One Intense Bout

Today is the first day back from my vacation at work. During the last (insanely awesome) week and a half I was at a Harry Potter conference, I had an interview posted on the Kate in Skates blog, and our team had one of our most intense bouts yet.

Our team is small because we keep losing skaters to pregnancy, job changes, and injuries. We decided not to borrow any skaters for this bout because the last time we played Lakeland we beat them by 246 points, and we didn’t want that to happen again. So we would be playing short with only 10 players. The day before the bout though, one of our players was admitted to the hospital so instead we went into the bout with 9 skaters.

The problems didn’t end there, though. The team’s venue we were playing at is an airplane hangar and right at turn 2 there is a very slick spot due to a past oil spill of some kind. The whole space is slick, but that particular spot is ridiculous. It was raining, so the air was beyond humid and the concrete was also just sucking up the water in the air, making it even more slippery (the team even said it had never been that bad before). It was hot as balls (as it tends to be in Florida during the summer; we’re so lucky the rain cooled it down). Also, the roof wasn’t that great and there were some drip spots on the track. So yeah, lots of problems.

We started out using our lines. Most of the team would be playing every other jam but 3 of us (me, Bone, and Fingaz) would play two, sit one, and repeat. By the time we reached the end of the first set of lines we had thrown them out. There was no point in having them, so they disappeared.

It was awesome, honestly. I was absolutely exhausted. I would skate three jams, and then I would sit one jam and do it all over again. I was in 4 jams in a row once and Bone was in 5 in a row once. Whenever we were tired we sat down for one jam before going back in. I even jammed once (didn’t get lead jammer or any points because the other jammer called it off when I reached the back of the pack). By the end we were so tired that we got a bit sloppy.

When it ended and we saw that we won 116-86 we were amazed. It was a miracle that we won and we didn’t die. Below is a video of the first few jams of the bout and some pictures by the amazingly awesome Phantom Photographics.

I was getting worse, until Tuesday

In the last few weeks I’ve had a few crappy practices. You know the ones. You just don’t feel like you’re on your game, you get endlessly frustrated with yourself, and you think that everyone is wondering why you’re even there. Of course, they’re not thinking that, but you imagine they are. I caught a horrendous cold, so I’ve been dealing with that sapping my energy, but I can also say that I was doing a bit crappy pre-cold as well.

Tuesday night shifted my attitude back to the positive (because we know when you’re having bad practices it is not at all about your skills and 100% about your mind). It was a Gainesville practice and was one that I was actually kind of dreading because I’ve been in a funk. Some parts of it were hard and I felt stupid because I’m not as good as them, but I really needed that practice.

The last thirtyish minutes of the practice we scrimmaged and I jammed! I’ve never jammed at Gville’s practice before because a) they have awesome jammers and b) I am not an awesome jammer. A couple of their primary jammers weren’t at practice (LeBrawn was there but she was working with the fresh meat), so it gave a chance for other people to jam.

I put on the jammer panty, my team got down on a knee, and when the jammers were released Atomic Mel-Down (I think it was her) perfectly screened a girl away from the outside line and I got by. I dodged an incoming hit as I was getting out of the pack and by the first turn I was called lead jammer! I came back around to the pack to get some points, and before the other jammer got to the pack again I called it off. It felt really great! For the rest of our scrimmage time I only blocked, but I definitely think I held my own.

I can’t wait for our normal practice today so I can get back to improving working hard. We have a bout this Sunday and I have no idea what’s going to happen. We’re short a few girls, but we’ve been short most times. We’re going to work as hard as we can. Also, I’ve been signing up for scrimmages like a mad woman (I have three scrimmages and one home bout in June) because I figure I’ll get better faster if I’m in more scrimmages (weird logic, I know). Bone signed me up for one yesterday and this makes me extremely happy:

I can no longer call myself a beginner when I sign up for stuff. I’m now calling myself Beginner/Intermediate. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it really is to me. I’ve come a long way since my first scrimmage in December.

Our First Win of the Season! OCRD vs LDD

We won! We won! We won!

Okay, now that I’ve celebrated, I am going to admit that I feel a teeny tiny bit guilty about our win. Why?


Ummm, yeah…

So not only did we win, but we won by a lot! Almost 250 points, which is an insane amount. It is the third time the team has won (with two wins during the last season) and the second time the team has won a home bout (the first time was against a team that had only been skating about 6 months and they beat them 212-17).

About two weeks ago a few of us went to see Palm Coast’s bout and they just happened to be playing Lakeland. The ending score was very close (by about 7 points, I believe), so we started thinking that maybe we would get our first win of the season. We’ve been training hard and having really great practices in hopes that we would win. Well…we definitely won.

One reason why we won by such a high amount was that we played the entire game. Even when we had a giant lead we didn’t stop giving it our all. With about 15 minutes left in the second half the other team was absolutely exhausted. Our coach kept telling us to get lower because things were starting to get sloppy and dangerous on the track because they may have been tired. Should we have taken it easy on them? Maybe. We were having such a fun time playing that I didn’t really even notice the score until the game was over.

Unfortunately, I kind of suck and was the only jammer on our team that went to the box and created a power jam for the opposite team. Actually, I did it twice. The first time I was going into the pack way too fast and hit Poni causing her to fall and my leg must’ve caught someone else because I ended up with a major low block. The second time I went to the box was because I cut the track. I am pretty sure I was straddling the line, but I still should’ve just stopped and went back behind the person that was pushing on me, but I was thinking I would be fine. I really need to shake that because cutting the track is something I did a lot at the last bout, too.

We’re just about a month away from our next away bout, so we’ll see what happens. We’re losing one of our players because she announced her pregnancy last night, but we’re gaining two that just came from the fresh meat side (one is a freshie and the other is a returning skater that just went through her mandatory time in fresh meat). My older sister NSO’d last night and now she wants to get some skates and join in. I knew that when she saw derby she’d want to do it, and I was definitely right! I think it helped that there was one insanely badass player that we borrowed for our team that is a pretty big girl.


Scrum starts aaaaaaaaaaaall day


Derp jamming!


At the front of the Lakeland train, woo woo!


Sitting on the jammer

OCRD vs South Florida

On Monday we got some homework from our coach, “Homework assignment Vets! I want you to write down a list of pros and cons about the bout for me. What are your thoughts about yourself, the refs, your team, and the coaching. This gives me a chance to hear your stories without using our practice time to do so.”

I was going to do a full write-up on the bout, but I think my homework really says a lot about the bout without me having to do a new post. Below is an edited version of what I sent to our coach.

Pros:

• Good communication in the pack
  
• Pack aware of jammer location, informing others of upcoming jammer
  
• On the knee starts were awesome, I enjoyed that they got us moving faster and we didn’t have any super slow and drawn out starts
  
• Very few out of play issues on our side as compared to the last two bouts
  
• Played as a team rather than individuals

Cons:

• Too many penalties
  
• Too many mistakes made near the end, possibly due to tiredness? (still skating short, one day our team will have enough people to have a full roster and it will be awesome!)
  
• Umm…we didn’t win?

Thoughts on myself:

• Way too much falling, could be due to bad stance, no balance, unpreparedness for hits?
  
• Majorly need to improve: balance, stance, endurance, hits (especially hip checks), quick feet, lateral movement, general skating skills, breaking up walls, getting up faster, and rejoining the pack quickly
  
• Need to be more aware of the other jammer’s location when I am jamming
  
• Need to fight more when trying to get out of the pack, I don’t believe I pushed the wall as hard as I could have; I would like to be a more aggressive jammer
  
• I’m proud that I got lead jammer twice, and I want to work hard to make sure that I get lead jammer and points more often when jamming; I seriously need to improve my speed and endurance for this to happen

Thoughts on refs:

• Made very fair calls on my majors (not counting my first major, because I have absolutely no idea what it was, so I have no idea if it was fair) – their calls made me realize that I straddle the line without even realizing I’m doing it, so I need to make a concentrated effort to stay on the damn track so I don’t get more track cuts in the future
  
• Did not like how the refs were slow to call off the jams, especially when the jammers had to signal for an entire half of the track.

Thoughts on team:

• As a team, we didn’t use our learned skills in the bout (stepping into a hit, turning and hitting, putting our chest into the blockers, gut hits); I want to make an effort to try to use them more during our scrimmages at practice so they can possibly become second nature
  
• Bench was more supportive than at the last bout
  
• In my opinion, everyone’s level of playing and spirits were more elevated

We lost 212 to 160, but the score was within 10 points for a majority of the bout. We tried our hardest and can only get better!


BoneSaw and I hitting each other during the warm-up
photo by UnSENCERed photography


Clearly I found something interesting on the ground
photo by UnSENCERed photography

Rock vs Rap

The Rock vs Rap scrimmage was Sunday and it was amazing! I’ve been in two scrimmages before and both times I heard people say that scrimmages are so much more fun than regular bouts, but having no real bout experience I had nothing to compare it to. Now that I’ve been in a couple of bouts, I could not agree more. There were four other girls from my team that were participating and none of us were in any lines together (well, one was on the Rap team, the rest of us were Rock), so it was really awesome that I got to watch my teammates in action.

The score was insanely close almost the entire time and it ended up being 160-159, with Team Rap winning (although at the after party one of the refs said that our jammer got a point at the very end and it should’ve gone into overtime, but it doesn’t really matter). It was fun and exciting, and still so weird to play with and against people that I idolize. A year ago I could not have even imagined that I would actually be playing derby, let alone be told that I’m doing a great job.

After a bout or scrimmage I always think to myself, “I wish I would’ve done ___ better,” or “I’m so mad that I ____.” This time wasn’t like that. I played my hardest and to the best of my abilities and I have absolutely no regrets.

I’m all pumped up about this bout, but of course today I’m realizing that I have a LOT of other things I need to do this week before our home bout next weekend. I still need to make cards for the refs, make more buttons, make the flyers for the April 29 bout, and the programs. On Friday I started a cool project: The Florida Derby Calendar. Here’s the post about it on tumblr on the Fuck Yeah Florida Derby tumblog that I help mod.

Also, tonight we are visiting another (really really amazing, WFTDA apprentice) league for practice and I’m terrified. I feel like I’m going to look like an idiot skating with all of these amazing players. Eeeeeeek!

My First Away Bout!

I meant to post this several days ago but I have been super crazy busy

This past Saturday was our first away bout! It was at Barber Park (the outdoor rink where Heather and I sometimes go to skate) and the weather was awesome. We were all worried that the weather would be suffocatingly hot or it would rain, but it was just slightly warm and breezy.

We lost 198 to 98. The thing is: no one was really upset about it (unless I completely missed it). We were skating short as we only had 10 people and one was a borrowed person. Our normal team has 2 regular jammers but Poni was unable to come, so we only had one normal jammer, Brawl. A lot of us have been training as jammers, so there were 4 other girls that jammed every other line to give Brawl a rest (I was one of them).

We started out pretty strong, keeping the other team under 10 points for quite a while, but then they got the lead and ran with it. Everyone felt that we played better than we did at the last bout, though! We were against a better team with only one of our regular jammers; we really did well!

For my own performance? Meh. I did horribly as a jammer. I never got lead jammer, but I did manage to make it out of the pack every time. Unfortunately, every time that I made it to the pack to get some points, the other jammer called it off. I was a pretty okay blocker in the first half, though. I made some pretty good hits, but I also fell way too much.

I got hurt, too! Not seriously at all, but enough to show off for funsies. One of the times I was knocked down and got my hands completely dorked up and the other time was a hit to the mouth with a helmet which resulted in a busted lip. I’m actually kinda disappointed and slightly pissed off that the girl that hit me with her helmet didn’t get a penalty (if the refs don’t see it they can’t call it, but yeah, ow). When my fingers got ran over I saw they were bleeding a lot, so two of the girls helped me put bandaids on. It was a pretty amazing moment because the jam could have ended at any time and we’d be back on the track (every person played every other jam). And even though I was a bit rattled and bleeding I got right back on the track for the next jam. It was the same with my lips. It was bleeding quite a lot and the only thing I could taste was blood, but I still had to go out there and I’m glad I did.

I had my first trip to the box, too! I had 4 minor penalties, so I had to spend a minute in the box. I was one of the few people that spent time in the box. At our last bout we constantly had people in the box and it was tough for our bench coach. This time was so much better.

The feedback I got after the bout was awesome, too! Several skaters from the Orlando league complimented me and it made me feel great! It meant a lot because they are the first roller derby players I saw and cheered on before I ever knew that I was going to do derby myself. I’m excited to get back to practice and start putting in the work and the time to become a better player.

Because we didn't have the rink Tuesday we watched the bout footage instead of normal practice. It was interesting, but still sort of hard to watch in parts. I am still a really awkward person. Speaking of awkward, here are some bout photos!!


Photo by Phantom Photographics


Photo by Phantom Photographics


Photo by Phantom Photographics


Photo by Phantom Photographics


Photo by Phantom Photographics


Photo by Notalie Unsencered

My first (official) bout!

So yesterday was the day! My first bout playing with my teammates. We lost pretty horribly (don’t have the score available now, but I think it was like 150+ to 80 at the end) and I know I should be upset about it, but I can’t be. I had an amazing time. I think once the excitement wears down I’m going to be more bummed out about losing, but for now I’m extremely happy.

I wish I could recap everything that happened, but it’s a total blur. I remember a few moments during the actual bout, but that’s it.

Some Highlights

• My goal for this bout was to knock someone down at least once in every jam I was in. I would say that it was a definite success. There may have been one jam that I didn’t hit anyone down, but I know I hit someone in every single jam I was in, and I was pretty solid every time I got hit.
  
  
• No one got hurt! That was a big problem in our last scrimmage and a constant worry at practice, but I’m glad to report that no one on either team was injured!
  
  
• During one of the jams I was able to keep the jammer in the pack for a long time. I kept positional blocking and hitting her down and out of bounds. Unfortunately, our jammer was also stuck in the pack during that same jam. I’m super proud though because we were able to hold her for so long. I wish we had been able to do that more.
  
  
• With a bit of a push from another girl, I completely laid the jammer out. It also resulted in me being flat on my stomach and sliding on the floor. Apparently the team went crazy and once the jam was called everyone was congratulating me and my coach told me, “That was the most sacrificial hit I’ve ever seen.”
  
  
• So much of our team spent so much time in the box. One of our players was even ejected for accumulating so many majors (that’s a first for our team!). There was one point in the bout that our jammer just kept going to the box over and over and over again. During the bout I got at least one minor that I’m aware of. If we have the penalty sheets at practice tomorrow I want to find out what it was.
  
  
• The other team kept trying to trap me in the back, but they were really horrible at it. Or at least, they were horrible at it with me. There were some other girls that got stuck in the back, but because everyone always tries to trap me at practice I’ve become very good at getting out of traps.
  
  
• I jammed and it was awesome! Our bench coach (who did a freaking fantastic job and was probably gutted that she’s still on the mend and can’t skate) handed me the jammer panty and said that after all of the jammer drills she had me doing at practice, she would feel awful if I didn’t get to jam during the bout. She told me it was the last jam of the night (which surprised the hell out of me because the whole thing went by so fast!), so I pulled it on and went to the line. It was a power jam in our favor, so I was the only one at the line. The whistle blew and the other team was stopped. They were running the clock to get their jammer out, but then the whistle finally blew to release me. Of course, I’m intensely clumsy and was so excited that I completely wiped myself out at the second turn, but I got back up, made it through the pack, and started a second lap around to get my points and as I was going through, the other jammer was released from the box, so I called it off and the bout was over. We didn’t win, but it felt like a huge win to me!
  
  
• The after party! I now know what it means when someone says they lost the bout, but won the after party! I was on cloud nine from jamming and just had a fun time hanging out and talking with the team. I drank beer (I’m not at all a beer drinker, but some awesome fans bought the team several pitchers) and I joined in on some leg wrestling! I almost had a Ted Mosby “I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR” moment.

I’m sure we’re going to get reamed at tomorrow’s practice for our horrible playing, lack of communication, and bad teamwork, but I can say with certainty that I’m proud of the way I played and that I noticed a real improvement in my performance compared to the Santa vs Elves scrimmage two months ago. Now that I've proved to myself that I can be an asset to the team, I'm going to work more to be part of the damned team and maybe open my mouth when I'm in the pack. I will communicate more and we will follow our coach no matter what!

Video of my jam!



photo by ACR photographer


photo by ACR photographer


photo by ACR photographer

photo by Heather

Less than a week away!

It’s now less than a week until my first “official” bout! I’ve been in two mixed scrimmages, but this will be the first time I’ll be skating on my team and opposing a team of people I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m so relaxed about that, but I think it’s because I’m excited to hit someone else other than people I enjoy being around. I know my teammates and what kind of hits that I get from them and it will be interesting to get hits from people I’m not familiar with.

I know the women on my team: there’s the one who can knock you out with a mean Johnny Crash, the one that can go from one side of the track to the other in a second in order to lay you flat, the one who literally takes your breath away with the force of her hit, the one who will cannonball you right into the jammer because she can’t get there in time, and the one who will just go galloping past it all as she makes her way through the pack. Obviously, there are a lot more girls on the team all of them with their own strengths and weaknesses, and I know I have my own. I think my biggest strength (as told to me by one of the vets) is that I’m good at breaking up walls, and I think my biggest weakness is that I hesitate too much.

In an effort to stop being negative about my skills or lack thereof (because Heather told me to stop being so hard on myself), I won’t list all of the things I really feel like I should improve on. Instead, I’m just going to work harder to improve on my skills at my own pace. I can’t force myself to get better, I just need to keep working on it.

Also, I feel like I need to get back on my old diet without all of the crap I’ve been eating and drinking. That will of course be helped by a bit of “detox” after the bout next week because I’m getting my wisdom teeth out. I figure while I’m healing I won’t want to be drinking super sugary caffeinated things and won’t want to go buy any fast food. The oral surgeon was going to schedule me for this Wednesday, but I told them I play roller derby and I absolutely had to be able to play on Sunday, so they scheduled me for the 15th instead. I’m going to go to practice like normal on Tuesday, then wake up Wednesday for the surgery, miss practice on Thursday, and possibly return on Saturday. If I don’t go to practice on Saturday I’m going to use one of my “sick days” so I still make practice requirements and am able to participate in the March 10 bout. Fun fact though, I’m the only one in the league that had perfect attendance in the qualifying times for next week’s bout. I would say it’s a good thing, but I think it just means that I have no life, lol.

My First Scrimmage!

Yes, that's my butt in those shiny silver shorts


It was awesome, but before I start with that, I want to talk about the preparation. I got to the rink around 4:45 and we were just starting to set up. We were told to grab our knee pads, so I got mine and helped as the head ref did the chalk outline. I’d never seen them do the outline, so it was really cool. He had a long chain that had different rings and labels that told you which lines went where. Once the chalk outlines were done, we started laying out the rope and taping it down. It took us quite a while and then one of the refs came over and helped do the rest of the track in 3 seconds flat. He said he got really fast at it because the rink he used to be at wouldn’t let them set up until very late.

Name and number on my green shirt

At that time I had to gear up and I started feeling very nervous. For the first 30 minutes I was on skates I couldn’t remember how to stop (it was more about the rope lines and being scared of tripping over them). Because so many people signed up for the scrimmage we were going to have three 30-minute periods (we ended up having two 30-minute periods and one 15-minute period, but that whole thing comes later), and I was put as B2 in the 1st and 7th lines and then as Pivot in the 3rd line during the 3rd period.

Because I was in the first line I got to do the example jam at the beginning. I always thought it was some kind of planned thing, but apparently not. After the demo we lined back up for real and the whistle blew to start the first jam. And I literally do not remember what happened after that. The jammer probably passed right by me and I may have hit one person, but I have no clue. Before I knew it the whistle was blown four times by all the refs and the jam was over as quickly as it had begun.

A few highlights from my times on the track, since I can’t really recall enough to fully talk about one:

• One girl fell right in front of me and I tripped over her and fell spectacularly, but I got right back up.
  
• There was a bit of a pile up around turn three and I ran over someone’s fingers. It was like driving on a bumpy road.
  
• I accidentally hit the jammer with my elbow (though she didn’t fall or anything) and luckily I didn’t get a minor (actually, I didn’t any minors or majors, but then again I didn’t play a whole bunch).
  
• I hit the jammer with my elbow at turn two, but at turn 4 I hit her out of bounds!
  
• I was really good about looking behind me and I think I spent more time looking behind than looking forward

We did have a few problems though. One woman fell (not during a jam) and snapped her ankle in two places. They called the ambulance and had to reset her ankle last night. That happened with about 3 minutes left at the end of the 2nd period and they were going to call the bout. They decided to go ahead and finish out the period and follow it up with a 15 minute period rather than a 30 minute period like they planned.

The 3rd period was going to be more evenly matched players against each other. Basically it’d be a line of all beginners, and then a line of intermediates, and then a line of advanced. I was the pivot in the beginners group.

With about 5 minutes left on the clock our jammer got hit and broke her clavicle. We all thought she had just hit her bad shoulder again, but at the after party we found out what happened. She was able to get up on her own steam and walk off the track and be driven to the hospital. So yeah, two very bad injuries in one scrimmage, both of them from my team. I am just so bummed and feel horrible for the ladies who were hurt, both of them love derby and it's going to kill them not to be able to play for however long they're out of commission. :(

The final jam was pretty intense. It started out as a power jam for the Santas and after about 2 or 3 grand slams our jammer was released from the box and was able to get some points before the jam was called off. It took several seconds to update the scoreboard and when we saw that it was 190-188, we all flipped! My first scrimmage and I was on the winning team!

At the end of the night I had smudges from other people’s numbers on my arms (and it was awesome). I had to resist the temptation to just leave my numbers on my shoulders because I’m sure my co-workers would not want to see it. Now we're on a break until January 3rd and our first bout of the 2012 season is February 12th. So yes, two more months and I have some goals/ideas for how I want to improve and I'll talk about those in another post.

And here's some pictures, all lumped at the bottom because I'm too lazy to sprinkle them through the whole post like a good blogger.

Hanging with Heather during one of the breaks

My dad kept taking pictures of me and I was very irritated about it


Go Elves!!


Wearing the pivot panty, woo!


I think this girl and I took each other out, but I seriously can't remember what happened


You can barely see me in this picture, but I am directly behind the girl that is on the ground. I ended up falling in a most epic manner (according to the bruise on my hand), but I got right back up and rejoined the pack!


Plow stopping like a boss


Remember when I said I didn't remember how to stop because of nervousness? Well, after my introduction lap I wasn't stopping very well so I grabbed onto the hand of one of the girls on my team. You can see the fear in my eyes and her laughing at me. I hope her clavicle heals quickly!


I want to go back in time and yell at myself to get lower. It looks like I'm just derping around at session or something.

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!!