Doctor doctor help me

For a week that started quite brightly it quickly turned to crap. I guess you have to take the good with the bad, but dammit the bad sucks right now. So how did I end up in this position? Well it all started when...

I was pretty happy with my exercise routine so I thought I'd push myself and go to the boxing class on Saturday morning before skating. I went to both and did about 3 hours of exercise in total which I was pleased with but I was knackered by the end of it. Skating was once again brilliant, I learn more and more each time I go there. Atomic Cherry is a brilliant teacher, she'll pick out what you're doing wrong and tell you how to improve. This week it was learning how to shift the center of gravity onto one foot which leads into learning how to do crossovers. Cherry being Cherry gave me different off skate exercises to do to help improve on this. The beauty of these Saturday skating sessions is that we're getting more derby folk going from all different levels so the potential to learn and make friend's increases big time.

I have to admit I was supposed to go for a run on Monday night but ended up staying home and catching up on CSI episodes. It wasn't very productive but at least I've caught up on CSI. Yeah that was a rubbish excuse.

Tuesday comes around and it's hot as buggery. I thought I would have sweated my body weight's worth of sweat but it didn't quite turn out that way. With both Emma and Nerds not able to make it we had Betty B. Prayin' take over the training session. There was no messing with her, we got stuck right into it. One of the first things we learnt was the change of direction move. I was trying to do it but I couldn't do it properly. I pushed it and then stacked it with my left leg going at a weird angle. My knee started to hurt a little but I thought I'd be to skate it off. We then partnered up and did another change of direction drill. I still couldn't do it. I pushed myself again and wouldn't you know it I stacked it again this time twisting my left ankle but it didn't really hurt that much by that stage. So I'm 2/2 in regards to stacks and injuries. We move onto t-stops and it's going ok until I overbalance and stack it once again, thankfully I fell forwards onto my pads so I didn't pick up an injury. We started some endurance skating and I can feel the pain in my knee get worse. I go off and get it iced but I started getting angry with myself for being so crap and getting myself injured while everyone else seems to get it just fine. I got up to skate again, it still didn't feel 100% but I didn't want to look weak. We then got taught how to do single, double and 4 point slides. I started doing the single slides but the pain got worse so I sat it out feeling dejected because I wanted to be out there skating.

On the drive home all these negative thoughts came out. I was crap, everyone else was going to make up to white star level and I'd be stuck behind. Was I ever going to make to bouting level? etc etc. I find it easy to get stuck in this mindset so I usually give up pretty easy. Being a public holiday yesterday I didn't do much and rested my leg. With all the strapping and braces my leg looks like its been into battle. Trying to get myself out the negative mindset I thought to myself how I could try and improve my skating skills once the injuries wear off. If it means having to get up early in the morning and going skating before work I'll do it. If it means I have to stay back and not progress with the rest of the group up to white star level then so be it (even though it'll suck). Funnily enough I was flicking through a magazine yesterday and found this quote 'A negative attitude is like a flat tyre - you're not going far until you change it'. It reminded me of my current situation so I thought I'd apply it to help me get back on track. Right now I'm still injured but I'm hoping I'll be able to skate on Saturday, if not hopefully Tuesday.

Here's hoping for a better week!