I went skating on concrete yesterday. My knee is swollen.

Luckily, those two statements are not related in the slightest. Today I helped a friend move, and because I am so very graceful, I smacked my knee on the U-Haul's trailer hitch. Of course it's the same knee that I keep hurting, so that's delightful. It's bruising and pretty sore and I feel completely stupid. The worst part is, I was in such pain I couldn't stop giggling/laughing. Is that going to be my new thing? Am I just going to laugh when I get hurt? That can't possibly be a normal thing.

Sooo, to the important skating bits of this weekend! First off, I have updated my Gear Post!! I ordered and am waiting for my elbow pads, wrist guards, and mouth guard (should receive them tomorrow or Tuesday) but I do have my wheels!!


When I was first putting my wheels on

I got these wheels from a fellow cross stitcher that I know through flickr and tumblr (it's been super awesome to see how many of my fellow crafty and stitchy friends are also into derby). She's doing derby and is currently upgrading, so she offered to sell me her wheels at a super cheap rate. So now I have some Radar Tuner and Radar Flat Out wheels!!

I only got to skate with them for an hour yesterday and it was a very miserable skating session. Heather, Itzel, and I went out to Barber Park to skate at the rink there (Barber Park is where the Orlando Psycho City girls do their practices every Sunday). Heather and Itzel are heroes, because this is where they practice every week, and were practicing at tonight (even after the sweaty ordeal of moving Itzel). It was so damn hot and the coated concrete was really dirty. I will need to wash my wheels before I take them anywhere because they got so gross.

Hopefully tomorrow night's usual Adult Skate session will give me a chance to properly test out my wheels. I definitely noticed a difference even on that crappy surface, but I imagine the difference will be even greater once I get on a different surface.

Also, eeep! Less than a week until recruitment night! I think I'm starting to really bother Heather and Itzel because I spend all of my time interrogating them on what they do at training. I want to get started now! I know I will regret saying that, but I am excited to learn! They can do all of these cool falls with an IDGAF expression and they act like it's not an amazing thing that they're doing. "Oh, we're just doing a fall and turning around 180 degrees and then getting up in less than a second, no big deal." JEALOUS, I am so jealous. ONE WEEK!

Date and Venue Change!!

I'm so glad that I am so obsessed with checking the Cannibal's facebook page every day or else I would not have seen this.



There are several awesome things about this change:

• I am familiar with the venue, I skate there every Monday
  
• No hard concrete (like at OEC, where they were going to hold the event)
  
• Indoors! Their other venue is/was (dunno if this is a permanent move) outdoors. Florida is hot as balls.
  
• Skate Mania is literally five minutes away from my house

And a few not so awesome things:

• I've noticed my wheels sort of sucked on the skate surface the last time I was there and my t-stops are bad (more like t-slide and skid), I run into the carpeted walls for stopping and that will be a hard habit to break
  
• The interior of the rink is filled with christian/jesus paraphernalia because it doubles as a community center; not much of a complaint, but this list is short!
  
• It's two days sooner than I thought it would be, which makes me freak out just a teensy bit.

In other news, the last two days at work I've been reading the WFTDA rules and decided to see if there were any quizzes/tests out there to see how much I've learned. This one is a pretty good test...and not just because I did well. It covers some basic information, which is always good to know.

August 8!!

Tonight was great! I spent almost all of the skate session (7:30-10pm) on the rink doing laps. The rink was a bit more crowded (ha!) than normal, and I think about 20 people showed up. This is the largest amount of people I've seen at the Adult Skate, but of course, only a few people skate at a time. At the end of the night, the woman that handles the money and the music said something along the lines of, "Shae, I'm so proud of you. There hasn't been a moment when you've been off your skates!" I think out of the 2+ hours I was there, I was only off the rink for 15 minutes tops.



So not only did I get a lot of skating time in, I got to meet a former coach of the team I want to join! He told me I need to be in derby stance (which is painful and will be even more painful when I skate it in for hours rather than minutes) and that I need to stop leaning in around turns. I tried to stop leaning by not doing crossovers as I went around the turns and feeling what my body was doing, but it naturally just wants to turn inwards.

The most important bit is that recruitment is going to be on August 8!!! Less than one month!! I am nervous and scared, and not at all ready! But omg, I am SO EXCITED!!

The only downside is that I'm still without several pieces of gear that I have to have in a few weeks. I think I'm going to do a fundraiser type thing through my etsy shop, but I'll spend tomorrow at work coming up with ideas for it and figure out what is going to work for me. Also, there are a few other things with work and practice times that I'll need to figure out, but that can wait a few weeks.

BUT OMG, AUGUST 8TH!!!! HOLY CRUD!

A Disappointing Skating Day

Today was my skating class day in Orlando, and I'm very disappointed with myself. The skate class runs from 9:15-10 and then the regular skate session goes from 10-noon. Heather and I left around 11am. *sigh*

I've been feeling down and not like myself at all which has left me completely unmotivated to do anything but whine and procrastinate. I was excited to skate this morning but we didn't learn anything new or exciting in class, so it just sort of took the wind out of my sails. I want to do well and improve, but I need some kind of tangible goal to work towards.

Which brings me to something that is bugging me. Heather and Itzel just had their very first real practice. It left them sore, dehydrated, and exhausted...and I want that, too. They're both learning new skills (they did several types of falls during their practice!!) and I don't want to be left behind. I know I'm not physically fit enough yet, but I still want to try. I want to know how much I need to push myself to be able to do the 25 in 5. Even if I can only do 10 laps in the five minutes, it's something I want to know!

Hopefully next week or after Monday's skate night I'll be in a better mood, and maybe by then I'll find out something about local recruitment. I'm itching get into derby and reading blogs and hearing about it from friends is no longer cutting it.

New Skills and an Achievement

This weekend was great! I got to spend all of Saturday and Sunday in Orlando and picked up a few skills as well as gained an achievement. As I said in my last post I wanted to get 5 days straight on my Zumba game. I got that on Saturday so now I'm hopefully going to have ten days in a row by next Thursday.

Now to the important skating bits! The Saturday morning class at Universal Skating Center was led by someone else this time, and it was pretty great. She did a lot of the basic stuff we've already been doing, but with a little extra instruction. She explained how we should be feeling the push when we T-Start and when we're just regular skating. Just feeling that push helped a lot. Anything that makes me more aware of how to move is a good thing, and I think it will help me with my speed. Even though I'm not even close to recruitment, I have a horrible fear that I will fail the 25 laps in 5 minutes because I've seen the same thing happen on various other derby blogs.

So the Saturday morning class was pretty good, but I think the best thing was the adult skate at Semoran Skateway. I will proudly admit that I spent almost the entire time in the beginner's area (there were several large groups of shuffle/jam skaters and they were SCARY). It was awesome though, because Laura, who skates (or skated, I think she's taking time off but I'm not sure) with Thunder City, was able to give us a few pointers and an amazing lesson in how to do T-stops!!

Yes, T-stops, one thing that I've seen as impossible and difficult! After lots and lots of practice I'm feeling semi-confident in my ability to do a T-stop. It's definitely not perfect or pretty, but I'm going to get to a point where I can stop faster. For now, it takes a little bit more time than I'd like, but I know if I keep working at it my stops will be better. In the Saturday morning skate class, they teach us to do a Toe Stop (which is a big Derby no-no). Hopefully I can go to class next week and still be able to do a good T-stop and not have to worry about my horribly performed Toe Stops.

Another thing I worked on was skating backwards! I'm still kind crummy at it (unless no one is watching, then I can backward skate like a mofo), but at least I'm moving and going backwards at the same time! I thought it would be an impossible skill, but in working in the Beginner's Rink I was able to take time to keep trying again and again.

So this weekend was a roaring success as far as I'm concerned. I'm kind of getting worried though. Last Thursday two of my friends went to recruitment with the league they're going to join and now I'm worried that once they start regular practices I'll be the person left behind. I know my chance at recruitment will come and I know for a fact that I'm still not physically fit enough to go through recruitment, but a huge part of me wishes that I lived closer and that driving there twice a week was possible. Oh well, time to stop being a whiner and start celebrating the fact that I can do t-stops!!