Cheating on the one you love?

I finally got my clearance letter from the physio last Thursday so I'm free to resume derby training! I must admit it was killing me restricting myself to following the physio's instructions on what I could and couldn't do but I followed it and would you believe it my back feels a hell of a lot better haha. I eased back into my personal training with Suzie this week so it was no where near the intensity I'm used to but Suzie was being mindful of all my old injury problems. There were some drills that I couldn't complete because I started feeling pain in my knee or shoulder and instead of getting the shit's like I usually do because I'm 'weak' and can't cope I felt acceptance. All the pressure and destruction I've put on my body over the years has meant that I'm now at the stage that if I don't follow medical advice I won't get to bout at all so I'm going to have to work harder behind the scenes to strengthen my body on top of my normal training to have any chance of bouting. It's only taken 1 1/2 years for rationale to win over stubborness and having to prove I'm not weak. No point in thinking about 'what if's' and time wasted on the sidelines due to all the injuries, it's time to finally focus on where I want to go with derby and what I need to do to get there.

There were lots of derby events on over the weekend and I went to none of them due to other commitments. First up some of my team mates teamed up with Central Coast Roller Girls to bout as the Bloody Holly's at the Wintersun festival. It was all the more awesome as two of my team mates Posh Deck'em and Punkie BrawlSTAR made their bouting debuts. I heard they both got lead jammer and scored points throughout the night. I'm so proud of them :) Of course there was TGSS. My news feed on Facebook got flooded with posts from derby peeps leaving to go to TGSS, while they were at TGSS, and finally heading back which made me want to go even more haha. I'm really hoping to go next time. I did see positive posts and lots of negative posts about 'no derby' being played. It's such a controversial area of the game. On one hand I could understand teams going with that approach especially earlier on in the tournament as a way of preserving their energy for the latter stages of the tournament. The jam in the VRDL vs CRDL bout where no one moved for the full two minutes worked a treat for VRDL because in the jam they wiped out CRDL's lead in one jam and went on to dominate and win the bout. On the flip side watching skaters stand still isn't very entertaining to watch. It's hard for the sport to evolve without fan support but how do you keep both sides happy? Do you change the rules, work on strategies to try and combat 'no derby' or something completely different? I don't know the answer.

I guess most people have something they do when they need that little bit of motivation or inspiration. For me it's watching boxing related movies. Having done boxing for a while I appreciate the discipline required and the high intensity training, it's like a physical game of chess which is another reason I fell in love in derby. I find having all the boxing training scenes from the films running through my head helps me push on when I'm at the gym or going for a run which is a good thing for my fitness and therefore derby.

I've been guilty of having my head in the sand with a particular skill. I suck at it so bad that I've tried banishing it from my mind but the reality is that I can't do it properly but I need to be able to do it if I want to do more advanced skills. I'm ashamed to say it but it's walking on my toe stops, something so basic but I can't do it. I can barely walk on them and the best I can do is a few steps at a time at a very SLOW pace. Pretty much everyone I know can walk, run, tomahawk, so the 'Jilla' block and I can't do any of that. Having really weak ankles, or not wearing high heels probably doesn't help my cause. So while I already have a massive list of stuff I want to learn how to do this is something I'm going to focus on.

I've got bit of a funny story. I was chatting with some of our ref's at training and we were discussing how to legally combat the block that Jilla seems to have perfected where she gets to the front of the pack and skates right in the face of an opposing skater while skating backwards. I said I plan on asking her for an autograph or pic, that would probably confuse the fuck out her long enough to get around her in one piece :) Simon then said that he can't wait to see me bout against Jilla because he seems to think that as soon as she hits me my reaction will be 'Oh my God GodJilla just hit me' in a fangirl kinda way. Am I really going to be that bad? I hope not!

Finally the meaning behind the title of this post. Lately I've been thinking is it possible to equally love another league beside your own? Before I even put on a pair of quads NRDL became my favourite league after watching them in a bout. I eventually joined up to play derby and with HARD I've gotten an extended family who I'd go through bricks walls for. Problem is when I pick a team to support I stick with them which is what I've done with Newy. It's not like I'll ever play for them but I love their league. On the other hand I can't help but feel like I'm cheating on HARD for loving another league as much as HARD. Am I cheating on HARD?