I'm ALIVE!!!!!

The further I go with derby the more my needs change with this blog. I'm no longer doing my blog for its original reasons so I'm changing with what I do with it. Instead of doing it once a week and having ridiculously long posts, I'll post whenever I feel the need to do it, so you might get a few shorts posts a week or lots of really long posts, either way it'll all be about derby.

Our training session was cancelled this Friday night because there was an annual indoor soccer comp at the venue we train at and they booked all the courts. The next best option? Heading to Skatel with some of my team mates! On Friday nights they allow kids with scooters and skateboards to go on the track. When I was paying my entry fee the lady warned me it was scooter night but that there wasn't too many of them. There was a shit load of them and they had set up little ramps all along the track, this was going to be interesting trying to avoid them. I met up Sarah and slowly more of my team mates turned up. We hit the track and tried skating while dodging the kamikaze kids on their scooters. It was actually proving to be great agility training. There was one really close call when this kid cut in front of me, we both tried getting out of each others way but we went in the same direction and were heading for a full on collision. It was too late for me to go anywhere else but forward so I braced myself. I got lower into the derby stance and was ready to take him out scooter and all with my shoulder but he somehow changed direction at the last second and we JUST missed each other, he probably shitted himself when he saw me bearing down on him and tried his best to get out of my way haha.

Some of my team mates tried their luck on the scooter ramps. Matron had a couple of good stacks but she got back up and kept going for it which was great to see and she ended up nailing some good jumps on the ramps, same too with Dobie. I would love to try skating on the ramps one day but I really need to improve my skating and for now my body is still made of glass so I want to strengthen it more before I try my luck on ramps.

I was working on two of my weaknesses: walking on my toe stops and transitions. Since I missed so much training last year because of injuries I'm still struggling to do some basic moves like these two things. Sarah and Dobie gave me some tips and I noticed the lower I got the easier it felt. I don't wear high heels so I'm not used to walking like that. Walking on my toe stops feels like I'm walking in high heels while squatting down on the loo and I probably look that graceful too :) While I'm not setting the world on fire yet I did manage to walk 7 steps before grabbing onto the wall. Up until tonight I couldn't walk two steps before grabbing onto the wall for dear life. As for transitions I haven't done them since February last year when I injured both my left ankle and knee in two seperate stacks while attempting to do them. I tried doing them while holding onto the rail but couldn't do them. I think I need to be taught again how to do them. I managed to get my legs into the crab skating position while holding onto the rail but I could not get my back leg to move to get any power out of it no matter how hard I tried. So I definately stepped out of my comfort zone tonight which made me really happy even if I didn't have too much success.

While I was skating Erin came up to me and asked me if I was happy to be skating again, I definately was then she said it was nice to see me back on skates which left me grinning inside and out. That was really nice of her. I really do have some great team mates :) Dobie and I had own little cat and mouse game going on, I tried using positional blocking on her when she tried to be past me and there were a couple of little hits from both of us, it was great fun!

Lastly I got to skate with Cherry again at Skatel, it has been a while since we got to do that. We continued our cat and mouse game. Honestly it's one of my favourite derby activities. I still don't know how to actually hit properly because I missed so much training last year so whenever Cherry carves into me all I usually do is try and counter her hit so that I'm not a sitting duck and get taken out by her. One time tonight she went to carve me and I went to hit her and got her upper arm with that sweet spot on your shoulder blade and it knocked her off balance for a couple of steps. I was absolutely chuffed that I got her and I didn't even hit her hard, it was more about positioning myself properly. I seriously love our cat and mouse games, it raises my heart beat, not in fear but excitement, and all I'm thinking is 'fucking come on'. I know she can be extremely intimidating on the track but I love going toe to toe with her, she brings out the competitive and fearless part of myself out and the shy me is nowhere to be seen :)