Abby - my first massive derby bruise

Saturday morning, I got up nice and early, grabbed my gear and headed out to the park to do a little skating. Fun in the sun. When we decided to take our skates off for the day, I decided it would be a nice time to practice my baseball slide. However, having only done that particular fall a couple times, I kinda forgot how to do it, got fairly nervous and ended up falling on my skate. The result: a GIANT bruise on my left leg right under my bum. My first big derby bruise. I took a picture for the archives. And I've named it Abby. Its pretty gross. Multicoloured. I couldn't sit for a while and my leg even got somewhat wollen. I'm very proud of Abby.

In other news, yesterday's practice helped me get out of the funk that my horrible weekend (horrible due to non-derby related things) brought on. There's nothing like a good adrenaline rush to makes to blues go away. And a little rough-housing. Tempting Fate mentioned to me that now that I've made minimum skills, there's a big target on my back. So she tried checking me a little bit and I held my own very well on the blocking front. At one point, I got sidetracked and started talking to someone and she came up behind me and checked me when I least suspected it. My instinctive reaction was to hit her back really hard, which I did and she fell over. However, I fell over too. A lovely 2-woman pile up. I learnt a very valuable lesson. I must limit how much follow-through I put into my hits.

I'm leaving on a little roadtrip to Halifax this Friday, so I'll be missing both the next Sunday practice and next Tuesday's practice. I anticipate my muscles will atrophy and I'll colapse on my jello legs when I next put my skates on.

BOOOOOYA!

So, I passed my minimum requirements!!!!!! YAY! I am now a real live rollergirl. Awesome. I'm not on a team yet or anything, but I can now go to Sunday practices and I can now participate in the more hardcore drills. I'm pretty psyched.

trip to Long Island to support the New Skids

The New Skids on the Block were playing a game in Long Island this weekend, so I hopped in my car with a couple of friends and exclaimed "ROADTRIP!" with derby enthusiasm. We drove for hours, explored some of NYC and some of Long Island, attired ourselves in homemade New Skids t-shirts, watched a great derby bout, cheered louder than all the Long Island fans combined, and partied like only derby girls can. Twas a magical affair. The New Skids wipped the floor with the Long Island Roller Rebels. The final score was 165 to 75; 90 points is quite the massive gap.

Mae and I, as newbies, totally scored some awesome points by making the trek, making the t-shirts and screaming like maniacs. A couple of the jammers blew kisses to us in our suicide seats as they skated by. I'm really glad they appreaciated our support.

Now that I'm back in town and talk of minimum skills keeps increasing, my intense everyday training has begun. I actually set my alarm for 5:15 this morning, so that I could go skating at the skate park a few blocks from my house, but getting up that early on a Monday morning proved too difficult. I didn't give up my desire to get some training in everyday though. I packed my skates and kneepads in a backpack and lugged them to work. I put them on in the parking lot out back and skating at a decent pace for a good half hour on my lunch break. It was an excellent use of my lunch hour. There's a bike path that goes from the metro almost all the way to my house, so I'm thinking of skating home from the metro after work. My stopping may not be great yet, but outdoors, i'll stick to using my toe-stop as opposed to doing a t-stop, just to be on the safe side.

minimum skillz/derby madness week

At last night's practice, we did a run through of the WFTDA mimimun skills requirements test. I think I did pretty well. There are still things I need to improve. The first 2 tests involved laps around the track. We have to be able to do 20 laps in 5 minutes. I'm not sure how many laps I did in 5 minutes because I got there late, jumped on the track and lost count. My lack of endurance made that a horridly painful way to start a practice. Then we did 5 laps in 1 minute, which was not a problem for me. I did 5.5 laps in a minute. I think I could do better though.

The rest of the test was more chill. Of course, most of us newbies are super self-concious when we know the veterans are watching us, so we get nervous and fuck up. But that too will vanish with time and practice.

This is a totally derby-tastic week. Sunday i practiced. Monday, I spend the whole evening cleaning some bearings. Yesterday was practice. Today I wanted to go skating outdoors, but I failed at the bearing cleaning, so I need to acquire new bearings for my hybrid wheels before I can skate outdoors. I'll probably do that today. Tomorrow, I'm going skating on the F1 track. Friday, I'm leaving on my derby roadtrip. Saturday, I'll be watching the New Skids in Long Island. Sunday, I've got to drive back to Mtl in time for some rookie training with the Texas rollergirls. Never a dull moment when you embrace the derby lifestyle.

i'm back and i'm bad-ass

2 weeks of lethargy, congestion and a general feeling of unwellness have come to an end. I'm still coughing a little but i'm back on my skates. Yesterday, we had a wonderful newbie practice. We found a nice outdoor rink and monopolized it for a couple hours. There were only 6 of us, most of whom are still working at getting comfortable on their skates. So we kept it informal. A lot of skating round and round, practicing crossovers and sticky skates. I was breaking in my new skates, using them at a decent pace for the first time. And I love them. I feel more confidant with them on. Honestly what I need to work on most is getting myself in shape and building up my endurance. My endurance is shit. Even in high school when I played hockey or soccer 3 times a week, my endurance was poor. Now its beyond poor. But I'm working on changing that. 

Towards the end of our practice, we decided a little structure would probably help us a good deal. So we practiced skating in a pack, watching our surroundings, communicating within the pack. Once we got the swing of pack-skating, we threw a jammer into the mix. As the person there who is the most confidant on skates, I got to be jammer. I skated through the pack a couple times. My fellow newbies definately need to work on their blocking skills, but after a couple runs, it got more difficult to find holes in the pack to weave through. We're all learning. I honestly never wanted to be jammer, but after my little stint at jamming with my fellow newbies, I can see how its a super fun position. However, with my endurance being what it is and my experience with bodychecking, I think I'd make a much better blocker and I'm sure I'd love it. Jamming has got to be retardedly stressful.

I used my indoor wheels on the outdoor rink yesterday. I wanted to switch to my hybrids, but removing the bearings from my indoor wheels was proving to be too great of a challenge for the time being. Mae hooked me up with a set of bearings that her cousin had given her. They need to be cleaned and lubricated, but once that's done, I can put them in my hybrid wheels and then I'll be ready for more outdoor skating. 

In all honesty, I need to skate more often if I want to be ready for team try-outs in the fall. I was given a list of skills we need to be able to perform. I need to work on pretty much everything before my skills will reach a decent level, but there are a few things that I need to work on more specifically: endurance, stops, falling (and getting up without using my hands), squatting, and hopping. So these are the things I'm going to start focusing on. It would probably also be a good idea for me to brush up on the rules. I tend to read on public transportation all the time, so once I'm finished my current bus-book, i'll start lugging around the WFTDA rules with me.

On another note, post-practice yesterday, the 6 of us gathered at Mae's house for a vegetarian BBQ. I think its great that we're getting some quality newbie-bonding time in. Its good to have people to talk to who are just as new to this whole derby world as I am.

missed practice #2

After over a week of rest and self-medicating, I am still not well. So no derby practice for me tonight. Boo.

The doc said I wasn't dying though, so there's hope for next week.