The Waterway pockets cramped my feet- but I may have bought them too large, I was trying to get a thicker sock in them, and they just hurt so much after only 15 minutes that I couldn't go on.:waterwork
I have also tried the Finis footpockets in a pool, on a small training monofin, and found them to be fairly comfortable for an openheel style of footpocket- but for the price of one of their fins you could get something else much nicer.
My first Special Fins monofin was the blue, "colored" one with the OMER footpockets on it. It is comfortable enough to wear for more than 4 hours- my longest dive day with it so far. The blade is rather soft, even though I have the "hard" version, and didn't have the same snap as my Waterway fin. Still, it was, and still is, very comfortable to wear for long periods of time.
I decided to upgrade to carbon this year and first decided to try the Dolphin carbon, since Martin used to use this fin and Sam said that she found the footpockets to be very comfortable. Of course once I tried it in the pool couple of times my feet were worn to a pair of bloody stumps!:crutch
SpecialFins was nice enough to exchange it for me and I decided to upgrade to the Full Freediving Carbon monofin. I think that If I had the dolphin footpockets on a very soft blade I might have been able to make them work- since they didn't cramp up my feet like the Waterway footpockets did. I had them attached to a super stiff carbon blade and there was no "give" to them at all- so the skin on my feet gave instead.
The latest fin, which if my favorite so far, has a great kick to it and is super comfortable. I have the carbon blade, with an angle to it, which is really snappy, but I think it's the footpockets that made a bigger difference overall. I sent them a pair of Sporasub pockets, which just happen to fit my feet better than OMER's, and had them build the fin around them. They even knocked off some cash since I sent in my own footpockets!
![Cool :cool: :cool:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
The fin fits so well, and hasn't given me any "hotspots" so far, that I simply love it.
So that's what I've learned so far. I would say that if you go with a traditional, openheel, mono to error on the side of too soft rather than too stiff. I still would like to try out one of these Andropov fins, but have no idea how comfortable the woud be once you've been in the water for a couple of hours?
Jon