Breaking IN boots

[shariskate]

Ok, tomorrow I pick up my first pair of new boots/blades in 14 years!  I'm excited, but also not looking forward to the break in period.....I just came off an awesome week of freestyle skating....everything was just going so well, and now I'll be back to nothing but edges for a while.
My skates were heat molded and punched out at a professional shop.....I've been instructed to not lace them the whole way up the first few times, not to jump or spin at first....just edges, edges, edges.
Any tips for breaking them in from all of you?  I think the answer is pretty much just knee bend, practice, get the hours in and lots of edges....but just seeing if anybody has other tips!

[SynchKat]

We used to walk up and down the stairs in our new skates as kids.  My brother would do a couple of jumps and skulling  and then his skates would be fine. 

I just do crosscuts and lots of them.  I do them mostly where I just push with the undercut foot both forward and backward, one way then the other way.  Just keep doing this.  One foot sculling (power pulls?) is great once they are broken in a bit.  Anything where you can get a lot of bend to start breaking down the leather is great. 

[sarahspins]

I think everyone is different in how they break in their skates, as well as how long it takes.  My last pair, I would say in just about a week of skating (so maybe 4-5 hours on the ice) I was 100% comfortable skating in them, I had no problem with ankle bend (I was doing sit spins on day one) and the only thing stopping me from trying more initially was the temporary mount on the blades.  It took another week or so after that before I no longer noticed that "new skate" feeling when lacing them up. The pair before that, I remember it felt a month or more before they really felt "right" but I was also returning to the ice after a lengthy time off so I wasn't skating as strongly or as often as I do now.

My coach recommends lots of backwards crossovers to start the process of getting the ankles to bend, and then as you get more comfortable, moving on to moves in the field (lots of turns, edges, power pulls, etc), followed by spinning and then jumping (edge jumps mostly, very limited toe jumps).  Glide tests forwards and backwards are useful for determining final blade position if the need for adjustments hasn't already been identified by everything else.

[Sk8tmum]

You bought Harlicks, right?  Check their website. They have a very specific and directive protocol on how to break in their boots. It worked very well for us with our Harlicks - and when our coach saw it (she's very old school) - she said that it was absolutely the right way to properly break in a boot.