An excellent point! Although I still cannot feel any sort of angle to my foot in my skates (really- I went and put them back on after saying that the first time. I can SEE a heel- so obviously there must be some angle, but my foot feels like it is level in the skate. The boots I'm wearing now, I can feel that there is a grade between my toe and heel) , I imagine if they were truly flat, we'd have to spend a lot more energy lifting up into the right position so that our weight was moved to the middle.

At least I tend to put about 99% of my walking weight on my heel (I sound like an elephant when I walk on stairs and i'm a light girl)- so to shift the weight from flat off of my heel would require me to essentially skate like i'm walking on my tip toes.

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
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I saw a pair of these up in Seattle a couple of weeks ago. Interesting design, but the boots had a (very annoying) squeak!

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Gordon Zaft
http://sk8rboi.blogspot.com
School figures are skating's equivalent of the Latin Mass.

Yes but before the French revolution, ballet was more of a corps de ballet formation dance group kind of thing than the modern-day ballet with prima ballerina's we think of when we say ballet. I think? I don't think there was much jumping in it back then.
I also doubt you can compare ballet dancing shoes to skates. Ballet dancing shoes need extremely flexible soles - just like latin dance shoes do. In a figure skate, flexible soles would be a bit of an abomination, considering the blades don't bend.


I wonder if the heel is why back 3's are more difficult than forward 3's?

BTW Yuri Bureiko skates on some sort of... Well I'm not sure how to describe it. The back of his blade curls up sharply (not at 90 degrees though) at the back and continues to go upwards for about an inch. So he can do sort of ina bauer-type things except with his toes pointing in the air. Looks a bit like stunt inline skating. But even he has heels under his skates.

Is it this blade- http://www.johnwatts.force9.co.uk/freedom.htm Michael Weiss has used them extensively in the US. This is another blade that does that- http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06...r/source/3.htm

(BTW- I mentioned pointe shoes just as another "tradition" based sport/art where change is slow. I mentioned it as a "but there is another option" that some people do not like... not as in comparision to skating materials. As skaters we shun the idea of a plasticky boot, and many in ballet do too- but there is a "modern technology" shoe out there, and it is gaining ground. In a way- it's like the paramount blades. When they first came out it was a "it's never going to work" and now they are all over the place. But they do give a different feeling to the performance on the ice (not just color, just the shape/sound of the blade) so some people still have their doubts about the blade)

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

That is true what you said. I was just responding to what you wrote, about....'It's very difficult to spin in a boot with no heel'. I just said it is not very difficult to spin without heels. I just think that as long as there's adequate ankle support, then you can spin easily without heels.

I really want a pair of those blades, but I'd be useless in them anyway. Maybe when I hit the lottery...

Thanks for the links, especially the Business Week piece - I hadn't read that article.

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Well, it does look like one of them. I think his is pictured in the second link, but I'm not sure.

Is this the same Yuri who is Director of the ISS in Coventry? He was on the ice just before me this morning, I must pay more attention !

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The impossible is just a journey away ...

There's also Michael Weiss' "Freedom Blades" but I don't think they are making them anymore. . .
http://www.michaelweiss.org/photos/newweiss8.gif
http://www.michaelweiss.org/photos/patinage.gif

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

If you don't have a heel, you must exert more effort to get up on the spin spot at the front of the blade.

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Yeah.....but I'm going back to the original comment of whether it's 'very difficult' to spin without heels, or not. And it is not very difficult at all to spin without heels. There may be a small difference in effort required, and difference in feel, but certainly is not very difficult to spin without heels.

My BFF's DD is in a class with Michael Weiss' DD. For my birthday this year, she gave me a closeup of the first photo autographed by the man himself. She says he's really, really nice and funny. (Whenever we watch skating, my twins ask if every dark-haired male skater is "the guy with the cool skates.")

But back to my question: other than the heelie-spreadeagle, what else do we figure skaters use our heels for when skating?
I came up with one more: heel pivots; I put them in a boy's skating program a year or so ago. Still, it's not really skating on the blade - it just uses the heel point.

What use would flat heels be for figure skaters?

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I just made a Klingbeil appt for Thursday morning, so I was thinking about the final fitting for newly-made custom skates. One of the first steps is to try the boots on without the blades and I can remember feeling like Herman Munster in these stiff-soled platform boots. The "feel the heel" discovery went away once the blades were mounted and I put the skates on again. Perhaps the reason we don't notice the heel height as much is because of the side-to-side balancing of the blades or the pivot points where the stanchions attach to the soleplate?

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The ice dancers article says they use them to be able to skate in full splits.
It seems like partner/pairs would have more possibilities of supported positions.

It also seems like you'd be able to do an array of gliding motions (i'm thining a spiral with the leg in the front, leaning back- normally causing you to fall on the back of your head) or spins that wouldn't be allowed on normal blades- but because no points would be awarded for these in the new system (where things are all about assigned points and don't reward new discoveries outside of the system) there isn't a lot of motivation for discovery for new technique. Heel spread eagles are novelty enough for show skating- maybe give it time and things will be created with it?

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Hmmm I don't really like those blades, definitely not for free skate, even though Micheal Weiss used them. Sort of blah to me. Anyway higher heels help with knee bend I used a 2 1/4" heel and found it helpful, but when I changed over to the Jackson proflex it was a 1 3/4" heel not a huge difference but noteable. LIke doubletoe said most of my weight is in the ball of my foot I very rarely go back to the heel, your not supposed to skate their. I mean really how often do you hear your coach yell lean back!!?? Unless you are just leaning to far forward, then you trip over your toepicks, where else do you have to go but the ball of your foot???

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This guy:

He had the cool blades in summercamp. If he's changed them in for normal ones I'm gonna pout, they looked so cool!

yeah, my coach has these, and hers have developed the squeak. It is caused by leather rubbing against leather as they flex. Once they get a bit broken in and the ankle part can be pulled in tighter, seems they sound like a horse's saddle. I have seriously been considering a pair, for the afore-mentioned knee bend possibilities, but the sound is rather off-putting.

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Karen

I skate - therefore I am

Maybe could try a teeny bit of non-staining silicone spray. The squeak might disappear.

Yes, that's him. I must try and get a look at his blades next time I see him ...

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UK Passport (figure)
Bronze : PASSED 13-Oct-07 Woohoo
Silver: PASSED 08-Dec-07 Yippee
Gold: Backspin PASSED One Foot Spin ____ Toe Loop ____ Programme ____
The impossible is just a journey away ...

I would think the heel on the boot helps also with extension and aids the look skaters are aiming for. (speed skaters and hockey players don't care what they look like when skating!). I don't think the heels on most boots are high enough to be that noticeable when you put them on but I think you would notice if you didn't have a heel. You would need even more flexion at the ankle to get good extension which is made difficult because of the stiff back of the boot (hence why some dance boots have a cut out at back of course). It would make getting good kneebend more of a strain on the backs of the calves too.

I come back to my sit spin example though. You don't need much of a heel to make all the difference. About an inch or two is enough. If you have no heel then your weight is forced right back (in sit position) and to get on the ball of the blade to spin you need to lift your heel if you want to stay with good posture in the sit position. That's hard in a stiff boot with absolutely no heel. The 1 or 2 inch skating heel just fills the gap that makes all the difference.

I can squat right down and get good position with my feet right on my tiptoes or lowering heels all the way down to just about 1.5" off the floor - but the last inch or so is the killer. When I put my heels down flat my weight tips right back. The closer your heel is to the flat position the more you have to counterbalance with your upper body forward and the more strain there is and less attractive position.

Son used to skate in Risports which he loved as they have probably the highest heel of any of the brands. Daughter never got on with the Reidells she had, with their lower heels.

The Freedom Blades were made by John Watts (company founded by ex-head coach of our rink (now in Chicago I think)) but company is now defunct and I haven't heard that anyone took on the freedom blade design so probably can't get them now.

Daughter uses the heel of her blades for a rather showy one foot heel stop!

OT I did a camp with Yuri in the summer too - it was good fun but hard work!

When skating forwards, your weight is not on the ball of the foot, it is over the arch or just to the back part of the arch. If you watch advanced skaters carefully, when they are just skating forwards, not doing anything in particular, you will see a sort of extra push on one foot. It's a push from the heel, really a small power pull kind of push. Speaking of which, I defy anyone to do F power pulls on the balls of their feet. This is exactly what makes F power pulls hard to learn; you have to be to the back of the blade, where the slightest lean back can send you off the back of the blade and pretty much straight down. When skating backwards, you do have the weight on the ball of the foot.

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What about flexibility for spirals, does the heel help to stretch through the standing leg maybe?

BTW my teacher tells or told me to lean more back quite often: on the sit spin, on the crossovers , on backwards outside crossrolls, on spirals.

A girl at our rink has the same problem. She's actually studying to be a sports teacher so at some point it became a problem for her (not in skating), and they found out eventually that some tendons or muscles or something she has in her legs are too short, and there's nothing you can do about it, it's genetical. It's impossible for her to squat with the heels on the ground.

I'll take your word that most don't. The Gaynor Minden web site does sell some with, and If you look up "pointe shoes" "high heels" on a search page, you will see lots of them, with stiletto-thin heels. They don't look good for escalators.

The back end of the skate is useful for some things:

Since switching from dance to freestyle blades, I've put lots of holes in my pants. Much harder to do in dance blades!

I wasn't meaning it as a problem. I can do it, but I think for everyone it is the same that the lower your heels are to the ground in a squatting position, the further forward your weight has to be to counterbalance, whatever the length of your tendons.