Patience

Sitting out contact drills sucks. I didn't fall once last night because of it. And yet my knee is still swollen. Well, it was last night de-gearing. This morning, it's not so bad. I just need to be patient. HAHA! Patience! What's that? I feel like I HAVE been patient. Forced patience. I mean, I'm not patient, but I haven't quit. Does that count for nothing?

Bruised Knee

Practice was cancelled Sunday. Low attendance. LOL.

Practice last night? Hurt my knee again. I guess it's not fully healed. It's just a bad bruise. How long do bruises take to heal, for crying out loud?! I fell on it once, and I was like, ouch! I fell on it a second time, jamming. (I.hate.jamming.) And I was done. It hurt so much. I knew I couldn't afford to fall on it again. So I was done. Contact drills/scrimmaging the rest of the night...I got to watch. Like I'm fucking fresh meat again. Again? Always.

So much for redos...will I ever be considered good enough? It's always going to be something. Guess I'll be off skates until it heals.

Knee Pain

Another decent practice. What's this, three in a row? I'm on a roll! *snort*

Positional blocking drill. I'm terrible at holding a skater one on one. This is an assessment skill. I doubt I'll improve for redos. Not trying to stress about that. But getting around a skater, I don't do too shabby. I want to be an effective blocker; I don't want to be a jammer. But paired up with big sister last night, she kept praising my skills for getting around her, saying I should be a jammer. I'm comfortable bumping my chest onto her shoulder, using her for leverage to spin around, and then hopefully having enough juice to sprint away. We switched partners, and I got a skater who likes to block facing me. Yikes. But I still managed a couple times to get around her, either by drawing a directional blocking penalty (you're not allowed to block another skater in opposite derby direction/clockwise) or just pushing off her and getting away. Switch partners again and got a newer skater. I wasn't trying as hard, just to make her feel she was doing well, give her a bit more practice with it, then getting around in the same way every time, on the inside, using shoulder to shoulder to push me off, turn around, and go. She asked me, "that thing you're doing to me every time, how to I block against that." I told her I didn't know...cuz I don't.

I guess what even I need to come to terms with..you're not going to always hold the jammer. She's going to get through sometimes. It doesn't mean you played badly.

I took a tough fall sometime during the night. On that same knee I bruised a couple weeks ago when my knee pad dislodged. Nothing you'd think would be bad, just a simple down to one knee. But it was hard and painful. I needed to sit it out for a bit, flexing and stretching. The pain subsided enough for me to keep playing, but anytime I fell on my right knee, it would hurt, like more than my threshold. By the time I got home, it was swollen. So I iced it. Today, it's stiff and tender, is the best way I can describe it. I'm hoping it's fine by Sunday. I would hate to sit out a practice, but my instinct is telling me I definitely could not play on it today, so if it's not better by Sunday, I shouldn't play on it. Yikes.

Scrimmaging. I'm still a hot mess. I'm OK with that as long as I work at staying low. I know I don't always, but I'm hoping I'm staying low for longer. That's my goal. Coach asked me if I felt like it was getting easier out there, more instinctual. I should say yes. But I still feel underwater, which end is up?

Mohawks

Whoa, low turnout at practice yesterday. D1 championships happening somewhat locally. I guess errybody wanted to go watch, go figure. Practice still went well. I was able to contain my anxiety fairly well. One skater said something really nice, almost the perfect thing to say, really. She said, I know the ideal result you want for this drill isn't happening, but that doesn't mean you're doing it badly; you're actually doing it really well.

Yea, coulda kissed her. Instead I just sweated on her. Like legit, a drop of sweat fell from my body onto hers, and she's all, was that sweat from you that just fell on me? Yea. *shame*

I got to know what it felt like to be told by coach that yep, you do that really well. It's a skill I sort of knew I did well, have been told by elite skaters at the other league. It's small mohawk steps, or T steps, side to side. I mean, ice skating yo. Mohawks are like the first step one learns. And my naturally open hips. Which makes plow stopping/braking difficult (read that drill from above). But anything requiring some kind of ballet turned out position, yea no problem.

Anyway, I wanted to push myself with this drill. Be faster, quicker, more agile. We were all individually working on it, around the track, cutting side to side, at a slight angle, so we were moving derby direction, round and round the track. I could get three T steps across, sometimes four. I was concentrating on staying low. These are harder the lower you are, but I was really trying. And coach came over, saw, and said, yea you're really solid on this. Yay!

Toward the end of practice, I was growing super tired, and when I get tired, my control over my brain diminishes. So yea, I was getting pissy and grumpy and kept thinking how I've still not "officially" passed assessments. boo.

Microscopic

They say not to compare your chapter one to someone's chapter twenty. Except even the skaters I tried out with, well some of them, within a year had passed assessments and were even bouting! Most skaters I know have that timeline. Not me.

The rest? Well, I think they quit. I haven't quit yet. It's been so hard, and ugly at times, but I haven't fully given up.

A thought occurred to me. I'm not an athlete, never have been. Not ever in my life. Some of the skaters I knew who passed within a year had an athletic background or were otherwise in decent shape. Not me. So maybe these last four years have been playing catch up to athlete level. And now that I'm here (sort of), minimum skills are coming easier to me. I still haven't passed. But I'm close. So close.

For now, I'm going to need to focus on microscopic improvements. There's never going to be an aha! I'm suddenly amazing at X. But little by little, and I do mean little, each practice will get me inches closer to being halfway decent. That's my hope.

Attitude/Plan

Check it out. Practice actually went well. Main reason is I focused on the idea that practice was going to be the same whether I've passed assessments or not. Same drills. I could work hard on everything. Or I could get mired down in the fact that I'm still not official. I chose not to get mired down. Well, I worked hard at not.

I also focused really hard on staying low. My agility then suffered, but I don't care. I expect that will come with time. I need to learn (re-learn) how to jam while staying low. The pulse squats and lateral squats that I've been doing three times a week appear to be helping. I'm up to a minute on each, with the goal to get to two minutes, and then do sets of two minutes.

I've decided to start heading to the rink early for some individual practice on Thursdays. This will help two things. Certain individual skills that I just need more practice than I get during regular practice. And my three-hour endurance for Sundays. I got in about an extra 30-40 minutes.

Highlights. Scrimmage at the end, we didn't have enough skaters, but we did it anyway. Coach put me on white (I bring spare tops). White only had four skaters. Black had five. Lovely. We had time for maybe five to six jams, not sure exactly.

• After one of the jams, one of my "teammates" pointed out to everyone how I put myself in front of the jammer. Jammer was big sister. She's amazeballs. She's fast and jukey. And yet, I showed "no fear" putting myself in front of her. I vaguely remember, my two other teammates were hung up on the outside of the track while dud me was stuck on the inside. But here comes black jammer on the inside, so I remembered to position myself not sideways but square. The skater who was regaling the story said it gave them about three to four extra seconds of holding her up, just my doing that. Not too shabby! (erm, it's hella awkward being praised publicly.)
• They handed me the star. Do you want to be jammer? HAHA! No, but I'll do it anyway. And I got through AND got lead. Not due to any skill on my part. The skill was all in my blockers playing offense for me. I saw one powerful skater hitting opposing blockers out of my way. I juked a bit, mohawked around, so there was some skill. But mostly amazing blockers playing offense. Except as soon as I got through and got lead, the other jammer got through. No chance of out-skating her. It was big sister again. Everyone hollered at me to call it off. So I didn't actually get to DO anything with lead, except call off the jam with no points for either team. meh. I'll take it.

Spinning my wheels

Learning is messy. Especially when it's something physical. You're working muscles you likely didn't think you had. Or muscles that don't particularly like to be worked. But the muscle *I* most need to work...is my suck muscle. Seriously. I need to be OK with sucking. And sucking a lot and for a long while. Even longer than the four years I've been at this derby thing. Or the year+ I've been at hooping.

I read an article about Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset. I tend to have a Fixed Mindset. I believe that people are born with certain tendencies toward talent. Notice how I didn't say born with outright talent. I get that even the talented need to practice. But I can't help thinking some people are a natural talent for some things while others just aren't. An extreme example: Contortionism. Seriously, you can't train for that shit. You can work to get better. But either you're super crazy flexible or you're not. No amount of stretching is gonna get you there if you're not naturally flexible.

And then I've seen people bad at advanced math, like really bad at it. And no amount of studying is gonna get them there.

You see my dilemma? I believe some people, no matter how hard they work, are just not going to be any good at something if they don't have a natural talent for it. Perhaps the talent is untapped, but it needs to be there, nontheless.

Here are some of my issues, from that article:

1. I'm afraid to fail or look silly. Thankfully, this is not a crippling fear. But it's there. The idea of bouting? Nope. Performing hoop in public? Nope. Think the movie Carrie: They're all gonna laugh at you! This scene? Nails it, what it's like to be inside my brain.
2. I believe people tend to have innate abilities. I do not, however, believe practice is therefore unnecessary. But I can't help thinking: if you don't have talent, practice won't help. Much. You might improve a little, but you're never going to be amazing.
3. I really don't cope with failure or mistakes well. I tend to shut down when I feel I've really messed up. My brain likes to constantly and at random remind me of all embarrassing moments. Like the time I dropped my colorguard flag in front of Cinderella's castle at Disney World in 1998. Do I remember that I never dropped a flag in a game? Not really, just generally. I don't have specific memories of any one particular game. But I remember dropping my flag on that stage in front of all those people. Often. And with dread.

The advice from the article: "So next time you find yourself avoiding a drill because you don’t want to fail, or getting mad at someone because they pointed out your mistake, try to change your mindset and remember that getting feedback is the only way you will grow."

umm, no offense, but that's kinda lame and vague. Maybe the incessant reminders I hear to get low mean I'm still not doing it yet maybe one day, it'll sink in, if I hear it often enough. I'd rather think that my derby potential has yet to be fully untapped. I haven't yet revealed whether I lack natural talent. I just need to keep trying. But then I think of all those skaters who, within a year of starting, have both passed assessments and bouted. Yet here I am, four years later, unable to pass and forget bouting. I just yet don't fully believe I'm truly talented at this sport. And I might be just spinning my wheels, pun intended.

Flow in the Sun

This just in! Unchoreographed flow. The weather is cooling off (not cool yet, just not hot hot hot). I needed a little playtime to decompress. And it did just the trick. I'm not even gonna apologize that everything pretty much needs smoothing out. I had fun, I'm getting better.

Disappointment

I wish I had anything good to report. I had a rough time, mentally. I'm so over this, so over the anxiety and negatron voice. The more I think about it, the more I realize it's mostly related to assessments. I've been wanting to pass minimum skills for so long, knowing I wasn't good enough. It's been this dark cloud lurking. And the closer I get to passing, the more intense I feel about it. You'd think it'd be the other way round. I'm hoping when/if I pass redos and get officially passed, that it'll pop like a balloon, and I can relax. I'll still suck, but who cares? Whenever we're doing a drill that seems remotely similar to an assessment skill, my brain says, "this is why you can't pass asssessments." And I fall apart. I sound like a basket case. I'm over it, so over my own internal drama. It's bad enough I have a bad practice, but then I'm disappointed in myself for having a bad practice.

One of the first drills, I was a hot mess of confusion. And it was nearly over, but I skipped out and bailed. Big sister came to me and basically says, I don't care if it's messy, I don't care if you cry, but try to finish every drill. And my brain goes, "NOOOOO, I've disappointed her!" I struggled to overcome that thought the entire night.

Scrimmage...man, I stupidly tried to take on one of the toughest hitters as jammer. I realized later my mistake. I was standing sideways, which meant she could hit me as hard as she could. I should have positioned myself, ass facing her. She can't hit me as hard or back block penalty. But I didn't do that. I was sideways, I knew it was gonna be bad, I just braced myself. And it was bad. I went splat. My knee pad and elbow pad dislodged. I'm scraped and bruised in places you don't want to be. My poor knee.

Gameplan. Get low, stay low. I SUCK at staying low. It doesn't matter if I can't brake, block, move. At all. Just stay low. That's my plan. And no more of this side blocking. If I'm in position to take a hit, my ass better be in her face. Figuratively speaking.

Redos Practice

Sunday's derby practice did not go well. I didn't post about it because I legit couldn't find anything good to say. I entertained thoughts of quitting again, wishing I were brave enough to quit. You'd think quitting would be the easy part. Not for me. It's terrifying. But when placing my grocery order this week, I put an 18 pack of gatorade into my cart. I think that's my subconscious mind deciding not to quit. No point in having that much gatorade if not for three-hour Sunday practices.

Last night, some skaters met to do an informal practice. I have a lot of redos for assessments, I needed to work on them. I told a skater I had 12 redos, and her response was accurate. "Fuck me, 12?!" Yup.

Overall, last night went well. I still don't think I'm good enough to pass on some skills, although I did see a glimmer of improvement by the end of the night. Yes, I'm obsessed with the "test" and passing the test. You would be too if that dark cloud had been hanging out over your head for four years. Or you might not. You're not me.

Big sister is amazing, like a jedi knight against anxiety. I never can remember just what it is she says to me when I feel the panic rising, but she shuts it down every time. It's almost like, "nope, we're not going to have anxiety about that right now." I really want to show her that her time spent with me is worth it. She gave up her evening last night to help me. And that means a lot to me.

Practice tonight. Hopefully tomorrow, I'll have good things to report.