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.

Thinking about changing my picture on the side...

Because from May of 2011 and May 2012 there is a bit of a difference...

So yeah, I might be changing my picture. :D

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

Practicing with another league

Last weekend a group of us went up to Gainesville to watch and play sloshball (kickball + beer), and left with an invitation to join in on some GRR practices. Last month (or the month before?) we were invited up to one of their practices to join in on a scrimmage before their bout against Tampa and it was pretty cool. After that, two of their players, LeBrawn & Rage, came and coached part of our Saturday practice. Well anyway, at sloshball Rage let us know that the board had talked it over and said they would like to have us practice with them twice a month.

While I’m sort of embarrassed that they were talking about us at their board meeting and decided we suck enough that they want us around twice a month, I’m really excited about it. Because hey, we do suck when compared to their awesome WFTDA apprentice selves, but practicing with them twice a month is going to make us a hell of a lot better. It worked out really well though because every last Tuesday of the month our rink is booked because of a ballroom dancing class and we have a bout this weekend and need all the practice days we can get.

Because of the short notice I wasn’t able to get off early from work, so Bonesaw and I arrived about 45 minutes late when they were just finishing up land drills (kind of glad I missed them, tbh). We geared up and did a weaving forwards and backwards paceline and then this one pushing out line (everyone is on the edge of the track and each person pushes them off the track; I’m glad to say I did better than last time, but I’m still pretty bad at it). Then we sprinted as a line and the girl leading the warm ups yelled for us to tomahawk when the whistle was blown, and when the whistle blew I did a tomahawk and I didn’t fall and nothing bad happened! The fact that I’m doing tomahawks is still a surprise to me.

We did a four wall fanning type drill and then a 3vs2 type of drill where 3 girls were blocking against a jammer and a jammer assist. I was the jammer once and I sucked. I couldn’t get through even though I had one of the most badass players as my assist.


I look up to LeBrawn Maimes so much, she’s beast!

After that we did some scrimmaging! I had no idea that we would get a chance to scrimmage, but I brought my black & white scrimmage shirts just in case (I still need to put my name on the back, my number is there but I’m going to put my name on there when I get a chance). I was put on the white team because I was the only one out of our 5 girls that remembered to bring scrimmage shirts (and all of us were wearing black), and one of the girls from my team wore someone else’s shirt to be on the white team.

It took a while for me to get my head into the scrimmaging mindset, so in the beginning I was just awful. The scrimmage really showed me what I need to work on when I’m blocking (getting out of the jammer’s way, being more dynamic in the pack, not doing a job the other blockers are already doing, slowing down). The problem with our team is that the only time we can actually play like that is during bouts. We have anywhere from 6-11 people at any given practice so when we “scrimmage” we just do jam after jam of the same people and it is exhausting; sometimes the coach likes what we’re doing so we’ll have jams longer than 2 minutes and jammers are never allowed to call it off so our scrimmages are never similar to bouts at all.

GRR had enough people at practice to have two full lines on each team. I want our league to be big enough to do that! Honestly, I’d love for us to have enough people to fill a roster without having to borrow from other leagues. I remember when the season first started and I was worried I would never roster because there were so many skaters. Half the team basically up and left due to scheduling issues, burnout, and injuries. It sucks.

I’m so grateful that we have the opportunity to practice with them so we can work with players above our skill level and actually get some real scrimmaging time in. Also, they’re super forgiving about the fact that we’re not at their level and I love that. I sound really mushy about it all, but that’s because I am. I just want to hug ALL THE DERBY PEOPLE.

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.

The bruises have faded, but the pain remains

Three weeks ago today I had a couple of crummy falls at practice. The first time I fell I landed really hard on my skate (or the other girl’s skate, I’m not really sure) and I ended up with extreme tailbone pain. At first it was just pain on the impact, pain that my skate had tried to go up my bum. I tried to skate it off a little and then I took a short break where I just stretched and didn’t sit down because the pain sucked. The rest of practice was pretty craptastic because I was distracted and scared by the other fall. That distraction caused me to fall super hard on my side resulting in the beauty that was Claudia



Well, Claudia has faded completely now, but my tailbone is still giving me problems. The first day after the fall I could barely move or get out of bed and sitting was an absolute nightmare. That weekend I still went to practice and the Rock vs Rap scrimmage (even though several people told me I should probably not skate in it) and I continued to go to practice and our home bout the next weekend and all that good stuff. But yet, the pain remains. Any time I sit down or get up I’m in pain (although it’s considerably lessened since it happened). I told myself that I would go to the doctor if it was still horrible after a week, but it has gotten a lot better than it was before. I also looked into tailbone injuries and saw that the only thing a doctor can actually do is take an x-ray to confirm it is broken and then write a prescription for pain pills and stool softeners (which is very understandable because for the first 5 days it hurt to even fart!). I’m 99% sure mine is just bruised, so I should not be complaining.

But yeah, three weeks ago I landed on a skate and my butt still hurts. I’m not saying derby injuries are all that glamorous, but I know for a fact that I have one of the least glamorous injuries ever.

Helping the new meat!

So yesterday’s practice was interesting. Earlier in the day I had gone home because I was sick and ended up sleeping the entire day away. I wanted to go because I thought that once I got there I would want to say, “Screw this cold!” and skate anyway. Instead I decided to watch the brand new fresh meat do the land drills (because it is hilarious to see people in pain) and then I helped them put on the gear from our donated gear bag. I eventually got sick of not being on skates so I put mine on (I had loaned out all of my gear, so I was gearless) and went to go help a girl on the wall (she eventually came off of the wall by the end of practice!).

The vets saw me on skates so called me over to watch what they were doing so I skated in the center of the track with our ref and tried to see what it was like to be a ref. Clearly you have to be super observant, and my brain is just not trained as a ref. I was just seeing where there were holes in the walls and what the girls needed to do. I have skater brain rather than ref brain, I think. When they were taking a break Looney, who was coaching fresh meat, asked me if I would come over and work on the basic stuff with the super new fresh meat while she went over more advanced stuff with our soon-to-be- testing fresh meat.

I have learned that I am not a good teacher by any stretch of the imagination. We skated in a circle for a while working on scooter pushes and attempting crossovers, and then moved to a bit of sticky skating. The biggest problem I had was that my fresh meat just kept going off to the edge of the wall because they hurt. What? You can’t just quit in the middle of the drill! But yeah, they just took a minute at the wall and got back to it, so I figured I would let them since it was their first practice and they were all hurting even though they’d only been on skates for an hour. Plus, they’ll never have another coach as forgiving as I am. Everyone else can be the slave driver.

I got bored with just going in circles, so Looney suggested I set up some cones so they could try one foot glides. Out of our five brand new freshies, three of them could already do it (and do it well!) on both feet. For those three, I had them move on to t-stops while one worked on one foot glides and the other worked on just skating and staying up. The girl that was on the wall in the beginning eventually fell (forward) and then couldn’t get up by herself. She’s going to have to learn pretty quick once it comes time for their falls and everything like that. Last week at practice we did laps where we started on our stomachs and backs and then had to spring up and sprint. She’s got a long way to go if I had to use both of my hands and a lot of force to get her up off the floor. I really hope that she sticks with it because out of our 5 freshies she was the only one ready with all of her gear.

At the end we had a mandatory league meeting (which was the only reason I went to practice in the first place), so practice was cut a bit short. I imagine the freshies are going to appreciate the shortened practices today and Thursday (the rink isn’t available for our full practice time so we can only be in there for an hour), but next week? They’re in for some pain and I don’t have to be the one to give it to them! I’m actually pretty excited about a few of them because two of the better skaters are guys that want to be refs, and we could seriously use some more refs! Right now we have two, so if we had two more that would be awesome!