Skating should not be painful!

Last week on my Instagram I shared some polls in which I asked the community about hurting and skating.

The first question I asked was, “Have you ever experienced pain in your feet while skating due to your boots?”, 86% of the people who voted said yes.

The second question was, “Have you ever spent tons of money in skating boots only to discover those boots don’t suit you?”, to which I got 51%, yes and 49% no. This result doesn’t necessarily mean that this issue is not important. There have been lots of skaters, including myself, that have spent their hard-earned money in order to get better boots and blades/frames, only to discover that they are the wrong size or fit.

Let me tell you a personal story: back in 2014 I switched from ice to wheels. Note that at that time there were not many inline figure skating brands so I didn’t really have many choices. I wrote some of the popular brands and got different quotations. There wasn’t really much info available online so I went for the frames that I thought would be the best for me. The seller kindly asked me what size my current boots were, and I told him.

I bought the complete frame set and a few weeks later I got them in the mail. I unmounted my ice blades from my current boot and installed the new frames. I was happy with that because that’s all I knew, but I realized as soon as I put them on that, while it’s not supposed to be 100% the same feeling on wheels as it is on the ice, it should not be that bad.

After months of trying to do the same things that I did on the ice, and not being able to, I gave up on inline figure skating and focused back on ice figure skating. I found myself improving so much on ice that I really wanted to jump on the leap of having really good quality boots. Having wide feet, I have always gone for a specific brand, so I went to a skating store to get my boots. The tech fitted me on a lower level boot and told me the upper-level boot (that I wanted) was not in stock but that the fit would be the same. I trusted him, tried on a single pair of very low-level boots, and ordered the highest level. I thought that maybe if I had better boots for my inline frames too, I could pick up where I left and be able to train both on ice and wheels at the same level, so I ordered two pairs of boots, one with them with new ice blades.

When my boots arrived, I mounted my inline frames in one of the pairs and left the other one for the ice. I instantly noticed something: the frame was really, really long! It shouldn’t be like that! I tried skating on them, and it was way worse than before!! I stuck with that because I had just spent more than $1200 and didn’t have any more money to buy another boots/frames that were suitable for me. Since I ordered the same boots for ice and wheels, I started to feel pain whenever I was skating and even got some bunions. My feet were hurting all the time, even when I wasn’t skating. I knew this was because of the boots. But I had already paid so much money I thought I would just have to “get used to it” and that it would get better with time and practice.

I started losing progress and that got me to a point to almost quit skating, at all. I managed to do some competitions, but I definitely couldn’t improve anymore.

Trying to find my motivation to skate back and with the intention of creating an inline figure skating community, during lockdown I created my Instagram account. I came across a skating brand, Golden Horse. And two words immediately grabbed my eye: PAINLESS SKATING. I read lots of reviews and all of them praised Golden Horse for their comfortable and high-quality boots. I started browsing through their website and social media and immediately fell in love with the different boot colors and models. Not only they do inline figure skating frames but also custom boots (more on this in the next paragraph), artistic quad frames, and even ice blades.

I wasn’t sure about the quality of the boots and frames themselves, but after seeing that they have sponsored so many skaters (some of them, world champions!) I thought I should give it a go and try their boots and frames. I was contacted by Helen, their sales representative. Helen was so incredibly kind and understandable. She made sure I got the right size for my boots by asking specific questions about me and my skating and also asking me to provide them with pictures and measurements of my feet. They showed a high level of dedication and I felt really understood and taken care of! You can really tell when somebody loves what they do, and these guys really love skating!

I ordered the highest level of boots, Maestro, and got their first inline figure skating frame model: Presto. (Note: they have released a new frame called Avant, with adjustable rockering settings, which I will review soon!). As I said, by asking for lots of info they made sure my boots would be a perfect fit for me. They even asked me where my old boots hurt more or had more pressure! Thanks to their advice I found that my inline frames were THREE SIZES BIGGER than they should have been and that my current boots were too long and too narrow for me. That’s why my feet had been hurting and that’s why I couldn’t make any progress!

When I received my order (which I got really fast!), I was eager to try on my new skates, so after briefly admiring their beauty I put them on and I felt, at first, relieved. Relieved because finally, my feet were in a pair of boots that didn’t hurt. It was like skating on clouds! I also found that I got all my jumps back and even my spins were easier. Footwork was also a breeze. I was really really surprised and very pleased. Finally, I could skate with no pain at all. I couldn’t believe it!

The whole Instagram experience has opened my eyes and made me realize that not only I still love skating so much, but also that skating should not in any case be painful and that it’s really really important a good fit. So, I’d like to recommend Golden Horse to every one of my followers. If you’re reading this and have felt like you may have been using the wrong boots for so long, don’t hesitate and contact Golden Horse! It is definitely a good investment if you want to stop feeling pain when skating, while also improving your skating.

I can’t stress this enough: skating should not be painful!