Fitting Your Boots And Fins

so you're just now getting into scuba diving and maybe you picked out your your favorite set of fins maybe it was the color that you were after or the style that you were after but most likely you're going to need some type of sock or boot to go with it so when you have so many different choices such as a sock or a soft sole slip-on maybe even a soft booty or a hard booty how do you know which one's going to be right for you well let's find out [Music] together [Music] [Music] what's up guys it's brian again from lake kicker school membrane and if you are new to our channel do me a huge favor make sure you click this little subscribe button over here and ding that little bell as well that way you guys will be notified every time we upload new content now in today's video what we're going to be looking at is several different footwear options you have as a diver and based off what type of fin system you're going to be using it's going to be important that you get the appropriate footwear so that you're not wearing say blisters on your feet or getting some type of cramp in your feet so let's take a quick look at some of the options we have obviously socks we have a little slip on the ankle high boots we have the high top boots that come in both the soft sole and the hard bottom and picking the right one for you does not have to be difficult the first thing that we want to do of course is get the proper size so i'm going to take you over here with one of our newest students and we're going to get him sized for a new set of boots all right guys so the first thing we do is we just give them a couple different pairs of boots we obviously try to match up their size properly now john here he's actually got a hard sole bottom but i'm not so concerned right now about the hard sole or the soft sole i'm just worried about the sizing now on here i can see that he's got just a little bit of room for his toes john's a full-grown adult male so he's not going to be growing anymore and they're nice and snug which is what he wants whenever he's wearing these boots he doesn't want a lot of water flow to go in and out the boots so nice and snug but not too snug that it's going to start causing cramping on the inside or the outside of the foot also you don't want the toe completely jammed into the toe box here because it's going to cause a little bit of discomfort now that we've got him sized here we're going to take him over to the fin wall picking out a set of fins that's going to work for him and then we'll actually come back to the boots and determine whether he needs a hard sole or say a saw sole boot because the size of the foot pocket of the fan itself is also going to be one of the determining factors on whether or not you get a hard sole or a soft sole boot all right so now that we got the customer's foot size picked out now what we're going to do is let him pick out a set of fins and there's several different fins to choose from and it's important that you pick the right fin for the water sport activity that you're going to be doing if you're just going to be snorkeling then obviously you're going to go with some type of slip-on fin you don't even need a boot you're just going to be using some type of sock with it same thing with free divers free divers use a different style fin than what scuba divers do but more importantly they just use slip-on style so a lot of free divers will just be using socks for that but for scuba diving we use specific type of fins that allow us to propel ourselves through the water with a lot of bulky gear on so as we're going through our little sales pitch with the customer on how these fins actually work one of the things that i do is i show the mechanics of the fin or the say the kicking action of the fin and i explain how a paddle fan like this sometimes can be difficult to say flutter kick but it works good for frog kicking and what that does is it allows that customer to choose the right fin for them maybe they're just traveling need a light fan maybe they don't plan on frog kicking maybe they're just going to flutter kick so once we get them the fin that's going to work best for them now we're going to start looking at the actual foot pocket size if i take this this is the marios of antique quattro here it's got an r on it they don't mean right a lot of people will say well does that mean this one's a right and this one's left no that just means it's a regular size it's a typical large size on it and all fins first of all are ambidextrous so you can wear them on either foot but this r this regular this is going to work for both soft sole and hard sole bottoms however if you were to get a soft sole bottom and say maybe you're a size 8 or smaller then you may have to drop down a foot pocket instead of getting a regular you may have to get the small or the extra small and it kind of goes in reverse as well if i have say anything larger than say a size 10 i may need to jump up to the extra large foot pocket size if i'm going to be going with a hard sole boot so now that the customer has the right size boot they've picked out the style of fin we're going to take that fin in multiple sizes and we're going to go back over to the boot counter and we're going to let them try on both soft soles and hard soles and try them in each individual foot pocket to see which one works best for them once we have that lined up then we're going to sell them their fin and get them on their way diving all right so now what we're going to do is we're going to take the fin styles that he had picked out here and we're just going to kind of go through so we can see already with the hard sole boot here his foot is going to be way too tight in this fin here so we can already determine that the extra small for the hard sole is not going to work for him but let's go ahead and try it over on the soft sole and see if the extra small foot pocket is going to work as he puts it in you'll still see it's kind of tight the bridge of his foot out here is having a little bit of difficulty getting in if you'll pick your foot up there for me john you'll notice that you won't just about in front of the heel so about where my finger is needs to be at the base of that fin so the extra small is definitely not going to work for him he's got a size 10 boot on and it doesn't really matter if it's a soft sole or hard sole the extra small is not going to work for him so let's go ahead and try the small so this is just one size up and it looks like it's going to be a decent fit however if we look at the side we're still not getting that foot all the way up in the foot pocket so we want the foot pocket itself to be about back here where it's just in front of the heel itself so let's go ahead and try the soft sole i don't believe the small is going to work with the hard sole and a size 10 for him same thing as he goes to get it on we're still having a little bit of difficulty getting it in now the fit up here is actually a very good fit however getting it back to where it needs to be and the reason you want your foot completely in the foot pocket what that's going to do is help eliminate cramps whether it's in your ankle area in your calves or whatnot you want to eliminate as many cramps as possible and by getting that fin pushed all the way back to the heel of your foot it's going to help do that as well so let's go ahead and jump up to the size regular now with a size 10 boot and a hard bottom looks like he's getting it in a little bit further there let's go ahead and look at it from the side we can see it's actually i'm going to pull the strap down here looks like it's just about where we need it to be on now on these particular boots here there's a little uh ledge here that we can kind of gauge it by so this is actually not that bad of a fitting fin one of the things i do notice is it's a nice snug tight fit here which is going to help eliminate any type of parachuting effect whenever he's swimming around in the water but i still think it's just going to be a little bit on the tight side he may start to get a little bit of cramp here in the top of his foot so let's try the regular with a soft sole and see how it fits okay so if we push it all the way up in there we'll notice that it's still it's almost at the back of the heel but it still needs to come back maybe about a half inch but he's starting to get a little too much play here because it is a soft sole so i'm not sure this is going to be the proper fit for him i think this one actually fit a little bit better with the hard bottoms so now let's try the extra large all right so now with the extra large we can see that the base of the fin is all the way back to this is actually a little bit further back than typical but this is about the middle of the heel this is actually a very good proper fitting fin here we're going to have good coverage up here that simply means it's going to hug and snug around the foot it's not going to allow his foot to shake around in the fins this is actually going to be the best fit for the hard bottoms on his fins let's go ahead and try it on the soft soles and then kind of the same thing here you can see it's all the way back at the base of the um heel here so that's a good fit there however we got a little bit too much play i can about get my finger all the way through there so this fin with the extra large size on the soft sole is actually going to create a little bit of parachuting effect and it's not going to be the best fit with the two feet or the boots that he's wearing between the hard sole and the soft sole wearing a size 10 i think the best option is going to be the extra large foot pocket so as you can see guys whether you choose a soft sole or a hard sole fit means more than anything now one of the things that we didn't discuss in this video are some of the other variables in choosing a hard sole maybe you're doing a lot of quarry diving or spring diving and you need that harder sole bottom there to protect your feet when you're not diving maybe you're up on land or maybe you want the soft sole if you're out on a boat but still fit means everything you want to make sure you get the proper fitting boot and you also want to make sure that that boot fits the fin pocket of the fan of your choosing but guys if you like that video do me a huge favor hit that thumbs up for me and definitely share that video as well if you got any questions on how to properly get the right fin maybe the right fin based off what kick pattern you're going to be doing make sure you drop me a comment down below or a question and i'll try to answer it the best i can because i really hope you enjoyed today's video as always make sure you follow us on instagram and twitter like us on facebook pin us on pinterest subscribe to us here on youtube and as always guys we appreciate your business

Channel: LakeHickoryScuba

Views: 2,348

Rating: 4.9537573 out of 5

Keywords: Fitting Your Boots And Fins, How To Pick The Proper Dive Boot, Scuba Diving Boots How To, Lake Hickory Scuba Center And Marina, Instructor Trainer Bryan Stafford

Id: 0dIEhJYpMJs

Length: 9min 50sec (590 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 18 2020