The skates come pre-sharpened, so they are ready to use right away. Balance Blades transform from a 'training blade' to a regular blade through sharpening when your child's skating skills have progressed. The indentations on the front and rear of the blade can slowly be reduced during regular sharpening throughout 3 transitional stages as your child's skating skills improve. Major hockey retailers carry the skate and sharpen the Balance Blades including Pure Hockey, Sports Excellence, Source for Sports, Play it Again Sport and Canadian Tire. Perhaps the sharpening servies are not familiar with Balance Blades. You could refer them to our website www.balanceblades.com and share the sheet directly with the skate sharpener. There should be no reason the skate sharpener 'will not touch them'. The sharpening instruction sheet was included in the box and it is attached for your reference. Feel free to share pics or videos of your son learning on Balance Blades. We love to showcase stories of our lil Balance Bladers on our social media. We are very responsive on all our social media platforms, facebook, instagram and twitter. Hope that helps