Word of advice

Last Tuesday night saw my first ever advanced training session. I'd been to quite a few throughout the year but that was off skates when Poz and I would work out benching stuff when we used to bench for the kazi's. When I walked into the school hall on Tuesday night I did have that thought 'is this really happening?' running in my head. The venue we train at on Tuesday's is different to the one we usually train at. I've heard that some of my team mates have mentioned in the past that they're not huge fans of the floor because it's a lot more slippery than our usual training venue. I personally loved it because it was different. I know once I start bouting at other venues they'll have different floors so I'll have to adjust to that quick smart. A more slippery floor means giving your agility skills a good workout so it's a good thing.

Punkie ran us through all sorts of drills, some I did for the first time like backwards weaving through cones. Although my backwards skating has improved and I'm getting a bit faster at them everyone else kicked my arse in the relays we did. I know that the more I practise, the closer I'll get to keeping up with the rest of them eventually. It hit me during training that I didn't care how stupid I looked or how many times I stacked it I was being pushed outside my comfort zone and it was all helping me get closer to my goals. Through all that my body decided it was too much awesomeness for one night that both of my calves cramped during the training session so I had to take it a bit easier towards the end but I survived my first Tuesday training session! I was on such a post training high that I only got four hours sleep that night which made work the next day that bit more challenging!





During the week Danger messaged me out of the blue and offered me some advice on tackling skills that I was having trouble. It was a different way to how I usually approach things but I thought I'd give it a crack the next chance I had to see if it worked.

If Tuesday was jumping out of my skin about training, Friday was the complete opposite. I know I'm not the first person to experience this but it had been a shit week away from derby that I really wasn't arsed about going to training, blasphemy I know. All day right up until I got home from work I kept changing my mind about whether to go to training or not. I knew that once I got ready and left the house that I'd go to training so that's what I did. Once I was there I was all good and got stuck in. I'm sure this happens to a lot of people from time to time. I'm glad I stuck it out and went to training because I'm sure it got me a step closer to going back to scrimmage.

The session was all about walls, building, maintaining and trying to get through them. I've known for a long time that I'm really shite with offensive blocking, I just don't have the ability to break through walls yet and I don't really know why. Is it lack of confidence, not picking the right moment, not using my body to its maximum effect or something else?

Saturday morning I headed up to Newy for my first social skate since my knee injury. I loved having a skate with Cass again. She was awesome enough to tell me about the training session they had the previous night with a speed skater and passed on some tips that she got from the training session. this is why I don't mind the 2 hour drive up there because there's always someone there to offer me help or advice that it becomes another training session for me.

I decided to try out Danger's advice and started tackling transitions on the inside. It took a while but once I stopped overthinking and started following Danger's advice it worked I started transitioning on the inside!!! I couldn't believe how quickly it worked. Thank you Danger!

I headed back to Sydney to get ready and make my way to the 5x5 double header final. I ended up missing the first 15 minutes of Blue Mountains vs Inner West. I predicted a Blue Mountains win but I was surprised by the score. Blue Mountains were playing like they were in first gear and they weren't using Mis Behave as jammer which was strange. Inner West as always were giving it their all but it wasn't enough as BM did enough to win it. I was a bit puzzled why the ref's weren't calling out of play especially by one Inner West player in particular. I was sitting in the grandstand but even I could see when the Inner West jammer gave herself a whip off a BM blocker to get around her. How that wasn't called as a penalty I'll never know.

The second bout took most of us by surprise. I thought Central Coast were going to win but South Side blew them away right from the beginning and kept applying the blow torch for the rest of the bout. My favourite moment had to have been when Kiki Chaos came back onto the track after being in the penalty box she absolutely nailed an S2D2 blocker who was in a sausage line on the track then on the next bend she poleaxed the S2D2 jammer. It's why I can't wait to bout her one day because it'll be so bloody tough but just as much fun. Kiki's ace :)

I was chatting to Ivy at the bout and she mentioned she wanted to link this blog onto the RDAU website because she likes the personal approach and she thinks other people out there can relate to it. I told her most of my posts go something like this One week - I got injured AGAIN, screw you derby you're not going to get the better of me. I'm such a fangirl of Brig, Cherry and Jilla. Man I would love to bout NRDL one day. I went up to Newy on the weekend for a bout and/or social skate. Next week - Yay back on skates, I got the better of this latest injury. I headed up to Newy again for a skate and/or bout. Jilla's freaking awesome, did I mention I want to bout against NRDL one day...and repeat :P Sound familiar haha. Do people really relate to that?

I may have some ridiculously high derby goals I'd love to achieve by the end of the year but there's some amazing opportunities coming up that'll hopefully help me get there. Apart from my normal training I've lined up a day to have some one on one training with Jilla, she won't tell me what she has in mind so I have no idea what she plans on teaching me, there's a few intraleague scrimmages HARD have with other leagues that I'll be able to participate in if i get my clearance to scrimmage, Candy said I can come up and scrimmage with her guys at CKO and Danger's in the process of trying to organise a bootcamp between us, Newy and WIRD which may involve scrimmage at the end of it. Read that I might get the chance to scrimmage with my guys against NRDL. I started the year training with NRDL, imagine ending the year scrimmaging against them? Mind blown just thinking about it :)