that I can get past this, because spinning was always my favorite thing to do.
Anyways, that's more than I intended to write anyways. I'll make a new post after a few more weeks with updated experiences, but I wanted to go ahead and share these first impressions.
It's great to be back!