The extra ankle room lets me bend more, which makes it easier to point your toes and to jump better. But, before your ankles have strengthened, it just sucks.
I’ve never had a problem with blisters in Jackson or Edea. I think if the skate is fitted properly and you have thinner socks on, you shouldn’t experience blisters in any skating brand.
Yes, except for the tongue, the Edea skate is like a solid brick (a very, very lightweight brick tho) lol. But I like that. I wanted more support. And with all the ankle room, you have plenty of flexibility, so it doesn’t matter the rest of the boot is an unbending brick. (This is exactly why you can’t overboot in Edea.)
The skate is super, super lightweight. So while it may be solid and inflexible, it’s certainly not heavy.
There is ankle support in Edea, it’s just less support than most skaters are used to when coming from other brands. It’s not like I can fit an entire fist into my skate, it’s only a few fingers.
Now that my ankle is strong enough, I never notice this difference in support anymore. One could argue this kind of skate will strengthen your ankle and therefore prevent injuries, compared to relying so much on the boot to hold you up.
I’m not sure if I would recommend these skates to obese people though. Their joints are already under enormous pressure because of the unhealthy weight, so it’s probably better for them to have more supportive skates to try to offset that weight issue.
The only difference I’ve noticed in energy levels, is that I can go longer and achieve better positions because the skates are so much lighter. The amount of ankle support doesn’t affect my energy levels at all, just the lightness of the boot.
Yes, if you try to keep the ankle tight (which is what I tried to do in the beginning because the lesser ankle support was freaking me out), you will wear out the tongue of the boot a lot faster. Plus, the skates will quickly loosen as you skate anyway because the skates know how they were designed to be tied.
I was retightening every 10min because of how fast they would loosen up.... until my coach told me to stop it, just get over it, and learn to adjust to the lesser ankle support.
Our entire rink, including our coaches, are wearing Edea now. I’ve never heard of anyone twisting an ankle in them. I’ve never even read on the internet about anyone twisting an ankle. Just lots of posts of people freaking out over the lack of ankle support. So I kinda don’t think it’s really possible if they’re tied correctly.
There may be more space than people are comfortable with at first, but it doesn’t seem be enough space to actually cause injury. Edea skates wouldn’t have become so popular if people were experiencing that.
P.S. I’m not aiming for 3 fingers of space. That’s simply how much people usually end up with if they tie the skates correctly. A lot of people have that extra space after tying and then think the skates are tied wrong because of all the extra space. I was trying to show that you will have that extra space after tying properly and it is correct.