Tuesday, April 12, 2011

as expected, a rough night

Since I started roller derby training in February, I have noticed a pattern: one week's practice goes great, the next one is tough as nails. Each Tuesday I am curious to see if it will bear out the pattern. Tonight did, for the 11th week in a row. It was on the tough-as-nails side. My feet would not stop cramping (yes, I have been eating bananas, and yes, I have been taking magnesium supplements), so I had to take my skates off twice to work out my stupid arches. Lost a ton of time that way.

Newbie practice was actually better than usual. We had a lot of advanced skaters working with us, so generally a newbie would partner with an advanced for the exercises, or if we didn't need partners they'd just skate alongside us being encouraging. Hot Mess and Mary Choppins continue to be two of my favorites. We also had someone named Speedy something, and she is great - very supportive. The guys are a little less intimidating than formerly, although during suicide drills (where we skate full-bozo in a big ole pack and then when they whistle we stop on a dime, spin around, and skate full-on again) they terrify me.

We got lots of work on turnaround toe-stops, which I am still not quite getting except in theory. We also got to do contact for the first time. We paired up and would skate the width of the rink right there together, trying to drive the other off-course, hips and shoulders. I growled at all my partners because that's the only way I could keep from giggling, and giggling isn't tough unless you do it maniacally, which I can't do so I growled at 'em instead. My partners all thought it was funny, and once you get 'em laughing they're off-balance. SCORE. And I managed to avoid elbowing anyone.

To stop, if we were working something that didn't require us to stop a certain way, I decided tonight I would do a one-knee spin. It's easier than it sounds - while you're cruisin' along, you drop to one knee and let the other foot curve in a big semi-circle in front of you, which leads your body around so you spin. I look too sharp doing that. If there were a position on the team that required someone to spin around on one knee like a rock star, I would own that job.

Plus, let's face it, the booty shorts are awesome. That's at least 40% of the reason I'm doing this.

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