Okay, well I've skated twice in my new skates. The first time I just skated in them as is. That didn't work...at...all. Ow...arches...achey. :( The second time I bought some insoles. That made a slight improvement, but the arches are still hurting me something fierce. I'm also still having a heel slipping problem, which I know is very not good. Also, I still have these old blades that have barely any toepick on them, so I am scared to jump. So halfway through skating I decided my feet hurt and I wanted to jump. So I go back and put on my old skates...I step on the ice and almost fall on my face. Those blades (Ultima IV) are TERRIBLE, they are so much slower than whatever these ones I have on the new skates are. I was expecting to go somewhere and i just felt like it was slow motion. So I force myself to make one lap around the rink, get off, and put the new skates back on. So I knew these old blades sucked, but I had no idea exactly how bad they were. I really want to make my sister put them on just so she can feel my pain. :) No wonder I had such a hard time with that damn loop. :-p
So now for my third try in the new skates. I have two insoles in there, this made them fit nice and snugly (I've decided that these are still a 1/2 size too big), seems to take the edge off the arches, and seems to fix the heel problem. We'll see. I'm going to skate in them this weekend. Hopefully they'll work out for now. I'm pretty sure that within a few months, I'm going to have to get new boots. But my first priority right now is new blades. Hmmm...proffesional or phantom...I just don't know what to do.