Drag picks, blade length and injuries?

To the OP, I thought I would weigh in on how I deal with fear of injuries. Of course after something like this, it will take a while to get back on the ice and it's best to take small steps and go at a pace you feel comfortable with when approaching the ice again.

When you think about it though, something like this can happen in the course of day-to-day tasks. I know people who have slipped and fell at home and had some awful injuries. So if you truly love skating, why stop because of an injury that can occur in real life anyway? Sure, the possibility is higher on the ice, but at the same time you are more careful when skating because you know of that risk, then you might be when say, taking stairs. I guess you have to weigh up the risk with how much you love skating. Anyway, that's just another way of looking at it. I hope you heal well and recover quickly!

1111bm said:

Maybe it wasn't because of the toepick, that you got stuck in the ice? Maybe you got stuck in a rut and this would have happened with any type of blade? Because that would be a 'typical' incident that would result in twisting your ankle and I've heard about this type of accident quite a few times now.
Because you mentioned, that you actually stopped tripping over your toepicks, so it doesn't sound like you're struggling with the toepick on your Coro Aces.

I'm surprised that you tend to fall backwards so much, because I thought that as a beginner people usually tend to instinctively lean forwards too much and that causes them to catch their toepick once in a while (but since they will fall forwards on their knees, they don't twist and break their foot)...

Maybe you don't have enough knee bend to find the correct position over your blades and end up putting too much weight on your heels? Maybe your boots are laced up too tight at the top, preventing you from doing a deep knee bend? I think those are things you could also consider, once you return to the ice, and I hope that you will find the courage to do so!

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I'm not sure, my friend watched the video of it happening (rink security vids) and said my toepick got stuck in the ice while i was sitting back and then I sat on my own foot/heel while my ankle was in an awkward position/hinged up. If my toepick didn't get stuck I just would have fallen on my butt i think. I just feel like if I could break my leg because I had bad technique... well then I probably shouldn't be skating and yeah, I did stop tripping over the toepick pretty quickly. I had more trouble falling off the back of the blade tbh because my new blades are shorter at the back.

And yeah, I fall backwards a lot. Especially recently! My new blades are shorter at the back. I do this a lot (I do this trying forward power pulls too): https://www.instagram.com/p/Bly80zQlnZI/?taken-by=aquilaskates

Also forward power pulls when I wasn't breaking my leg in the third video (weirdly hard to watch now): https://www.instagram.com/p/BlwfdB5lzpC/?taken-by=aquilaskates

tstop4me said:

<<Emphasis added>> I wouldn't recommend doing that. Part of your problem is that your balance is all screwed up because of all the time you spent skating on boots that were too big. You want blades properly matched to your current (presumably, properly fitting) boots; and you need to learn proper balance on the right boot-blade combo. If you intentionally mount blades that are too long, you will create other problems; for example, the position of the sweet spot will be thrown off, and you'll have difficulties with spins.

There are blades with longer heels (such as Wilson Gold Seal and copies), but they are too advanced for you at your current stage.

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Ah I guess I feel like I'd happily swap being able to spin for not breaking my leg again. My boots are definitely the correct length (though I don't like the ankle fit/support so I'll probably get new boots if I go back to the ice). Maybe I shouldn't have been trying power pulls yet? I don't feel like they're *that* advanced. I probably skated on these new blades about 12-15 times and I thought I was used to them but i guess not :/ but i can't just break my legs until I get used to them, I don't know

I watched some of your videos and the only reason you have bad technique because you have tried to teach yourself, and you actually look like you have good potential. For example, you’re trying to do back power pulls with your free leg in front, and front power pulls with your free leg behind, and both cases with your butt sticking out, all of which puts your weight to the back of your blade. This leg position is basically impossible for a beginner to do, and it’s not how people learn power pulls. It should be free leg in front when going forward and free leg behind when going backwards. Only once you’ve done them a while the easier way, it can be a good challenge to do them with other leg positions.

For people who are naturally talented like you it can be tempting to teach yourself these things and figure it out with trial and error, but it’s very risky as you know.

jf12 said:

I watched some of your videos and the only reason you have bad technique because you have tried to teach yourself, and you actually look like you have good potential. For example, you’re trying to do back power pulls with your free leg in front, and front power pulls with your free leg behind, and both cases with your butt sticking out, all of which puts your weight to the back of your blade. This leg position is basically impossible for a beginner to do, and it’s not how people learn power pulls. It should be free leg in front when going forward and free leg behind when going backwards. Only once you’ve done them a while the easier way, it can be a good challenge to do them with other leg positions.

For people who are naturally talented like you it can be tempting to teach yourself these things and figure it out with trial and error, but it’s very risky as you know.

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Thank you! Yeah, unfortunately I didn't have any access to a permanent rink or coaching for most of the time I skated. I recently moved to a place with a proper rink so I could finally take lessons, and it has been an eye-opening experience finding that a lot of my edgework/technique is even worse than I thought! It's a sad irony that it was only when I asked a coach to help me with my power pulls that I injured myself. I guess I got used to trying it the wrong way (and for some reason forward power pulls are much harder for me with my free leg in front ). He had just told me to focus on keeping my free leg close to my skating leg in front (and i was doing so) when I fell!

I hope I'll have the courage to get back on the ice but I definitely won't be trying power pulls again. I'm still reeling that a simple loss of balance did this to me.

Thanks so much to everyone for all the advice :luv17: I have a long time to think about what to do re: blades/boots. I'm wondering if I need new boots that support my ankles better more than I need new blades, even though this was a toepick-caused injury. (and better technique, and better ankles) I will look more into the lift angle of blades too.

Ange said:

To the OP, I thought I would weigh in on how I deal with fear of injuries. Of course after something like this, it will take a while to get back on the ice and it's best to take small steps and go at a pace you feel comfortable with when approaching the ice again.

When you think about it though, something like this can happen in the course of day-to-day tasks. I know people who have slipped and fell at home and had some awful injuries. So if you truly love skating, why stop because of an injury that can occur in real life anyway? Sure, the possibility is higher on the ice, but at the same time you are more careful when skating because you know of that risk, then you might be when say, taking stairs. I guess you have to weigh up the risk with how much you love skating. Anyway, that's just another way of looking at it. I hope you heal well and recover quickly!

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That's very true! I guess this one just shook me a lot because I wasn't even being an idiot on the ice when it happened, I was learning a move under coach supervision it's silly because I've seen people injure themselves on the ice but I didn't think it would ever happen to me because I'm quite a cautious skater. Now I feel like such a fragile human haha! I can't work out how I'd avoid this injury again and I think that's my current mental block. It feels so easy to do.

But it's true, even in sports, my old workmate broke his arm playing soccer and went straight back to it as soon as he could (though he commented he was a bit nervous about using his arm), and I know people who have blown their ACL skiing and gone back once they could... I broke a bone in my foot falling over in my lounge earlier this year and broke my other leg on a trampoline 16 years ago... life is unpredictable!

khi said:

I'm not sure, my friend watched the video of it happening (rink security vids) and said my toepick got stuck in the ice while i was sitting back and then I sat on my own foot/heel while my ankle was in an awkward position/hinged up. If my toepick didn't get stuck I just would have fallen on my butt i think. I just feel like if I could break my leg because I had bad technique... well then I probably shouldn't be skating

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No matter how it happened exactly, it was a freak accident, and it wasn't because you have bad technique (at least not different from any other beginner) or because of the toepicks of your Coro Ace's in particular (haven't skated on them, but I used to check them out a lot at our shop and compare with other brands, and I actually thought that the toepicks are a bit smallish for my taste because they looked smaller than those on my lower level blades).

And catching you toepicks once in a while is normal I think, even when you've gotten used to your blades, and it doesn't usually result in a broken leg, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Of course that knowledge won't necessarily change the way you feel about them, and if buying different blades is what it takes, to get you back on the ice once you're healed, than so be it, but they're such popular blades and so many people skate on them just fine, so I'm sure there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to skate on them safely, too.

Actually, the best thing you can do to reduce the likelihood of accidents, would be to increase your overall fitness and your agility on the ice, and that is something that will improve with practice the more you skate, so ironically the best thing you can do is to skate as much as possible.

khi said:

I had more trouble falling off the back of the blade tbh because my new blades are shorter at the back.

And yeah, I fall backwards a lot. Especially recently! My new blades are shorter at the back. I do this a lot (I do this trying forward power pulls too): https://www.instagram.com/p/Bly80zQlnZI/?taken-by=aquilaskates

Also forward power pulls when I wasn't breaking my leg in the third video (weirdly hard to watch now): https://www.instagram.com/p/BlwfdB5lzpC/?taken-by=aquilaskates

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I can't really help with that, because I never had a tendency to fall backwards, even as a child I would constantly fall on my knees, but rarely on my butt...

I used hockey skates for 1.5 years once, and those blades are even shorter and have a very pronounced rocker and it always felt like I could topple over backwards at any moment. And when I switched (back) to actual figure skates, even though it only took me a few hours to get used to the toepicks and having a heel again, it took me almost a year (well, with a 5 month break in-between) to be fully comfortable with the bigger length of the blades during crossovers (especially backwards), meaning that I didn't have to consciously pay so much attention anymore to not catch the tail ends/toepicks of the blades...
So that's just an example of how long it can take to fully adjust to a different type of blades (but I was at a beginner level at that time, so that's also a factor of course... and judging by your videos I was also older than you, so you're definitely at an advantage here ).

khi said:

Thank you! Yeah, unfortunately I didn't have any access to a permanent rink or coaching for most of the time I skated. I recently moved to a place with a proper rink so I could finally take lessons, and it has been an eye-opening experience finding that a lot of my edgework/technique is even worse than I thought! It's a sad irony that it was only when I asked a coach to help me with my power pulls that I injured myself. I guess I got used to trying it the wrong way (and for some reason forward power pulls are much harder for me with my free leg in front ). He had just told me to focus on keeping my free leg close to my skating leg in front (and i was doing so) when I fell!

I hope I'll have the courage to get back on the ice but I definitely won't be trying power pulls again. I'm still reeling that a simple loss of balance did this to me.

Thanks so much to everyone for all the advice :luv17: I have a long time to think about what to do re: blades/boots. I'm wondering if I need new boots that support my ankles better more than I need new blades, even though this was a toepick-caused injury. (and better technique, and better ankles) I will look more into the lift angle of blades too.

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A lot of coaches actually teach forward power pulls with the free leg pushing on a hockey puck and not moving at all--this teaches you to push into the edge and not use the free leg to swing around the edges... When I was learning them, My coach held onto me and skated backward while I skated forwards.

So I did a lift angle comparison of my old and new blades (inspired by the Paramount videos) and while the toepicks don't look drastically different, their place on the blade is really different so the lift angle is much reduced on the coro ace. I also discovered that my old blades actually have the same size mount plate, and so they were probably too short for my old boots (though the old blades are still much longer - they have a noticeably longer tail, so I just assumed they were a larger blade overall). Now I'm wondering if I should just mount my old blades onto some new boots haha.

Old blades: https://i.imgur.com/Kt83Ugq.jpg
New blades (coro ace, I accidentally got the other blade in the way of the photo so it looks different): https://i.imgur.com/V0Xky3K.jpg

Again, I would keep the Ace's and learn to adjust to them. JMHO.

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Ic3Rabbit said:

Again, I would keep the Ace's and learn to adjust to them. JMHO.

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I had the opportunity to compare the Ace's to my friend's Aspire XP (a lower level blade) and I'm even less happy about the toepick/lift angle on those. They look flatter/scarier to me. Given the choice I'd rather stick with the Coro Aces! That really changed my viewpoint as I was worried I got injured because I "overbladed" in the Ace's. I think the same thing would have happened in these blades. So you may be right, I thought I was all sorted in the new blades as I had all my skills back and was learning new ones, but I might just need to spend a lot more time consistently finding the right place in the blade to balance on. I have that common adult skater problem of always sitting too far back too.

Thanks again for your advice!

I'll focus on finding a new boot which gives me proper ankle support first and go from there. It may be that my old blade isn't really similar to any modern blades so I was always going to have a challenging adjustment. It certainly took me weeks to find the new spin rocker lol. I think it's a lot longer than most so that doesn't help either.

My skating friend ran into my coach at the rink, who said it was a complete freak accident and I should definitely return to skating. No comment on the blade but he said he wasn't personally a huge fan of my boots, heh. (different strokes for different folks, I know people who love em and people who hate em! I think they might be good for people who have different ankles to me )

My thought mainly runs along that you have to get back on the horse. If you let yourself be freaked out by the toepicks then if you ever need more advanced blades you'll be mentally screwed.