Thursday, August 19, 2010

Last night was not so excellent

So after last week being rather spectacular I was looking forward to having a really excellent night @ practice. Oh and forgive any typos; my mother-in-law's laptop and I aren't friends and I have the keyboard to be a bit wonky and too small. Anyway, things started off pretty well although this whole skating backwards thing is starting to frustrate me a lot as is skating in a non-derby direction and trying to do crossovers going that way. I'm not so very good at it...as in I can barely crossover going derby direction and non-derby just hasn't clicked for me yet. At any rate things were going OK until I lined up for a slalom drill. Despite my inability to control my speed worth a damn last night it wasn't bad until my partner and I took off to slalom through the pack. We're coming back around a turn about to catch up and start weaving when my wheels just spun right out from underneath me and down I went. I did have the sense to let go of Becky so I didn't take her down with me, but I hit and hit hard. I also twisted my left knee (again!) in the process. And this time it hurt bad enough that I ended up sitting out for the majority of the rest of practice, which sucked. I was already frustrated and having a hard time because I feel like I should be making better progress than I have been, but to have fallen again because I lost control really fried me. I know that part of it is because of my very slippery wheels (that I forgot to clean because I was putting brakes on my car), but I cannot blame it all on my wheels and I know that my skating ability and skill, or lack thereof, is also an issue. *sigh* At any rate I as doing OK hanging out and watching with my ice and some ibuprofen, encouraging the girls as they skated by and rockin' out to our playlist for the night. But sitting and watching is not something I do well and after a while I was just feeling frustrated with myself and an anxiety attack was brewing. Now I hate having anxiety attacks, they exhaust me and as far as I'm concerned they make me look and feel weak. I don't do weak. I forced it down and fought it for a while, make jokes about the push and pull drill that I missed out on being a good thing cause I outweigh my teammates...all of them...LOL, and laughed off my knee and said I would skate a bit more that night maybe. I looked down and saw the hummingbird tattoo I have on my arm with the dates that my granny was born and died and it made me sad cause I miss her and cause I wish she could see me skating. I know she'd be proud of me and this time of year is hard with the anniversary of her death coming up. That was the final straw and tears I had been fighting just started pouring down my face. Just in time for one of the girls (April I think) to ask if I was OK. And there was no way I was getting those tears under control before I looked up to answer her. I hate letting people see me cry or get upset. I absolutely hate it. My parents used to call me names when I cried or got upset and would tell me that I was too sensitive. So I just quit letting people see me cry. I managed to yank myself back under a small semblance of control and explained that I was just frustrated and annoyed at myself and missing my grandmother and Meagan and the others were really encouraging and commented on much I have been improving. No one can expect any more out of me that I've been giving...they don't know the standards I've been known to hold myself to...Hell I've been thinking I'm not giving enough. So I felt a little better and went out for one more drill cause it would let me get in a smidge more skate time and because I felt like I had to prove to myself that I could do it. So I did it. I didn't have a whole lot of success in this particular drill of trying to jam through a pack or block the jammer that was trying to get through the pack, but I was out there. I did notice that after I fell and hurt myself I was a bit shaky about getting back out there and I know that it was due to the fall and my wheels being so slippery wasn't helping, but I was trying. And then I sat and chatted for a bit with Jen and Angela who weren't skating at the time and went home when practice was over. I still feel kinda crappy about my performance last night and my knee is sore this morning, but nothing I can't handle. I think I'm going to start wrapping it with an AC bandage and see if that helps and try to find some good strengthening exercises. I will not give this up. I might bitch and whine sometimes though. DL<3

Dixie D.

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