Dance Blades - Advice?

We (Kim and I) have been dancing together seriously for about 1 year. We have tested through and competed pre-bronze and are now working on bronze dances. We feel that it would be realistic to get as far as silver dances over the next number of years and have invested in new dance boots. We are interested in feedback regarding dance blades. We are leaning toward MK dance and are considereing parabolics, however that may be to great a leap. We would welcome any suggestions anyone can provide. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Thanks for joining us, Kim and David.

I am transfering this thread to the "Lutz Corner" folder, which is where skaters gather on Golden Skate to discuss technical matters involving their own skating. You will get more responses there.

I asked a similar question a few months ago and found that dance blades and boots are not really nessicary until the higher level dances. If you are a partnership, however I can see why you would want the shorter blades. I am just doing the tests, I do not have a partner, so although I would not have need of them, I think you would find it better.

here is a nice answer that I got from my question...

Good dance blades are about $700 for MK Dance - the lower priced blades are not true dance blades as they are really modifications of a freeskate blade ie Coronation Dance....unless you can get your hands on a pair of John Wilson Dance 99's or even Silver Dance.

Click to expand...

the Wilson Superdance i hear are no good...if you considering those.

Are you only dancing or still doing FS?

Only dance

I have Ultima Ascend dance blades & am very happy w/ them.

I was using MK dance for years, but had heard that the parabolic dance blade was good, especially for skaters with knee issues. It made holding deeper edges easier. I tried them and while they certainly gripped and held the edge I hated them. I found the back of the blade often grabbed the ice and there wasn't a hope of twizzling nicely in them. I later learned that you need to re-learn to skate and I wasn't prepared to do that. I bought new MK dance (with the original rocker) and even though they were new, they were like old friends. I love them.

Not sure if this will help at all but the recieved wisdom i have with regards to freestyle is that while with boots it is very easy to buy "too much boot" i.e. buying a boot that is for a much higher skill level than you are capable of will usually mean a stiffer boot which, if you are not carrying out advanced skills, will be more difficult if not impossible to break in and usually cause discomfort. I understand that this is not the case with dance boots which generally do not need to be as stiff since multirotational jumps do not need to be supported and the boots are often shorter allowing greater bend for deeper edges.

The one thing that i have been told is common to both is that you cannot have "too much blade". I have always been advised to buy the best blade that i can afford and that the difference is usually marked. People tend to go for blades based on the rocker that they are most comfortable with for the skills they wish to use. So i would say go for the best you can buy.

Ant

Well, I think it really depends on how skilled you are as skaters.

that being said, I have tried a few dance blades (am currently wearing the MK Dance - a used pair that I bought on ebay, by the way) --

My favorite was the Wilson Dance (no longer made) which was just a Majestic with the backs cut off.

The MK Dance is good but they are short - the feel of them is very nice.

The SuperDance 99 is very good but I found they were just a bit TOO short - they were very fast and I liked the picks - I could land jumps in them, which I don't dare to do with the MKs - they have really really really small picks.. yikes!!

I think if I were at your level I would get the Coronation Dance, even though they are not the most expensive, they would not take so much getting used to.

I might also look at a FS blade that doesn't have a really long tail - that is harder to define, but I think the Gold Seal and the Gold Stars have less of a tail than some of the others.

I have an SP Teri Dance boot and it is stiff. I don't know that I will ever break them in! Also heat-moldable, which I don't like - they are easier to break in, but every time you wear them the boot itself has to warm up - there is no "jump on the ice and you are good to go" kind of feel about them...

Good luck with your decisions. If either of you wear a 10 1/4 and want to try either an MK Dance or Wilson SuperDance 99 please PM me and I can send you a pair to try. The SuperDance 99s are less used than the MKs.