Anxiety

Derby last night. On Thursdays, we combine with the league. Since we haven't technically passed assessments, we're more considered newbies and can't work on full contact drills. I thought I wouldn't be the only rec skater there last night, but I was wrong. I'm not one to get full on panic attacks. Mine are more subtle. I just feel this incredible urge to run home. When the off-skates warmup started, and I didn't know anyone, I really wanted to leave. But I had just driven an hour to get there...I made myself stay for a bit. I told myself, stay for an hour and then you can go. So I just followed along with warm up. I geared up and just did what I was told. After a bit, I forgot how anxious I was. Until they split the newbies from the grannies. The newbies have assessments coming up. I wanted to stay with the grannies and work on other shit. So I did. And it was fun.

Until the trainer came up to me and told me they were about to work on contact stuff and therefore she was required to inform me that I had to sit out. I said I understood and did drills with the newbies. I hung in there until the end of practice.

le sigh

Everytime I start to feel like a real derby skater, I'm reminded that I'm not. Will never be. But I burned 1,179 calories last night. Scale was exactly the same this morning, which was disappointing. But my jeans fit a lot looser.

Calorie Burns

Derby last night was a TOUGH one. We had a guest trainer, yay! Worked our asses off. Obstacle courses, weaving, lateral movements, hip checking, booty blocking. I was so burnt out, I pretty much couldn't hang with the last drill. They were going to do a race. I said I would sit out. They did backward skating instead and told me to join when I could. I felt bad about that. I always feel bad when I hold people back due to my lack of endurance. At the end, the trainer high fived me and said I really hung in there. And then she mentioned the last time she was a guest trainer in the spring, how much I struggled. It wasn't fun being reminded of that, but I guess any improvement noticed is a good thing.

Burned nearly 1100 calories. Boom.

Today, the rain just won't quit. So no proper hoop flow. My ceilings are not tall enough. Instead, I worked on hip hooping and booty bumping inside. Also trying to get better at simple waist hooping with my feet close together, throwing in some 360 turns without stumbling. I knew I was really working hard by how winded I was the whole time. Ended up burning 409 calories in 36 minutes. Damn!

Change Direction

I'm taking this blog in a different direction. I thought about creating a new one, but I spent so much time customizing this one...I'm loathe to do that again from scratch. I don't know if anyone follows this blog anymore, doesn't matter. But I haven't been on the ice in quite some time. Instead I've been on the derby track and discovered a love of hooping.

I truly enjoy being on skates. Ice skating will always be my love, but the rink is too far away, the ice times too inconvenient. I could probably handle one of those issues but both are just a double whammy of disappointment. I have a full time job. I can't drive an hour to the rink, skate for an hour, drive an hour back, AND still keep my job. Too bad rinks are so focused on hockey as their money maker. Figure skaters either have to skate at the butt-crack of dawn or nothing else. Evening or weekend freestyle is a thing of the very distant past.

I've transitioned a bit of my love of being on skates to roller derby. I'm not very good, I'll just say that right now. I've never bouted. I never even passed minimum skills from the main league. But recently, a rec league started. No pressure. Just camaraderie and skills. I've improved a lot. I'm hoping we'll have enough skaters in our league to one day scrimmage after all, but I'm not holding my breath. We're a small group of skaters who just love being on skates but for whatever reason, do not want to join the competitive league. Some are retired hella good skaters. Some are like me, who never passed minimum skills. Some just don't have the time.

Around the time I re-joined roller derby, I started hooping, thinking it would be a great core exercise to help my derby. Little did I know I would fall in love with the dance aspect. I did colorguard in college, so many of the tricks are similar in hand placement. I also did rhythmic gymnastics as a child and never had any problem with waist spinning. All this has translated well into a thinking that I could be really good at this.

Back to this blog, since I'm no longer ice skating (I'll never say never about ice skating), I'm going to use this blog to journal my skills in both roller derby and hooping. I'll post videos. Frustrations. Achievements. Mostly so I can show myself I really have improved.

Yuna

When you want to show skating without triples, this is how it's done. Triples are way overrated, and don't even get me started on quads. IMHO. OK, not so humble.

Interview with Caryn Kadavy

My favorite skater of all time. She was just the best. Most beautiful layback ever. Grace and beauty, strong jumps, excellent spins.

And Skateguard interviewed her.