Derrière Defense

I certainly have plenty of natural padding in the buttockular region but apparently not quite enough (see the last two posts). This week I managed to find some crash pads that should fit and I went ahead and got them.

SS Trixie has told me and many others that wearing butt pads of any type is like wearing confidence. I'm sincerely hoping that is the case as I seem to have lost some of mine after my fall a couple of weeks ago.

I went to open skate tonight and could definitely tell that I was being more tentative than usual, even in a recreational skating setting. If I fall again on it in the near future I could do some serious damage that no doctor can really do anything about beyond saying, "Here's a donut pillow. Have a nice day." I don't want that to happen... I still have my goal of passing my twos before the beginning of the 2011 season!

In other news, I'm playing the Seabrook Meltdowns mascot, "Atomic Betty" next weekend at Roller Consolation. I am SO EXCITED. I'm going to roast in my outfit but it's definitely going to be worth it. To top it off, the Meltdowns have invited me to their team dinner on Tuesday! I know I belong to the league as a whole but being in the unteamed purgatory can sometimes feel... lonely (even though there are 10 other people like me out there). It's nice to feel like I'm a part of something more than that, even though it's only for one day :-)

Failbone

As I mentioned in my last post I managed to fall HARD on my tail bone in a spectacular fashion nearly two weeks ago at practice. The truth is, it doesn't feel any better today than it did the day after the fall which makes me sad. I know there's nothing that can really be done for it beyond taking it easy.

It's amazing how many activities in life use that lovely little piece of bone we call the coccyx. I've skated recreationally twice since then but hard skating and deep crossovers are quite painful. I am missing practice on Sunday for a family function (Sister Carnate is in from St. Louis) so here's hoping it starts to heal up for league practice on Tuesday.

One bad fall in 7 months of derby isn't a bad track record though... I generally end up landing on one butt cheek or fall forward (as I should be) and don't have any issues.

Summer Doldrums

I haven't written for a while... it looks like the other derby blogs I follow are equally slow this time of year. It sort of feels like nothing has been happening, but at the same time I've been busy out of my head with derby stuff. I recently took on some additional responsibility in the league and had to step back from coordinating stats to make room in my brain.

Our home season will soon be drawing to a close since after the beginning of September, several inches of ice will cover our bouting venue track. Skate Free or Die will still be busy bees as they work to become eligible for WFTDA ranking in the coming months.

I will be busy busting my butt to pass level twos before January. Most of the April class has leveled up and been teamed already so there aren't many left in that weird la la land that is Level 1's.

I fell HARD on my tailbone at Tuesday's practice. I went to open skate on Friday to test it out and I could skate but it was definitely sore and it was uncomfortable to get low and hold it.

I feel obligated to make up for my lack of skating skills with off-skates work for committees. I also do it because I adore the league and want to see it be wildly successful. This weekend, though, I think I overdid it.

With the exception of a couple of hours to watch Max Payne with Mr. Carnate I spent the ENTIRE weekend working on derby stuff. I had an inkling that I'd gone too far last night when I saw the look on Mr. Carnate's face as I was answering derby emails on my phone while he was trying to sleep. I didn't mean to continue today but it just sort of happened. I get "in the zone" on projects sometime and need to see them through immediately so I have closure. It got to be 3pm and I realized that I'd spent the better part of two days working and then realized that I needed to start thinking about practice.

I thought about having to tell Mr. Carnate, "Bye sweetie, I'm going to practice" after essentially ignoring him the entire weekend. While I love roller derby, he deserves better than that. I made the (tough) decision to skip practice to spend time with him. I know I won't get better if I'm not skating but sometimes real life and marriages need to take the driver's seat.

I hope to have more interesting news to report soon (although I did earn my first two derby bruises from Slick Tracy and Moxie Moonwalk!). I have added contact information to my profile if anyone would like to reach my outside the comments section. :-)

Swoop, swoop-eh-doop...

I made it out to open skate again last night (which worked out well since practice this evening was cancelled). I really wanted to work on transitions but I chickened out since I was the only derby person there (until Tank showed up later) and didn't want to be falling constantly all by myself.

I decided that I wanted to work on swoops... that graceful, lunging move that gets you from inside to outside or outside to inside lickety-split. I watch people like Roxie and PutUNya do them and they are so smooth and graceful with it. The look effortless while I mostly still feel like it's a weird contortion to turn that sharply. If I'm going to be a good blocker, I need to learn to be more mobile on the track I think swoops are a big part of that.

As I learned the last time we did a drill on these, turning your hips is the key. My hips, being cranky and arthritic, don't like to turn fluidly on my own. I probably looked ridiculous doing it but I found that moving my arms in the direction I want to turn, dancer-style, seemed to help. I still find swooping left easier than swooping right but by the end of my 2-hour session I was feeling ok with them.

I think this week is a blocking week which I am GREATLY looking forward to. League practice is Thursday and I'm hoping to show up early to work on transitions by myself off to the side before practice starts. I know that the endurance will come (crossovers do feel nearly second nature now) but there's a big ol' wall up between me and those turning toe stops that will allow me to scrimmage, hopefully by the end of the year!

Wiff TAH-DAH!

This is just to short post to say just how proud I am of my league, New Hampshire Roller Derby. Today we graduated from the WFTDA Apprentice Program and became a full member of the association.

This is the culmination of almost exactly three years of work on the part of many many women. This is a very exciting time for us and while I had very little part in the work that was done, and I'm not a "full" scrimmaging skater yet I can't say enough how happy this makes me.

CONGRATS NHRD! You earned it! :-D

See the full press release from WFTDA HERE.

Crashing Teen Night

It's amazing how well a mass of half-dressed teenagers can put things in perspective for you. My very first derby experience was on a teen night. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by the throngs of kids speeding around me. I felt so slow and clumsy.

Tonight felt completely different. While I didn't exactly dance through the crowds I definitely weaved my way in and out of groups of girls texting-whilst-skating and boys punching each other in the shoulders. I used my fairly newfound dodging skills to avoid crushing some girls who appeared suddenly in front of me from nowhere. I wasn't the fastest but I certainly wasn't the slowest. I didn't have the grace of many of the skaters on the league but I didn't feel clumsy.

I plied the three other people in the rink who were over the age of 30 with season schedule cards and even participated in the ladies speed skate (which consisted of a handful of us sprinting and a bunch of girls moseying along). It was interesting to get a sense of how much has changed since my first time out on my own skates at recruitment night :-)

Focus on the positive

I've decided that too many of my blog posts sound like rants. Talking about how my hip hurts, or how I'm not losing any weight doesn't make it get any better. I'm going to try to avoid dwelling on the things that went wrong during a practice (see previous post) and try to focus on what went well during practice instead. This means that some nights I may have a short post but we'll see how things go...

Tonight's practice was at JFK. It felt like my first time there in ages. The floor was ridiculous. It's highly polished concrete that, during the off-season, becomes a hockey rink. It's usually pretty slick but my 88A Radar Flat Outs are generally OK. Tonight was crazy.... I felt like I was sliding even on the straightaways! There must be a way to use the slide to some sort of advantage, like in rally car driving!

We did a double pyramid drill tonight that I did probably 90% of. The 10% I was out was not due to a physical issue directly, rather it was a "wardrobe malfunction". I laced my skates too tight and was having foot issues so I quickly took them off, stretched my feet out, and got back on the track. We went up to five laps and back down, doing calisthenics in the middle in between; then switched directions and went up to five and back down again. Considering I completed my first ever pyramid just last week I am pleased that I did as much of this one as I did.

We also did a weaving pace line drill. It's interesting that pace lines use to be the bane of my existence. I couldn't do them to save my life. Now I don't even really think about them. Granted, I put myself in the slow line but with the other vets in that line I don't know that there's any shame in that. I was at the front of the line which meant that I did my weaves last. I made it through the whole line, trying to be a good communicator (thank you Gladiator mouth guard!), and still had enough juice to do my weaves too.

The last thing that I don't think I did great as compared to the rest of the league but it was personal improvement for me was moving from side to side across the track using "mini-crossovers". We did a brief drill where we had to skate the length of the straightaway moving quickly from inside to outside. I want to work on that more next time I'm at Roller Kingdom on a more stable surface - I hope it's agility week next week - my fave!

June is full of promotional events and I'll be spending all day Saturday hanging out at the Gilford liquor store with Maully O and Miss Chiff - hopefully I'll be able to glean some good derby pointers from them while I'm there!