Queen of the Rink

I’m certainly not queen of the rink — I’m barely even the queen of my own living room — but last night’s practice was a damn good time. It was another stamina-heavy practice, but with a lot of fun drills.

I am still having trouble keeping up with the more experienced girls, but I feel I’m improving. Last night I was working on my left crossovers and, although I still can’t do them, I am getting close. You know, when we skate, we skate in one direction (counterclockwise). Pretty much always. So when you’re making a left-hand turn, you cross your right foot over your left. Which I can do. But I do need to know how to go the opposite way, crossing my left over my right. It feels so awkward!! But I’ll get it eventually. Also, on the “skating in one direction” tip, our captain told me last night that her right thigh is one full inch bigger than her left. COOL.

Anyhoo. Last night’s practice featured a lot of blocking drills and partner/team work. We practiced skating in a wall of three and trying to prevent a jammer from passing us and/or breaking up our wall. It’s hard! But we did okay. Later we did some blocking races, where we broke up into teams of two and raced against another team of two, trying to block them from getting in front of us. Then we did a “pack awareness” drill. We were each secretly assigned a color and then started skating the track as a pack. A girl on the outside of the track skated around behind us, randomly holding up a colored piece of paper. When your color came up, you were supposed to just randomly hit someone. (By the way, when I say “hit,” I mean shoulder or hip-checking to try and knock someone down or out of bounds.) It was a cool drill because I was scared shitless the whole time, wondering who was going to slam me. I only got hit once or twice, and I think that some people take it a bit easy on me because I struggle a lot. But I did land a shoulder hit on one girl and it knocked her to the floor. She probably just tripped on her own accord, but whatever, go me! It felt way too good.

We ended the night with a couple of rounds of “King of the Rink,” which is just a free-for-all where you skate around the track and try to push people out of bounds or knock them down. Last person standing is the winner. I was knocked out early in each round — this one girl just sort of pushed me right out of bounds. I tried to hold my own, and did for a minute, but she ended up shoving me right out. No worries. I didn’t fall down!

As for injuries, my bruises are now morphing into beautiful colors. They are huge and sick. I also have a big splotchy bruise on the instep of my right foot and one directly on my shin. Owie. Last night I wrapped my right foot, ankle and shin in an ace bandage and it helped a ton.

I left for practice last night in a foul mood and extremely stressed out. I came home sweaty, exhausted and hurting — with a big smile on my face.

Related posts:

1. A Discouraging Practice
2. Skating in the Hellmouth
3. The Walk of Death and Other Distractions
4. Gearing Up
5. Strep + Me + HOT + Derby = Guh