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.

Scrimmaging, skating, improving ...

Since I passed minimum skills, I have been to ... let's see ... six practices so far. So, it would be fair to say I am skating my ass off. :-)

Last Wednesday was my first scrimmage as a bout pool member. It was fun, and hard. We didn't have a whole lot of girls, so everyone got to skate in a lot of jams. I didn't feel nearly as lost as I did in my very first scrimmage, but I was still a bit scattered. And of course, people were expecting a lot more of me than they were in that first scrimmage (when I was still just an intermediate).

I still don't feel like I have a very strong understanding of strategy. Let's just say I have a *lot* to learn. Fortunately, three of the SMASH (A-team) skaters (Pus, Kant and Pwny) have been doing regular strategy practices aimed at newer bout pool skaters (they call it PuKanY practice, so if I refer to that, that will be what I'm talking about). I went on Sunday, and it was awesome. I think I know more about strategy now ... I just need to work on having the fast-twitch speed to be able to put it into action. Because, knowing where you should be is great ... but being fast enough to get there is better.

Anyway, at the scrimmage ... one jam, while I was out as jammer, I just couldn't get anywhere. Everywhere I went, Pus (who was blocking for the other team) was there. To kill me. :-) Seriously, that girl was on me like white on rice. I'm not sure I ever cleared the pack. It was frustrating as hell, and there were times I didn't want to get back up after she knocked me down (I did, though). I need to learn to do what she was doing.

My goal for this week's scrimmage (which is tomorrow) is to be more aware. I want to try to always know where the jammers are. (There was one time last week when I just totally let the other team's jammer past me, and I could *easily* have blocked her if I had been *aware* of her. Dammit!)

It's hard when you're tired, and you have ADD. But I have to do it or I will be of very little use as a blocker. Getting distracted by shiny things is not an option.

I hope some more girls test up soon. It would be awesome to have a bigger B team. :-)

Wait, what? I passed?

This may be a long one. I'll wait while you go get a drink and use the bathroom.

OK, ready?

Minimum skills assessment was Saturday. Before the test, we had an intermediate practice, where we worked on the things that were going to be on the test. I did pretty well on everything until we got to positional blocking (which we STDDs call "booty blocking," because that's what it is -- blocking someone with footwork and getting your booty on her).

I was paired with another intermediate skater, and I was having trouble even blocking her. So what chance did I have to block bout pool skaters, which is what I knew I was going to have to do on the actual test? I went to Brick, and although I didn't intend to (I never intend to), I started crying a bit while talking to her. I asked her if it would be rude of me to leave after practice, and not stay for the test.

Brick told me I could do what I wanted. (That sounds like she was cold about it, and she was not. She just kind of let me know that "rude" wasn't really an issue, and that I should do what I wanted to do.)

I went outside and cried a little more. And came back in and finished the drill, and cried some more. So, anyone who says there's no crying in roller derby has never met me. I don't do it on purpose. I just am so emotionally invested in this ... and it comes out as tears.

Anyway, St. Nick (who has really kind of been like a big sis to me ever since I started) helped me calm down. I decided to stay for the test, because if I didn't, I'd always wonder what would've happened. Also, I really love all the girls I was testing with, and I wanted to support them.

The test went well. I felt pretty good about the way I did all of the skills -- I even felt like I had probably done a passable crossover. Then we got to the booty blocking. I didn't do too well my first attempt. They sent me out a second time, and I did better. I was hopeful.

At the end, Bones pulled a few of us aside to re-do certain skills (stuff they knew we could do, but we hadn't quite nailed during the test). She asked me to re-do my one-footed jumps. I really got my hopes up at that point, because if that was all I had failed? I was golden. I re-did the jumps. No problem.

And then. They called several of us over to re-do booty blocking. Shit.

I went out to block Adrienne (Natural DisASSter). I tripped her. I may have fallen. I definitely did worse than my second attempt during the test. Dammit. That was it, I thought.

On Sunday, Brick emailed out the results. She sent a general note saying she was doing it, and that she couldn't do it all in one sitting, so we should not freak out if other people got their results and we didn't have ours yet. Fair enough.

The results started trickling in, and girls were posting on Facebook. I didn't have an email from Brick. An hour or so went by after the last girl had posted "I passed!" No email for me. Shit. Brick must be taking a dinner break after sending out the positives, and later I was going to get a "sorry, you didn't pass." I just knew it.

Dinner (nachos) and trying to concentrate on "The Amazing Race." I set my phone to make a sound when I got email, so I wouldn't be constantly looking at it.

About halfway through the show, the phone beeped. I picked it up. Email from Brick. OK, here we go, I thought. At least I knew I had passed the crossover, so there was that ...

I open the email. And the first thing I read is, "On behalf of the entire training committee, congratulations on passing your minimum skills."

I ... passed? Really? I had to read that sentence at least three or four more times. I passed!!!! By a pretty narrow margin, and I have a lot of work to do, but I passed!!!

So ... I'm in the bout pool now! Holy crap!!!

On Monday morning, when I woke up, I had a moment where I thought, "Did that really happen?" And it did! (I often dream about derby and dreaming that I passed min skills has happened before. Of course I wake up and know it was just a dream. I'm not crazy. Well, not that crazy.)

Last night was my first practice as a bout pool member. I'm pretty sure I'm the slowest in the bout pool. But I didn't make an ass of myself, so yay.

Tomorrow night is my first official scrimmage. Yikes! And, yay!!

Hey, to everyone who encouraged me and listened to me whine and cheered me on: thanks.

Poor neglected blog

Minimum skills was today. I almost went home after our practice (which was right before), but I'm glad I didn't. I'm embarrassed that I cried about it, but I'm glad I stayed. (I was hella frustrated about booty blocking.)

This was the easiest min skills yet. I think that's a good sign that I'm getting more proficient. I don't think I passed, but I think I got closer than the last time. I asked my evaluator (Brick, head of training) if I passed the crossover, and she said I did. That's *huge*. I failed on that last time.

I'm 99.9% sure I failed on booty blocking. My best time booty blocking was my second time during the assessment itself. They called several of us out to do it again, after the assessment was over (which was kind of them -- they sure didn't have to give us that second chance). I did it the worst out of my three total attempts, at that point. I actually TRIPPED the girl I was blocking. I was mortified. (She was fine, thank goodness.)

So. If my attempt #2 was not good enough to pass, and clearly it wasn't, then I can't have passed.

But if I passed the crossover -- and if Brick says I did, then I probably did -- that's an enormous moral victory. And if (I haven't heard officially yet) I passed everything but booty blocking, that means I just need to learn to booty block and I will pass.

So, really, I feel pretty OK about today.

I had told my lil sis, who was also taking the test today, that I would get tattooed with her if I passed. I had been hoping the universe would call my bluff on that one. (It would have been my first ever tattoo.) Oh well, I guess if I have not passed, I don't have to get tattooed. :-)