The light at the end of the tunnel

So I've entered the two month stage of being off skates and I'm still feeling pain in my ankle. I went to the physio on Monday and she was actually pushing me to get back on skates! Perhaps I'm being overcautious and paranoid after all the injuries I've picked up this year but I was a bit hesitant to get back on skates while I still felt some pain. She reckons I'll still have that pain for a few months but it shouldn't impact my skating. Shirley ended up giving me a letter to say I could try skating (only) for about an hour this week at training and see her again on Monday to see how my ankle pulls up. If there's no new damage I'll finally get a clearance letter and go back to derby training. Now I'm torn, a part of me can't wait to get back on skates and work my way up again to the level that I was before I got injured but a part of me is shitting bricks about getting back on skates and re-injuring it again. Injuries aren't just physical they're such a head fuck for me anyway. If I get over my fear and manage to skate again I'm going to be sensible about it and spend the rest of the year with the freshies and work on all my falls, stops and endurance again. This year has been a write off for me in terms where I was hoping to be. I want to be firing on all cylinders next year and make next year my year to prove to myself that there's more to me than just writing. I want to be good enough for my league and be an asset and not a hinderance. If I get myself in order by the end of this year I'll be able to push on and work even harder to get to the level that I want to be at next year.

I've had some of my team mates ask me at training how I manage not to go crazy sitting on the sidelines watching the rest of them train. Easy! I occupy myself with stuff to do so that I don't think about it too much. I've been hanging around Team White Tiger and listening to them go through rules and hand signals so that's been fun and helpful. We had Womb Raider come to training on Sunday to take the city team for the city vs coast bout through tactics and strategies before this week's bout which was amazing. I loved learning new tactics and seeing my team mates execute the tactics on the tracks, it was like poetry in motion. I've also been doing the jam timer duties during scrimmage practise, it's nice to have some control over Cherry ;) haha Lastly I've spent the last couple of weeks taking photos at training in the hope that my team mates might pick up on things they're doing correct or might want to work on. Instead I've discovered most of them love having their picture taken and then asking me to upload them on Facebook hehe. Here's some of my favourite pics I've taken.

Yep that's Cherry mid air after Bede's hit haha

There's heaps more pics on my Facebook profile!



There's been such a build up amongst our league for this week's city vs coast bout. Not only will we have members from our league bouting but we're hosting it so it's been a massive learning experience seeing what goes on behind the scenes with putting a bout together. It's been amazing to see my team mates and the guys from MARD push themselves in training and seeing how far they've come. It's going to be a great bout, in fact it's going to be a great night, hurry up already Saturday! I'll be doing the write up for RDAU and possibly HAM but I'm also going to do a special one for our league. No idea where I'll post it but I'll focus it more on my team mates and interview as many of them as possible especially those bouting for the first time. It'll be nice to be able to keep a record of this moment, the first of many for our league :)

Lastly I had a fangirl moment on Saturday night at our H*A*R*D trivia night, Cherry actually came up to me and asked me if I wanted a pic with her so I finally got a pic with her. I've gotten a pic with Jilla, now I've got a pic with Cherry, now all I need is a pic with both of them :)

See you guys on Saturday!