all about me

The evolution of my blog...
and fair warning, I'm a dark and moody soul with a dirty mouth. Get out now while you still can.

Blog started out as an ice skating blog. Then I took up roller derby. And became a hoop dancer. I'm off the ice for now (never say never) and had a brief rookie year on the derby track. I can now be found dancing inside a hoop. My newest obsession is Lyra (aerial hoops). Lyra is the complete package for me. Artistic yet physically demanding. All the things I could want from an activity.

I also want to get more practice with Hoopskating (hoop dance on skates).  But finding an ideal practice space is proving quite difficult.

I'm not very good at any of it, but I keep trying.

I'm now in my 40s. I first learned to figure skate in high school and skated all through college. Took about a decade off once I got out on my own because ice time is expensive, yo. I picked it back up in my 30s for a few years and really enjoyed it until I could no longer handle the long drive and limited freestyle times. Rinks seem to cater only to the home schooled or hockey players. Adult figure skaters get the shaft. The glorious 90s when figure skating was the height of popularity are gone, I'm afraid.

In 2012, I went to a roller derby bout and thought it looked so fun. And it is. Except I'm not very good. And the stress of being the worst got to me. I hung in there about a year until I "retired" for a bit from the league and went back to ice skating. That's when I started this blog.

I was invited to join a derby rec league in spring 2015. Now THIS was my jam, pun intended. No pressure. No huge time commitments outside of skating. Just camaraderie and skills on wheels.

Around the same time as the rec league, I started hooping with a weighted fitness hoop, thinking it would be just a good core workout to aid derby. Until I started to see all the wonderful dance moves and tricks that could be done with the hoop and got hooked. It's even more fun than colorguard in college.

In May of 2016, I joined a bouting league in another local town. I finally passed assessments and skated in my first bout! I'm no longer "that girl" who can't pass assessments. I proved to myself I could do it. I've skated two bouts and two invitationals.

Then in February of 2017, I discovered Lyra. More importantly, I ran out of excuses to try. A free open house class at Aerial CLT. I'm hooked. I'm taking a break from derby and focusing on hoops. Hoopdance. Aerial Hoops. And a little bit of Hoopskating.

I suffer from depression and a bit of social anxiety. My moods are unpredictable and often negative. I self-medicate with wine and naps and exercise, not necessarily in that order.

Welcome to my blog of my skating (both ice and roller) and hooping (both dance and aerial) adventures. I may cuss a bit. I'm probably not very funny so I won't bother trying. But you can count on posts about what I'm working on, what I'm struggling with, what inspires me, and hopefully some pictures and videos along the way. Some of it might be ugly, might be depressing. This is where I flesh out my thoughts and attempt to inspire myself.