Chaya Skates Review, Part Two

Previously, on Chaya Skates Review: I used a lot of shouty words.
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Yesterday afternoon I went to Wegmans to get a shoehorn for my skates.  In the last few years I've realized just how spoiled I am by having a Wegmans within walking distance of my house. I went to visit my sister in Connecticut once, and we were going to get snacks, and she said "Okay, we have to go to [further out supermarket] because [close supermarket] closed at 10pm" and I was like WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?  SUPERMARKETS CLOSE? and then I see Facebook friends get excited that a Wegmans is opening in their area, and I'm just like HOW DO PEOPLE LIVE WITHOUT A WEGMANS THEY CAN SEE JUST BY EXITING THEIR HOUSE AND SQUINTING A LITTLE.

Wegmans didn't have shoehorns.  I had to go to Rite Aid.

So I arrived at the practice space and excitedly put my skates on.  It was tricky, because they are so snug.  The heel of my sock got bunched up, which stretched out the sock by my toes, so they had to strain against the material and it was uncomfortable. (I am not the kind of person who can skate without socks.  That way, indeed, lies madness.)  Eventually I had to completely unlace them so I could get my foot in comfortably.

Then...I skated.

And immediately sat down and had to tinker with the trucks, as they were hella hella HELLA loose.

Like I said in the previous entry, everything is sort of crammed up in each other's space on the skates.  Here's a picture:

Close quarters, indeed

To tighten the trucks, I had to hold the crescent wrench perpendicular to the nut and hope I got a good grip on it. (One thing that *was* nice is that the nut has a number on each corner, so it's easy to keep track of how far you've turned it.)  Eventually I had to take the skate off to get a good angle on the wrench.

So much tinkering and tightening and loosening and whatnot later, I started skating for real.

And realized I'm going to have to entirely change the way I skate.

I've said many, many times that I most likely skate on the tightest trucks in all of WFTDA.  I crank those suckers DOWN and do all my turning and whatnot with my ankles.  Unfortunately, this does not mean I have Ankles of Steel - I have racehorse ankles, easily strained with a weird step or a drunken cartwheel (not that I have any prior history of drunken cartwheels ~whistling innocently~). 

The Chaya boots put big ol' clamps down on my ankles.  They are Gandalf the Grey shouting YOU SHALL NOT PASS to my ankles, if by PASS you mean MOVE.  This will take some getting used to.

Still trying to figure out the toe stops.  They're smaller than my Bionics, and about 150% of my stopping as a referee is a tomahawk stop (in cease different people use different terms, that's when you do a quick 180° and go up on your toestops) (the other 23% of my stops are T-stops). I could see easily and quickly wearing these down.  I also have to work on the angle, as if they're too steep, my toes still slide down (gravity apparently beats Gandalf the Ankle Clencher) and they actively hurt, because I am not a ballerina, even though I took an introduction to ballet class in college).

As practice progressed, I started to notice that the left boot was pushing into my heel quite annoyingly.  I'm not sure if this will be fixed as part of the Relearning to Skate process, or if I need to remold them.  I was also concerned that I might be developing blisters behind my ankle bone - again, not sure if this is part of Relearning to Skate.

But, other than those concerns, I really enjoy these skates.  They drew many "oohs" and "aahs" and "they look like Pumas" from leaguemates.  They were quite comfortable beyond the ankle business, and it'll be interesting to see how they adapt to my feet in the future (I remember when I got my last pair of skates, they were blissfully comfortable for the first practice or two, then turned into WE'RE GOING TO SWING A SLEDGEHAMMER INTO YOUR TOES for a good number of practices after that.)

So short story very long, I really really like the skates and am glad I got them!