Lacing Ice Skates for Freestyle Movements

Hey guys! I've cut my lace into pieces. This is my last reserve. Perfect timing for this tutorial. Over the past few years I was experimenting with different lacing and tying techniques. Few shorter, longer, waxed and non-waxed laces. I will start with the interesting part now and then come back to this later. So, we're talking about freestyle now. What's the difference comparing to hockey? The boots are the same, but the movements are much more extreme. Sometimes I'm expecting great flexibility from the boots, sometimes I'm pushing it to the limits and want full support. Can these come together? Of course! Here are my tips. Lower part. This area should be as tight as possible without losing comfort or cutting your blood circulation. The middle part. The same. Make sure the laces don't slip out and get loose when you're tying. Upper part. For freestyle you need more space for the movements. I will demonstrate in a second. Lean forward when you're tying. Okay, so why is this working? First of all, let's see what happens if you don't lace a skate at all. Can you do anything with it? You will be surprised. I can do almost every basic trick without lacing at all. This is because the boot should support your ankle by itself, until a certain level of course. I wouldn't go for a bigger jump with these though. The opposite of this is when you tighten everywhere and too much. Look at this Spiderman. This is not an exaggeration. The boot really doesn't let me lean forward. So once again, the ideal way is to take advantage of the boot's support and keep some room for movement. I'm tying this way for years now and it seemed to be working. Have you seen our latest freestyle skating movie? Here is a teaser. Link in the info box. Oh, by the way, the original story behind the different colors is that I always cut my laces and I started to replace them one by one. Blue was the first. It's a long, waxed lace. Then I didn't find a matching pair in the shop, so now I have a completely different short, non-waxed yellow on the other. Wax does help to avoid slippage when lacing, but not significantly. I prefer non-waxed as the laces can loosen up a little bit and adopt the shape of your feet better. And as for the length, there is no advantage in having longer laces as you will only end up gently wrapping around the extra part or tying another knot. Let me know guys if you found this useful, maybe share your secrets. I also have a tutorial about a custom sharpening that I use. Subscribe if you want to see more tutorials. See you!