Last Night's Scrimmage

So, last night, I made mistakes. Let's just get that out there right now: I made mistakes. I'm not going to talk about them here, but I want anyone reading this to know that I don't think I was Beyonslay last night, or anything.

Here's what went well.

I had energy, for the first time in a couple of weeks!

I did my best to stay with the pack, with my team, and to make contact, even if the contact wasn't entirely effective yet.

The penalties I got (well, two of them; I'm not sure what was up with the third, a major for cutting the track, when I think it should've been a minor) were errors of aggressiveness. One was blocking when I was out of play. But: I was just going after the jammer and getting in her way. OK, I should've stopped. But still. Errors of aggressiveness are so much better than just standing there with my finger up my nose.

My other penalty was for blocking out of bounds. Now that one ... oh man. I hit the jammer. I hit her *out*. If I could've stopped and not followed her out, it would have been beautiful. But once again: error of aggressiveness. So much better than if I had just stood there and watched her go by me.

There were also times when I was a real pain in the ass to opposing skaters (or at least, I felt like I was). There were times when Cruel Anne yelled at me to hit someone, and I did! Now I need to work on making my hits effective, in action (they are often effective enough when we're just doing a pace line or some other drill).

Honestly, there really were glimmers of hope last night. So, that's awesome.

As a wise friend of mine suggested, I am going to try to learn from the mistakes and let them go ... and focus on the victories.

Derby Stress

I'm having a hard time these days.

Passing minimum skills was awesome. And I *did* pass: I can do all of the minimum skills (though my crossover and my booty blocking are borderline).

Now I am in the bout pool (technically I am on the B team ... it's not like they are going to put me on the roster for an A-team bout). And I've gone from being a pretty good intermediate to being the worst in the bout pool.

I can't keep up with the pace lines. (The minimum skill is 25 laps in 5 minutes; but the pace lines are often quite a bit faster than that.) In scrimmages, I get confused and have a hard time focusing. My teammates are literally yelling at me to hit someone. I know they are right, but often I just can't quite pull it off. I don't know if it is a lack of speed or a lack of brains. Or both.

Here's the thing: I am the slowest girl in the bout pool, hands down. And I have to get faster. It's not going to happen instantaneously. Jesus isn't going to come down with his magic wand and make me fast. I have to find ways to work at it. (I have some ideas on that subject.)

A lot of times, I know where I need to be; I just can't get there fast enough. By the time I get there, the opportunity has passed. I guess it's good that I know what to do (sometimes).

I don't want to be the load. I want to be useful. That's all: just useful. I don't need to be a superstar. Just not a burden.

Derby baby!

Here's my little niece Rosalie, who just turned two, wearing the "My Auntie does derby" t-shirt I gave her.

Bones is back!

Stitches-N-Bones, jammer par excellence and trainer par malevolence (just kidding!), was out with a concussion for about a month. Last night was her first night back in quite a while. She freaking *tortured* us!

So there's this drill we call "shopping carts," where we get into groups of 2, 3, 4, 5 (usually not more than that), and one skater either pushes or pulls the rest (who are in a single-file line). The people being pushed or pulled are supposed to get as low as they can.

Last night we did a new drill Bones dreamed up in her evil, brilliant mind. Here's how it worked:

We got in groups of 3 or 4. Each person pulled for one minute, then rotated to the back. This went on for 12 minutes. Then we stopped and switched directions, and did the whole thing again, for another 12 minutes.

After that we got a two-minute break to stretch our backs, drink water, etc. Then we did 12 minutes of pushing in the regular direction, followed by 12 minutes of pushing in the opposite direction.

Yep, 48 minutes of shopping carts. Chelle, Sugar and I were a group at the start, because Bones wanted us to have to work harder (in a group of three, everyone pulls/pushes four times, instead of just three). All three of us stuck with it for the entire drill -- we didn't stop at all. I was pretty proud of us for that.

For the second hour, we did pace lines and mostly worked on hitting. That was fun, though when we worked on timing of hits, it was tricky. I got praise from Bones for my regular hits (not the timed ones, where I had some trouble). Praise from Bones is always awesome.

At the end we flashdanced. What I love about flashdancing is that it feels so *very* good when we stop. :-) (Flashdancing: for five minutes we constantly step, one skate then the other, so there are only four wheels on the floor at a time. We're supposed to do this fast. When Bones blows the whistle, we touch the floor with our hands, jump, and go right back to flashdancing. We do this for five minutes. It hurts, a lot. But it feels so good to get through it!

I'm pretty sore today. It's a good thing.