Booooooosh!

OMG OMG OMG!!

Last night’s practice was so awesome, y’all. The trainers had decided there weren’t going to be enough team members to have a full-on scrimmage practice, so they invited the intermediate girls to join in, and we scrimmaged!! I guess it was a lighter-contact version. At least, the “don’t be a douchebag” rule was in place … basically that means that the OGs should not hit the NGs at full power. (OG=old girl, NG=new girl).

We started out with pace lines, and since we had a NGs pace line and a OGs pace line, I did pretty well except for the time when I was in front and wasn’t paying enough attention and left my pace line behind a bit. D’oh!

But forget that, whatever, because then … SCRIMMAGING! I asked Brick and Bruiser if they wanted me to go over to the off-track area with the beginners, and they said if I wanted to try scrimmaging I could. (I was worried that I would not be able to keep up.)

So I tried scrimmaging. And while I cannot say that I was an asset to my team (though I hope I was useful once or twice), it was incredibly cool and fun to be thrown in there and try it. It’s so chaotic! Well, not really, but that’s the way it seems at first.

I was able to keep up, by the way. My problem, if I had one, was more being able to pay attention to 8 zillion things at once, and know what was going on at any given time.

I made a couple of effective hits, so that was cool. I committed a couple of fouls, so that wasn’t cool, but I know what I did so I can try not to do it again. (I also do realize that in a contact sport like derby, fouls are going to happen; it’s not like I did anything bad on purpose.)

So when we scrimmage, everyone jams, which is cool. Jamming is fun. Scary, but fun. The first jam that I, er, jammed, I did pretty decently, I think. I got knocked out of bounds by a blocker, but I managed to come back in behind her. I think I even scored some points for my team (we were not keeping score). The times that I was able to get through the pack? So. Effing. Cool.

Oh, and when I got knocked down? I did a rock star fall (double knee). Correctly. Boosh!

I was already in love with derby before last night, y’all … but now, I want to marry it. :-)

One more awesome thing. I was thinking I was going to be sucking air after one jam. Nuh-uh. I was able to skate back-to-back jams, no problem. Probably part of that is because we weren’t going full-out; I know these girls can kick my ass, endurance-wise, because they have done it. Recently. But I would like to think that my endurance has also improved. Hell, I know it has. Three months ago, I couldn’t have done what I did last night.

Woo-hoo!