Suggestions for freestyle blades for dance

[sarahspins]

MK Dance do have the side honing, shorter heel and slightly smaller pick (compared to MK Pro). They have a 7' rocker.

The thinner part of the dance blades isn't honed.. it's a parallel cut to offer a thinner blade (which is supposedly faster and easier to turn on) without sacrificing the structural integrity of the blade - if the whole thing was that thin it would likely bend and break.

Phantom Specials are "dovetailed" - it's a similar cut to the dance but it's done at an angle to replicate the side honing on the others, but without being difficult to sharpen.  It also results in a deeper bite angle at a given ROH than a side honed or parallel blade.

[Skittl1321]

Agnes, why do you assume Gold Seals are easy to turn? They've an 8' rocker which should be somewhat hard to turn. They seem the opposite of Dance blades. They certainly have freestyle toe picks.

She likely got that idea, because I posted exactly that.  When I switched from Mirage to Gold Seal, it was like they did the turns themselves.  It is amazingly easy to turn in them.

I didn't actually recommend them to her though, as they are way too expensive for a beginner skater, and don't have a small toe pick profile like she is looking for.  But if she only wants turns, in my experience, they sure do them.

[Query]

The Mirage also has an 8' rocker, and if it is a typical Ultima blade, the less curved spin rocker leaves less available distance between the ball of the foot and where the toe touches down than most MK and Wilson Blades, so maybe it would be easier to turn almost any MK and Wilson blade. In particular, the Ultima blades I have tried are easy to scrape while turning or spinning, if you don't have perfect control.

(Yet some skaters disagree...)

By coincidence, history, bribery, or coach's preference (a few coaches dominate the high end field), MK Dance is used by most of the current highest end dancers.

One might well find one could get used to Dance blades. They aren't ideal for spins and jumps, and you may need to shift your weight a bit, but if you are ice dancing... Mean evil coaches with force us to make us keep our blades close to each other, and force us to go fast. Short tails and slim lines seem to help.

I will probably buy Reidell Eclipse Dance blades next, because of price. I placed them next to each other, and they looked similar. My MK slimline section was about 1/64" thinner than that of the measured Eclipse Dance sample, but my expert said that was within machining tolerance. Is it wrong to buy a clone?