Thursday, December 23, 2010

Practice before Xmas

So it has been a crazy week for most of the girls and practice last was very small, reflecting that craziness. After the first of the year we will really start pushing mandatory practices, weather permitting, but for the holidays sometimes other things interfere. Anyway, last night was awesome even with our little group! We did falls, jumps (i got mah hops!!!!!!), endurance, pack skating, glides, stops, squatted skating, and a bunch of other stuff. We also took a few minutes to mark out a derby track with cones because I hadn't skated on one and neither have some of the others. What a difference and I loved it! I could actually widen my stance and do some positional/booty/stall blocking and I was taking some serious hits. One thing I have got to get better at is getting back up after I fall. I need to really remember that we have two seconds to get up and return to active skating and then I need to just do it. My body shouldn't have to think about it. One more goal to accomplish. DL<3!!!

Dixie von D.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

25/5 sat practice

We're starting to work on min. skills more and more and one of the things I hadn't even attempted was my 25/5. It scared me. A lot. I was pretty convinced that the first time I tried it I was going to be a total fail at it. Like 15 laps and that would be a lot of work to improve upon by March.
So yesterday at the beginning of practice after warm-ups and stretches someone said they wanted to try it because they hadn't done so yet and the girls talked me into giving it a try as well. So the three of us that were doing it lined up, clock was set, and off we went. The other two ladies were immediately pacing faster than I was and I tried to keep up, but was consistently a couple seconds behind them. I fought to not let them lap me as I started tiring out and refused to stop or even think about how many laps I might have skated or anything other than the idea of skating and footwork and making it around the rink.
After five minutes of skating when time was called I practically fell over and laid there trying to catch my breath. I've only been skating for about 4 or 5 months and I'm getting better, but that was srsly hard for me. I was pretty sure that I hadn't made 25 laps. I had no idea how close I was. 21 laps in 5 minutes for my very first attempt at it doesn't seem too bad. I know that my form was pretty poor and that I was coasting a LOT through turns because the 93a(ish) wheels are still a teeny bit too hard for me to be super comfortable with on crossovers at speed, but I want to get to the point that I am good with them. At any rate I'm glad I tried it cause now I know where I am, and will be working to improve as much as possible before testing in March. DL<3!

Dixie von D.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Angry Robot Roller Derby

http://angryrobotrollerderby.blogspot.com/

Everyone should check out the above blog by an awesome skater named Dreadnought from the Boston Derby Dames who is also the 2011 captain of the Nutcrackers! She talks about being a freshie, being a freshie mama, and is an all around awesome blogger AND quilter!!! Also, an inspiration to those of us who aren't quite so epically good!

Got my skate on!

Practice was NOT canceled this week but I still feel like I need more time on my skates! I never wanna take them off these days! My endurance is still improving and I'm incredibly nervous because I found out that our Mins. testing is coming up in March and realistically March isn't that far away and doing 25 laps in 5 minutes scares me. A lot! A lot a lot! Jumping scares me too cause I'm a white girl who can't jump. My plow stops suck, I haven't even attempted one footed glides, I'm slow getting up from falls and I use my hands on them, my footwork blows, I can't skate in a squatting position (is this what I hear called a duckwalk??), and I think that about covers all the things I can't do. This seems like a very long list of things to learn and master and a very short amount of time to do it in. And I was nervous before I sat down and checked the list out. Now I think I might puke.

On another note, our first scrimmage is coming up in February and I'm really looking forward to that. We should have shirts by then! And our first official bout has been announced as being on July 9, 2011. So in the seven months leading up to that bout I will pass Mins., work harder to get into derby shape, start exercising outside of derby, and try not to focus on things that are just going to stress me out needlessly. I'm refusing to add a weight loss goal to that list of things because I know that derby makes me gain muscle and the number itself might not drop a lot, even if the clothing sizes change. I can already squeeze back into a pair of stretchy size 18 jeans that I bought ages ago so I know I'm progressing on that front. I would love to be back in my 18s for good and love even more to get into a 16, but my hips might just be too wide for that period! LOL In any case, here's to moving on and moving up! DL <3

Dixie von D.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

*sigh**grumble*

Stupid weather...all snowy and nasty and causing practice to get canceled. I dunno what I'm gonna do being off skates for so long....have to see if I can squeeze in a sesh sometime soon I guess. But my chestnuts are exploding in the oven so gotta go!!!DL!!!!<3

Dixie von D.

P.S. My apartment smells like pine trees, the fake tree is up, and I think I might hang some lights later after I do a bit of schoolwork. And the chestnut crisis was averted!!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

First Dec. skate

So I'm way late updating about Wednesday night. Which sucks cause we had a good night. Lots of Endless Jammer, helped out a newbie working on her derby stance, endurance is still coming, found out we have a bout in January and realized that I need to kick my ass into extra high gear so I'm ready for it, and am getting T-stops down which is helping me start to get the front to back transitions I've been struggling so hard with. And getting those means I will eventually get the Tomahawk stop down. Not fond of footwork on toe stops cause it makes me toes hurt and really bad at grapevining across the rink cause try as I might I start rolling forward. Advice on how to stop that would be most helpful. And that was practice in a nutshell. I'm feeling kinda down tonight or I would elaborate more, but *shrug* it's just been a rough coupla days and try as I might I seem to be the only one getting into the Christmas spirit and people keep shooting it down....bah humbug...DL ya'll <3

Dixie von D.