And then she took my toe stops

Work has been super busy so I haven’t had a chance to write about Saturday’s practice, but it was interesting and scary as hell at the same time. We had Lethal Dose, a coach and player from another league, come down and lead us in some footwork drills. She was a very awesome coach to have and I’m glad we got to work with her.

We started out doing 180° turns by making your legs wide and stepping. I noticed that I could do it 100% fine when I was going right but I couldn’t turn left (I’m not an ambi-turner!). We then moved onto a back spin move where you would slide one foot from center in a semi-circle while the other foot was on the two front wheels and pivoted the turn so you were facing the other direction. I could do it just fine if I was going right, but going left was a disaster and every time LD looked at me I was messing up on my left side. She told me to try it one more time and if I didn’t get it right then she was going to take my toe stops, which I guess were messing me up. I didn’t do it and she removed my toe stops for me and said I could have them back at the end of practice.

And then I fell like 800 times.

New bruise for my troubles

Not having toe stops is bad for me. I go up on my toe stops a lot, and when that happens when you’re not wearing them you straight up bellyflop. After falling over and over again trying to do a backspin we moved on to hopping 180°. I was just fine with that, but still very bad at doing it on my left side (I eventually got it down, but it took a while).

Then came some cone work. We weaved, lateral hopped, galloped, hockey stopped, and a few other things. There were some other things worked in there, but my mind sucks because it happened several days ago. Last night before practice I put my toe stops in and it was so, so nice.

A Bit Different

Last night’s practice was a bit different than normal, and that was a good thing. There needs to be a bit of backstory first though.

When the team first started there was a group of guys that were coaching. Due to several conflicts (I’ve heard so many different snippets from everyone but in all honestly don’t know very much about it), the male coaches were asked to leave. The fresh meat coach was not part of the problem so he stayed, but the other guys did not stick around. I know that they discussed if one or two guys would be willing to stick around, but it was an all or nothing situation with them. I vaguely talked about it several months ago back when I was fresh meat.

Well anyway, we needed an occasional practice coach (when normal coaches couldn’t be there) and one of the guys offered to coach us on those nights. He’s an amazing skater and derby player with the Magic City Misfits and brought some really great drills to practice.

A Magic City Misfits highlight reel



We started out by making two 4x4 squares on the floor with some tape. It was kinda funny because we had no idea why we were making the squares (and to be honest, they were some wonky squares because I am bad at shapes). Once we did, J told us what we would be doing. It was like sumo wrestling in that two girls would be in the square and could only use legal hits and pushes to get the other girl to either fall down or go out of the square. Once she lost on that square, she’d move on to the next square. So basically there would be two “matches” going on at any one time. It was so much fun and I hope we do it again in the future!

After that we did a last man standing type of thing, but rather than the typical spread out way, it was closer with a ref at each end about 15 feet away from the pack. There were two hitters that would go around and try to hit you out or down, and if you went behind or in front of the ref you were out as well. The first two rounds were fun and then the third kind sucked a little because I was one of the hitters and I just failed so bad. Ugh.

The next thing we did was a Push & Pull Pyramid. With a partner you start out pushing them for one lap then they push you for one lap. You go to two then they go to two, and so on until you’ve done five laps. After five you start pulling them rather than pushing and work your way down until you each end with one lap. The one thing I didn’t like about this drill was that it was not fair for me or my partner. We needed to find a partner that was similar in size so it would be fair, but everyone else had already paired up and I ended up with a much skinnier girl. She’s one of our fresh meat that was a great skater already, so I got to push and pull a very light girl and she had to push and pull heavy me, but it wasn’t too bad because she’s already a strong skater (although in the pulling drill I cheated a little and sticky skated so she wouldn’t have to work as hard).

The next drill we did (yes, we did a lot of new drills; fun new drills are always awesome) was a competition between two girls. The two girls would start out about 15 feet behind the rest of the skaters who were in a pack. When the ref blew the whistle the entire pack would go on a knee and just stay there. It was up to the two girls to race through the downed skaters without touching anyone and do a lap around the track. Whoever made it to the back of the pack first was the winner. I lost my first one (because I was literally stuck right behind the other girl going around the track so I didn’t lose by much), and I won my second one.

We did several other things including building and holding walls, scrimmaging, and some very in depth scrimmage strategy but I think I’ve gone on a bit long already. I left practice feeling really pissed off at a few people and it sort of spoiled my good practice happiness, but typing this up has made me feel a lot better about how fun of a time I had!

Great Practice Tonight!

So I've been a bit quiet, and I'm aware of that. I haven't really wanted to say anything because I might just jinx it, but awesome things have been happening! Our entire fresh meat group has gone through testing. Out of all of the people we started with, only three made it to the end for testing out. I made it (as you know) and another girl did. The other girl sort of passed, but with stipulations (her skills aren't as high as they'd like them to be). An hour ago I sent an email to my captain with my derby name! Yep, that's right! I have officially submitted my derby name to be entered into the master list!

Also, I was asked to create the flyer for our upcoming charity scrimmage (which I will be skating in!!). Being a skater is important to me, but being an active league member is also insanely important and I want to help however I can.




So anyway - tonight's practice. We started out with our normal jog and then did dynamic stretching (stretching while rolling on skates around the track). After that we did this sort of "bus driver" drill where we would get picked up at our "bus stop" (orange cone) and led (by our captain) around the rink while doing various skills. There might be a school zone (everyone slowed down) or a tunnel (squatting), a downed tree (jumping), and all sorts of other stuff. I hope we do it again because I think it was a really cool exercise.

Then we did some hitting! It seems that all I ever do is take and give hits and I am 100% fine with that! I've been getting some really great looking bruises from it, so I'm not about to complain. My hip checks are pretty crummy though. I'm better at full body or shoulder checks, but my hips just aren't as...snappy? There are several girls on the team that can hip check like woah. I just need to keep practicing, I know.

One really weird thing that a girl pointed out to me is that I have been looking away when I make a hit. I'll put it out there - I say sorry a lot and I don't want people to get hurt. I'm working around that so I'm not a piss poor derby player. So when I've been hitting people, I look away as I make impact, meaning my impacts are not as strong and on target as they need to be. She told me that if I looked away when I hit her then she would punch me; I did not look away after that. It really helped, so I'm going to make sure to focus on actually looking at the person I'm making contact with!

After that we did some scrimmaging while learning the strategy that big teams are using: starting the jam at the jammer line. If you haven't been watching a lot of high level derby playing, this is how it goes: the entire pack (or at least one team) will start on the jammer line, taking a knee. Because they are not up when the first whistle is blown, a no pack call is made and the jammers are released instantly (without having to wait for the pack to cross the pivot line). It was interesting to learn and do. I think the best part was that everyone was learning it. No one on the team had ever tried it before, so we learned together.

During one of the scrimmages my best moment so far happened. The opposing team's jammer was coming up and I went for her. Not only did I hit her off the track, but she went down to the ground. I was insanely proud of myself and everyone else was excited for me, too! Everyone cheered, our captain gave me a high five, one girl hugged me, and I think someone smacked my butt but I didn't see who it was so I'm not sure if it was on purpose. Either way, it was AWESOME. I loved everything about practice tonight!!

Some you like, some you don't...

I think I'm just going to have to accept that sometimes I'm going to love the hell out of a practice and other times I'm just going to want to kick it in the face until it bleeds all over the place.

Thursday practice was not my thing. Well, parts of it were pretty great, but a few things made me so beyond pissed that I wanted to scream, cry, run away, and maybe punch someone in the face (emotions may have been amplified due to lady things). There was only one other fresh meat girl at practice on Thursday so we just joined up with the vets to do the drills they were doing. Thursday was all about endurance. We did a lot of paceline drills (calling inside/outside is what made me so pissed if you can believe it - two different people telling me opposite ways to do an insanely simple thing, argh!) and another drill that was pure hell. In the drill we would full out sprint for a minute and then follow it up with a minute of a skill (some skills were: backwards skating, plow stops, knee falls, tomahawk stops, lateral hops, lunges, and some other things I'm forgetting). It was a very long and very hard drill. I was glad when it was over, but very proud of myself for not dying. :D

Saturday practice was much better. I had gotten rid of the pissed feeling and the girl I was sort of angry at wasn't there, so it was all good. The theme of the Saturday practice was footwork. We started with a few off skates things and then put on skates for some hopping, grapevines, weaving, ducking, and tomahawks. We then got on the track for some roller skating dodgeball. It sounds scary, but it was seriously the most fun I've ever had. It starts out with everyone skating on the track and several people have balls that they throw at the skaters. If you get hit below the knees then you are out (and can throw the balls at the remaining skaters). We did the dodgeball game in a pack, too and it was really cool how the pack still stayed together even though a bright pink ball would be running through our feet.

The next "game" we played was Last Man Skating. With everyone an equal distance apart from each other, we skated around the track once. After the first lap, it was your job to knock someone down or get them off of the track. I lasted all of 1 minute the first time we played and then stuck through almost until the end on the second round. I took some pretty good hits and managed to stay planted until one of the amazeballs vets took me down. She told me she was going to give me a few laps and then she'd be coming for me, and she sure did! I don't think I would have ever been able to get low enough to withstand her hit. I fell hard and felt nothing. I LOVE MY GEAR!

After a few other games and activities we moved on to some scrimmaging (eeeek!!!). In one of the jams I actually had a really good block and was super proud of myself. In another jam I got to be the jammer and I actually made it through the pack a few times (although the vets were being gentle on us freshies!). It was very rewarding and yet scary at the same time!

Tonight's practice was also great (even though it only lasted an hour and a half). We weren't able to be at the rink tonight, so we practiced at the nearby park. All day I was dragging my feet and thinking that I didn't want to go to practice. Several times I even considered posting in the team's group that I wasn't going to make it, but I decided I would go. I wasn't really in the mood for trail skating, but we didn't do that. We went to a section of the trail that the team practiced on when they first started and didn't have a real practice space.

We did a paceline drill and then the freshies went off to the side with our fresh meat coach (I was so glad he was back!). This was another practice where it was me and one other fresh meat girl (although the other fresh meat girl changes from practice to practice - it'll be a miracle if everyone actually comes to practice!). We practiced one foot glides and then learned how to do a hip twist. I think I'm getting there while on my left foot, but as always, gliding on my right foot is just sucky. Oddly enough I'm better on my right foot when trying to hip twist. I think that because I'm so focused on getting my body to be correct I don't think about gliding on my uncooperative foot as much. We did a bit of weaving around some shoes, and that was that. There wasn't much to do in an hour and a half and it was getting dark, so practice was over.

I am so glad that I went to practice. Tonight was the first time I just didn't want to go to practice and forcing myself to go was the right thing. Also, I think the one fresh meat girl that was at practice tonight was quitting (or having some sort of emotional problem) when I left. A few weeks ago I was confident that we would all make it through fresh meat and now girls are just disappearing and dropping. It's pretty upsetting.

4:58 and Jumping

Last night during practice we did the 25-in-5 again. I was doing pretty great in the beginning and our ref, who was timing, said, “Good time!” when I had reached 5 laps. After about the 7th lap, I felt like I was slowing down. I don’t know what it was, but I felt extremely exhausted (it didn’t help that we had just done some off-skates stuff that made my legs feel like noodles). I pushed through and tried to just finish instead of collapse right on the track.

When I finished, I was told that my time was 4:58!! Sure, that’s only a 9 second improvement from my best time, but it’s less than five minutes. I was really stunned because I thought for sure my time would be around 6 minutes. Another thing that made it easier was that there was only one other fresh meat girl on the track with me. I really dislike passing people when we’re doing our 25-in-5, so I usually pace behind another person because it allows me to remember which lap I’m on (I lose count almost every time, especially if anyone yells anything to me – and I have ended up doing an extra lap before).

Anyway – the rest practice last night. So our fresh meat coach will be coming back, but he wasn’t at last night’s practice because he was having car issues. *sigh of relief* One of our skaters (she got MVP jammer at the last bout) was running the practice along with her boyfriend, who skates for a men’s team and was part of the old coaching staff. Oddly enough, there were only two of us fresh meat for the practice. One of the girls has officially dropped out for money and time reasons (but she had missed a lot of practice), another two or three don’t come in all that often because of their jobs, and another has school on Tuesday nights, so she usually comes late (but didn’t come at all last night).

She was going to torture us with some off-skates stuff, but since there were only two of us, she had to do it differently. We’d done crunches and leg lifts in the team stretching exercises after the initial jog, so we didn’t have to do more of those. We did some frog hops, suicides, high knees, and planks ; also, we did do a couple of new things:

• Teabagging Squats – okay, there is a real name for them but I can’t remember, so they are officially teabagging squats to me. You’d get into a squat and hold it and then you’d bend up and down like you’re teabagging someone. The first set had 5 teabags, then 10, and then 11. It was a really great exercise and I’m going to try do it at home, I’m surprised I’m not sore from this one.
  
• Squat Hops - Basically like the three hops and a squat but with one big hop rather than three
  
• Squat with leg movement - No idea what to call this one, but we were in a squatting position and we would tap one leg forward and then back. Yeah, I can’t even explain it, lol
  
• Leg Lifts - Standing on one foot and bringing the other leg up and then down without letting it touch the floor. This one helped create noodle legs since we did a ton of them.

After that she had us show her our falls and stops, I totally dorked up one of my 180s and another of my baseball slides – both on my left side, of course. I told her that we were still having trouble with left footed t-stops so we worked on those. The other fresh meat girl is now pretty good at them, but mine just blow hardcore. I can’t bring my left foot up and when I get it in the right place I don’t stick it down hard enough. Then we did plow stops. I’m feeling pretty comfortable with them and I love the sound a plow stop makes!

After that we moved onto some tomahawk stops, or rather, the basic turning around to get to a tomahawk. The guy, J, was helping me out while Y was helping the other fresh meat. The big mistake I keep making is that my left foot just wants to hang out somewhere else than where it should be. J even asked me at one point, “What is up with your left foot?” It just doesn’t do what I want it to do! I want it to turn around naturally, but the only way I am going to get it to be in line and not widely spaced out is to pick it up and turn it around to match my right foot. Rather than picking up my whole skate to turn it, I’ve started to get better at just lifting up half of it and turning it. The only thing I can do at this point is practice, practice, practice until I can do them right.

The other exciting thing we did was JUMPING! We did some hops on Saturday, but we did some actual jumping this time. The really exciting part is that J is basically amazing at jumps. He’s not quite Quadzilla, but I’ve seen him jump over 2 or 3 people, get 3+ feet of air, and he can go from a standstill to a fast skating 360 jump in a second. Not saying that Y isn’t amazing at jumping, she can jump ridiculously high.

The first thing we tried was jumping over a line on the floor. Once I was comfortable doing that, I moved to jumping over a broomstick handle. Once I made that handle my bitch (as Y put it), I moved to some downed cones. After the downed cones, J put a shoe on top of the downed cones put together (see the crummy drawing below) and I did that a few times. Except one of the times I hit the shoe with my skate and it fell off the cones. The last jump I tried was two cones standing together and upright. I did not clear them. In fact, I fell pretty spectacularly (last night I fell a ton, I have no idea what was up with me).



We joined the vets shortly after that and did a drill that I’m sure has a name, but I’m too lazy to look it up. We were separated into two groups of six with the slowest up front and in a tight paceline (physically keeping your hand on the person in front of you at all times) we skated 5 laps and then got off the track. Then the other group skated their 5 and we got on the track to skate 4 laps, then they did their 4, then we did three, and so on.

It was a good practice, but the lack of structure and the fact that there were only 2 of us made it feel kinda long (which has never happened at practice before). I’m hoping that Thursday’s practice has more fresh meat because just having two people is not awesome.



Apologies to anyone actually reading this blog; it’s more for me and a way to talk through and remember what I do from week to week. Once I get started talking I can’t really stop.

Three practices (long post is long)

Tuesday

In my last post I was worried about my ankle. It swelled to an outrageous size all through Tuesday and I was planning on telling the fresh meat coach that I wasn't going to be able to skate. I checked my email before leaving work for practice and saw a reminder that we were meeting at Greenway rather than the rink since they had an event. I decided I would give skating a try and if I had trouble skating to where the trails started then I wouldn't skate.

Practice started with an hour long league meeting before we donned our skates. I laced up my skates and skated with the team. I was able to keep up much better than I had on Friday. In the end we only skated 3 miles before it got too dark to do anything else, so we packed it in. When I took off my skates I noticed that the swelling had gone down about 90%. So yes, healing powers of skating!


Thursday

Thursday practice was great! One of the girls that has been in fresh meat with us was testing out. She's a former vet of the team and per the team's bylaws, she's eligible to test out of fresh meat after her 4th week (this was the 6th). So while we did our jog, stretching, and a few drills she was doing her minimum skills (she passed!). I'm excited for her, but kinda sad that she'll be leaving our small group (although we're halfway through, so the group won't last all that long).

We freshmeat were lucky enough to be able to do some drills with the vets. I'm kind of an idiot, because now I've sort of forgotten what they were because I waited so long to post about them, but I'll remember to the best of my ability.

The first one we did after our initial warm up laps was a paceline drill. As we skated in the paceline the very front person would skate ahead and pass the line on the outside and then skate around again to join them in the back. After that we worked with a partner on staying in the blocker's blind spot by weaving from side to side as well as some positional blocking and a bit of pushing.

After that we did a sort of "pass the panty" type of thing. Everyone was skating as a big giant pack and one person would be wearing the jammer panty, they would skate around the track, find holes through the pack (with no blocking - except on some we were told to make it hard for them) and on their second pass through the pack they would hand the jammer panty off to someone else and they would do the same. I ended up being the last one to get the jammer panty (IT FELT SO WEIRD TO TRY AND PUT IT ON WHILE I WAS SKATING!!) and as I was making my final pass through the pack someone yelled something like, "Shae wants to be a jammer, make it hard for her!" and EVERYONE THREW THEIR ARMS OUT TO BLOCK ME! I crouched low and went through on the inside. Just as an fyi - no, I do not want to be a jammer, she just wanted to make it hard for me, lol.

All of that was in about an hour and a half of our practice, and then freshies broke off to go do our normal thing. We did the normal falls with the addition of 180 knee slides and some plow stopping. We focused a lot on stopping for our part of the practice. We're all pretty good stopping with our right leg, but the left is a mess. I really need to figure out a way outside of practice that I can work on stopping with my left. About 10 minutes before practice ended we joined the rest of the team to do backwards laps. I fell 3 times, one of them forward! When I fell forward I got a large round of applause, lol. I am not awesome at backwards skating.


Saturday

Today was a very different type of practice. First of all, our fresh meat coach wasn't there. After the meeting we had on Tuesday, I don't know if he just wasn't there or if he's not going to come back because of all of the main team coaching changes that are happening right now. I guess we'll see how Tuesday practice is.

As I said, it was very different than normal because our fresh meat coach wasn't there and there were only 2 freshies, 6 vets, our captain (who was leading the practice), and the team's head ref. Also, a couple of the ladies had gone to part of the matinee skate that happens before practice to drum up some interest in the league and the sport. Several people, including a bunch of kids, were allowed to hang back and watch us practice for a bit. Rather than doing our normal run and stretch we immediately geared up. We started with some warm up laps before forming a line for some paceline drills.

In the line we did: regular weaving, backwards weaving, butt swipes (you get in real close and swipe your butt across their lap/vag area), and hip whips (my first time trying them!). After that the vets did a little mock 3 on 3 scrimmage. Right as they were finishing up a jam the spectators left, so they ditched doing that since they never start practices with scrimmaging.

We got back into a line and did an exercise where we had to cut across from one side of the track to the other when a whistle was blown. Never having done this, I fell (of course) and it made the girl behind me fall. The tight paceline separated and practiced the actual movement involved. Once I got exactly how the lunge to the inside/outside worked, it became a lot easier. I really liked that one and want to try it some more!

The next one was getting from one side of the track to the other with *ominous music* lateral hops! Now, we've done lateral hops in fresh meat, but that was during off-skates training. Big surprise though - I didn't fall! Not even once! I think I did several good ones, a lot of mediocre ones, and one or two bad ones.

After that we worked with a partner and I did not do well, in my opinion. I didn't fully understand the drill and was a little lost. We combined the cutting movement and the butt swipe for blocking someone, but I think we were supposed to be passing them, and I wasn't passing my partner. I don't know. I felt like a bit of an idiot during this part (especially because my partner is an amazing skater with a lifetime of skating experience).

Rather than keep practicing that one on each other, our ref changed from skates to sneakers and got out a large hitting pad so we could practicing hitting it. We did some of the same butt swipe hits; none of my attempts were right. After that he held the pad to the side and we had to cut from one side of the track to the other to deliver a hit with our whole body. I think out of all of the ones I did, I landed 1 or 2 correctly. Kind of discouraging, but this was the first time the fresh meat practiced any type of hitting at all.

The next drill the vets were going to do was skate around the track and when a move was called they would do it (tomahawks, falls, stops, etc). We were pulled aside and worked with the skater I had partnered with before. She wanted to know what we had been taught to do and correct a few of our falls. Our knee falls were good, but we were falling a bit too hard (and me leaning a bit too far back) in our double knee falls. Our pornstars/superman falls were good, but our baseball slides were wrong. She showed us another way to do them, so we did one of two of those. The one we learned before was a bit harder than the new one. I don't mind either though.

We did some t-stop practice after that, and I came the closest I ever have to actually stopping with my left foot!! So yays, hopefully I'll keep improving! We did some plow stopping after that, not too much since we both had the basic concept down, it's just a matter of perfecting it. Then we did...TOMAHAWKS!

The other fresh meat girl has already been able to turn around (and around and around and around) since we started, so she got those really easy. As long as I think about the steps involved in turning around, I can kinda do them. So I was able to do 2 good, but very slow, tomahawk stops. I definitely want to practice the hell out of those! Then we did hockey stops. The same turn around as a tomahawk, but with one leg out in back. I did one good one of those, and definitely want to work on it (I need more work with the turn around rather than the stopping motion in both the hockey and the tomahawk). The captain announced that it was time to start picking up the track, but the skater that was with us wanted us to try some regular hopping. We hopped in place once, and then started rolling, doing 3 hops down one part of the rink, and then 3 hops down the next part. I am happy to say that I only fell once, and I knew exactly why I fell (put too much weight on the front of my skates rather than the middle). I was kinda bummed when that was the end of practice, because I was very excited at the new skills we were able to tackle today.

I've also decided to stop going to Monday night skate because I need more time for homework type stuff and this week I have two tests (also, I don't like spending money). On Monday I'm going to study and prepare for both tests and on Wednesday night I'll go ahead and take both of them. Right now I'm skating at practice Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and then I will be doing trail skating on Friday and Sunday (except tomorrow since I'm going to Orlando in the early morning). After this coming week, I think I want to start doing zumba or another kind of cardio on Monday & Wednesday when I'm not skating.

Fresh Meat Mom

Okay, it is official. I have been declared the mom of our fresh meat group! Since we started I've been a bit of a mother hen, and apparently everyone realizes it. When someone falls I'm always trying to help them in any way I can, when someone needs water I've got my giant 1 gallon jug of ice water ready to fill up their bottle, if someone starts their period I've got pads and tampons in my bag, if someone needs a bandaid and blister pads I have those, and if someone is breaking in some new skates, you know I have an extra pair of super thick knee socks that I'm ready to give away (they were white and I've been toting them around in my bag for a few weeks, so I do need to buy another pair of socks for my bag). So yes, while several girls are older than me and at least 1 or 2 are younger than me, I am the mom.

I really want all of us to make it through fresh meat, and I actually think most of our group will. Out of the 9 girls that started only 2 have dropped out, both of them within the first week. It may sound weird and mushy, but I freaking love these ladies! They're so much fun and the practices always go by way too fast!

Tonight's practice went by super fast (and it was awesome as hell!). As soon as we geared up we joined the vets in a 20 lap warm up, and then laps in the opposite direction around the track once we finished those. I think I'm getting a little closer to an opposite direction crossover, but I need a lot more confidence with gliding on my right foot.

After that we did a pace line drill. With the team. Oh my god.

I was super nervous and in the back of the line (one fresh meat girl was behind me, but she wasn't able to do the drill), so the captain showed us how to do it. AND THEN I WAS UP. I was seriously nervous and trying to figure out how bad I was going to destroy the line when I fell, BUT I DIDN'T. I yelled my inside and outside as I weaved through the girls. It felt amazing once I got to the front (and then I accidentally sped the line up way too fast and had to slow down until one of the vets came up in front of me). Usually when the team does the drills they'll do regular, hip whips, arm whips, and something else that involves putting your butt right into another person's lady area; luckily we just did the normal pace line and went off to the other side of the rink for fresh meat stuff.

We did some sticky skating and a whole lotta falls! Apparently I was totally on my game tonight because our fresh meat coach told me I was doing awesome and gave me a high five. After one of my baseball slides he said, "I want you all to do that!" while pointing at me. YAY! Baseball slides. How awesomely fun are they!?

I really should get some sleep since I'm going to be meeting some of the awesome vets for some skating in the park in the morning. In conclusion - my night was perfect. I'm so glad I had such a great practice!

Three Nights in a Row? YES PLEASE!

I had a post all typed up yesterday but I was at work and didn't get a chance to post it. It's not really all that great or relevant now, so I'm just going to forget about it.

This week we had an extra day of practice! Which means I got to go to practice on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (today). It was AWESOME. On Tuesday we did off-skates stuff for the first 2.5 hours and then did some skate stuff for the last 30 minutes. Yesterday and today we were on skates the whole time. We did knee slides, double knee slides, baseball slides, and porn star slides (also known as four point slides). My entire right leg was dirty from the baseball slides. It was pretty gross!

At the end of practice (tonight and last night) we did planks to derby stance (planks for a bit then up into derby stance and then down to planks and derby stance again). Those things KILL me, but I'm actually better at planks when I'm wearing my skates and gear (not sliding as much). I can actually feel the muscles that are being worked. After that we did laps where you had to be in low derby stance on the straight aways and one by one we left the laps to do 20 crunches. I never thought that I would be excited to get off my skates and do crunches, lol.

Today we did a bit more with our falls. We would skate a few feet, then do one footed glides from one cone to the next, do cross overs around the corners, and then go fast until we got midway to the next cone and have to be stopped by the time we reached it (that sounds confusing but it's not, here's a crappy paint version of what we did):



And of course, I am occasionally crap at my single knee falls. I don't know what it is, but I just cannot keep control and I usually end up turning a bit or falling right onto my bum. I wish there was a good place to practice these (I could practice outside on the concrete, but the idea of it just freaks me out). At one point we were doing them and our fresh meat coach was skating along with us and when we got to the point between the cross overs and fall he would bump us with his hip. One of the times I was bracing myself for the bump and I tripped myself hardcore. I think I have a pretty major bruise developing on my left thigh/butt/hip area. If it gets nice looking I'll shave my legs (at least in that spot) and take a picture.

The last thing we did before we left was get low into derby stance and the fresh meat coach was giving us hip checks. It was pretty cool and I'm glad I didn't fall and embarrass myself.

And because I'm feeling talkative, let me talk about the girls in our fresh meat. There are a couple of vets in with us. Two of the girls have skated with the team before and another did fresh meat in another league a year or so ago. Apparently the vets are just going to be in our fresh meat for another week or two and they may just test out and join the league. One of the ones that showed up for practice did the crazy awesome pace line drills with the team at the beginning.

Finally, a bit of bad news. We did the 25-in-5 again and I got 5:45 this time. *ultimate sadface* BUT I am going to qualify it by saying that I was not up to my usual form at all. I took today off of work so I could have an ultra long holiday weekend so I barely drank water (actually, I didn't drink ANY water before practice) and the only thing I had to eat was frozen yogurt for lunch and an apple that I ate on my way to practice. I will be much more prepared when we do it again on Saturday.

5 minutes, 28 seconds

Today's practice was pretty damn awesome! First of all, we got to try the dreaded 25-in-5! The fresh meat went first so we could gauge where we are in our skating ability and our skills. Each fresh meat girl was assigned a Vet that would watch them and give them tips when we were done with our laps. I did mine (and only lost track of counting once, I am bad at counting) and I was able to finish my 25 laps in 5 minutes and 28 seconds!!! I'm super proud of myself! I still have 30 seconds to shave off my time, but according to the other girls I should have no problem having it be under 5 minutes in 10 weeks.

The vet assigned to me told me that I need to get a bit lower (no shocker there) and showed me how she and the other girls approach the track like a circle. Inside on the corners and outside on the straightaways. It allows girls to constantly do crossovers. I don't know how I didn't notice it before, but it really seems to work! I'm excited to approach the track that way next time.

After our laps we watched the rest of the girls do theirs. We did 5 backwards laps (getting better at backwards, I think) and then the fresh meat ladies split off to work with one of the refs (none of the coaches were able to make it). So we went over to our area of the rink and practiced some stopping for a bit. I'm still not great at stopping, but I am getting there. I know that I will eventually be able to stop. After that we did a LOT of sticky skating. We did wide legged scissors to prepare for our eventual plow stop lesson, the figure eight, and then one leg at a time scissors (which is actually the elusive slalom that seemed like magic, but it is insanely easy). I thought I was going to fall flat on my face during the figure eight, but it was surprisingly easy once I started doing it.

We were going to do some knee falls and whatnot, but a couple girls still don't have gear. One had borrowed most of it from someone, but another one didn't have knee pads, so that plan was scrapped. Instead we did some weaving drills...which I am very bad at.

Okay, okay, I'm not very bad at them, but I know I could do better and should be doing better. The biggest problem is the whole "comparing yourself to others" thing. I have read so many derby blogs that tell you to never compare yourself to anyone else and I agree...but I still do. I can't help but compare myself to the girls that have done derby before, or the girl that has a background in skating, or even the girl that has a harder time than most. I'm sorry, but I compare myself to them and I probably always will; simple as that.

But yes, I think that's it. Oh wait! I also made a purchase after practice!



I never ever imagined myself as the girl that would buy safety cones for a real reason and not for cosplay reasons. I am going to use these cones for everything!

The Last Skate Session

Last night was my last normal skate session before derby starts up. Recruitment is THIS SATURDAY! From what I can figure out, it seems that the first hour and a half will be information on joining, policies, dues, practices and the like, and then the next two (?) hours will be the normal public skate that takes place at Skate Mania on Saturday nights. Eeeep!

Anyway, back to last night’s skate session: it was fantastic!! I actually left work on time for once, so I had plenty of time to have dinner and do some other things around the house before I left to skate (if only I could leave work right at six every single night). Even though I used my new wheels on Saturday, last night was really the test to see how they worked. The new wheels were amazing. It was so weird to start out because it was ridiculously smooth and with just a few pushes I was going faster than I ever had before. It was scary for the first five minutes, but then I got used to it.

The control I had was amazing. My old wheels would slip a little when I was doing a crossover so I usually only tried to do one around a curve; with my new wheels I can do several in a row and really pick up speed. On the straight areas I only had do three or four pushes to get me to the next turn. I tried what Heather’s league calls “sticky skating” and I was able to get around the whole outside of the rink (although it took a bit of time). The last time I tried that, my wheels and legs slipped in a strange way and I ended up slowly falling to my butt.

The best part about skating last night was that almost no one was there (apparently not many people like to leave the house when it’s raining like crazy). Near the end of the night I was literally the only person skating for about 15 minutes. I was able to push myself to go faster than I do when there are other people around. It was great!

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!!

Getting mah skate on!

My friend Heather, whose derby blog is here, purchased her skates right after that very first live bout in January. Once she was done with Faire, she started taking skating classes at Universal Skating Center, which is where we go to see the Orlando Psycho City Derby bouts. Every Saturday morning from 9:15-10am they have classes and then from 10am-noon they have public skate. She’s been going for a little over a month and was finally able to convince me to wake up early enough to get down there and skate.

My first class, on June 11, was a bit hectic. Usually they have two teachers, one to teach the level 1 skaters and the other to teach the level 2 skaters (level 3 classes end at 9:15 and they are run with both teachers), but one was gone, so the first 20 minutes were just waiting around. I started in the level 1 class, but because I was already rolling and moving, I was bumped up to the level 2 class. At the end of the first class I decided I had to have my own skates and went to the store inside of the rink.

Heather has Rock GT-50 skates which are apparently better for wider feet. I thought I would be getting that one, but I asked to try on the Riedell R3s that they had. I tried on a few pairs of skates and finally found that the size 7 fit me best. Once I was all laced up, we went back out onto the rink floor and it was like magic. I had used the crummy rental skates for class, but skating on my brand new skates was like skating on butter.



While going to the Orlando skate class at least once a week is something I plan to do, I still wanted to skate a bit closer to home. I knew of one skating rink here in Ocala, but it’s not open very often because it doubles as a community center/daycare type of place. I called on Monday to find out their public skating hours and discovered that they have a 21+ adult skating session every Monday nights from 7-10. So that night I convinced my brother to come along and we skated.

I’m now going to continue skating twice a week (and I'm going to show up right at 7 because they have skating lessons for the first 30 minutes), and hopefully I’ll start to improve. I’ve fallen a few times (more on that in another post) so far, but I have managed to pick up a few skills. I can do: turtle tucks, scissors, t-starts, flamingo, raising one foot while skating, and one footed turns (though I need to practice them more tonight).

What I want to be able to do before recruitment:

• Stop!! (T stop, plow stop, and if possible the tomahawk stop)
  
• Shooting the Duck
  
• Crossovers
  
• Skating backwards (we started this in class but I was only able to waddle back and do horrible scissors)
  
• Lift leg behind me, swan-like move (no idea what it’s called)

Update!: I wrote this post while I was at work today, but I forgot to post before I left for skating. The skating class wasn't exactly what I thought it was, but something really amazing came out of it - I learned how to do crossovers!! I'm so proud of myself and very excited. They feel so natural. I also fell tonight while working on backwards skating, so I'll definitely be wearing my pads the next time I give it a go.