Blocking, knees, backward skating and fingers.

We have started blocking in recruitment now and I have noticed something. Some of the girls...actually get as low as they can to the ground when is my turn to block them. You know what that means? They are scared of me. They are aware that once I master skating I shall be a mighty blocker that will just make them tumble to the ground!

Either that or they don't want me to accidentally loose my balance and fall on top of them. It's all very possible. For my sake I'm going to with the mighty blocker reference. Specially with what I did to my roommate/friend.

These bruises and the ones made by other psycho sisters made her job tell her that she couldn't wear short sleeved shirts to work.

For the most part I think I'll be ok at blocking is just a matter of skating and doing it at the same time. I mean that's the big issue with me I think that I just need more confidence in my skates and then I'll be ok. I bitch and whine a lot, saying I don't want to do this anymore but there are times when I feel down on myself during practice and there are other times when I feel fantastic. I think is all in my head, just like how I psych myself out when I backwards skate.

I have no idea how or why I can do it but I'm all right at backward skating. This isn't to say that I'm fantastic at it, but I could be doing a lot worst. However, it is the fact that I'm not doing awful at it that psyches me out. While I'm skating I think OMG I must be doing something wrong because it seems that I am moving and going slightly faster. Then I just think too much and slow down even though three seconds ago I was going faster. I swear I am insane.

Today we did a very scary thing. We have been working on being a pack for a little while and one of the exercises was just skating and plow stopping. At some point I ended up on top of another girl on the floor (probably messed up my sticky skating) and her wheel seems to have hit my finger. How the hell do I injure my finger and it doesn't involved getting it run over? I have no clue but this is my luck

Yeah it doesn't look like much but it looked swollen and I couldn't move it... I'm a pansy ok?

We then pretended to be jammers which just reminded me jamming scares the hell out of me. However I feel like I did an acceptable job. There was a time when they were skating and we had to push through a group of blockers (they were just standing not really blocking) and then they were standing still but we had to step on skates. I was hoping that by going to the group of blockers I wouldn't have to deal but yeah didn't quite work. I feel like I'm at least getting faster even if I die in the process.

Oh that reminds me, we practiced whips and some other sort of blocking. I was paired with one of the psycho sister that I affectionately call The Wall because honestly she is a solid wall. She was very helpful and patient. During the other drills all of the sisters were so helpful. One of them tried pushing me and even dragging me behind her when I couldn't keep up. Once again this women in this League are amazing and I am so lucky that they seem to not have given up on me. Hell, I think that even one of the referees believe in me because he's always pushing me to do better. These ladies are amazing and I would have probably given up on myself if it weren't for them and my roommate. The way they cheer and compliment me even though I am horrific gives me hope. Even if I feel like dying most of the time.

We did burpees today... I think I should end that sentence right there, but I have to get this out of my chest. WHO THE HELL INVENTED BURPEES? What type of masochistic person decided you know push ups aren't bad enough we should make them jump and then go to the ground and then just ha ha we'll make them do insane things before they do a push up. During these I seem to have acquired a bump on my knee.

I should be used to getting hurt on my knees but this one hurt.

I whine, complain, bitch and moan but believe me I'll be there next week. Why? Clearly I'm a masochist. Also I think the bruises give me character! As a bonus here is a picture of another bruise from when I tried to block one of the psycho sister. I made her move a bit but I ended up on the floor.

I've never taken these many pics of random parts of my body... Maybe if you piece them all together you can get an idea of what I look like. Add the flailing arms to that image and I promise you it will never be enough! 

Skating it out

Note to readers: This was supposed to be posted a long time ago. I'm sorry that I have failed in keeping up with blogging. This post will be composed of the Thursday before last, and Sunday before last. There will probably be another post tomorrow regarding last Thursday and today

I have been lacking on my updates. Originally I wanted to try and post after every practice but this past week some personal drama has come around and has left me not wanting to write much.

Thursday before the last (or something like that the dates are all jumbled in my head right now) We had our first exam. Honestly, I didn't think that I was horrible until we started testing. I don't know if it was the nerves since everybody watched me but I just couldn't get anything down right. The most terrifying and horrible part was when we were doing jumps.

I am sure the girls, coach and everybody else thinks that I can't do jumps. If I was them I wouldn't believe me too. I have to get my friends that have practice with me on our own time to vouch for me so I don't look like a liar and they will say that I can do jumps amazingly while we are doing it on our own. I can do double jumps I don't need to do the step jump I can just bring both of my legs up and get a lot of air. I have no idea how I'm capable of doing these but I can. However, put me in front of a crowd at practice or make myself aware that I'm being watched and I'll fall over. I can't even do the jump steps during practice.

It was time for testing and I was feeling confident in at least my jumping and I was concentrating and thinking I will show them once and for all that I can do these jumps. I did my weaving and then sped up to try and do the jumping section of the test. I felt so confident going up to those noodles that I just kept thinking I can do this! It's all mental I know I can do this. When it came time for jumping I jumped but somehow slipped and I fell backwards very hard.

It was mainly scary, I couldn't even stand up for a moment it hurt so bad. I felt tears in my eyes due to pain, humiliation, and also frustration. I was scared that I had broken something. I was humiliated that I had failed so hard in front of everybody. I was frustrated that I couldn't do what I had done hundreds of time in private. I was frustrated that I was crying and that everybody was probably wondering what was wrong with me and what an idiot I was. I heard a distant voice ask me if I was ok. I shook my head from side to side to signal a no but then I pushed myself up and heard the question again. There was so much pain running through my body. I wanted to just give up, to just skate pass the noodles and not even attempt to jump them. I don't know how I was able to at least attempt to step jump them and I was able to do it without injuring myself too much. I felt like such a failure at that point that it was a miracle I even managed to talk to anybody after that. We didn't even finish our testing that day and I was so beat and disillusioned that right off the bat I didn't even think I wanted to go to Sunday's practice.

 Sunday started awful. I had a rather emotional moving situation in which I had to pack my stuff and move them from one place into storage. We got done and got some lunch and had about an hour and a half before practice. I was feeling awful, just dragging on and wanted to just call out of it. This kept going back and forth between my roommate and I who kept trying to convince the other to either go or not go to practice. Somehow we pushed through and decided to go.

There were still some parts of the testing we had to do. I felt like vomiting through most of them, however I didn't do as bad as I thought. I can't do one foot glides yet, but I did a lot better than usual when we did the pace lines. We did pace lines and then we had to break from pack and catch up to it again. The first time I tried to do them I couldn't keep up at all with anyone, but this could also be that the other girls are also improving and pacing themselves to match all the skaters in the group.

Even though that sounds incredibly optimistic there were parts of practice were I felt like vomiting. We did this exercise were we got into a pack and were assigned numbers. When the numbers were called the girls with that number had to do double knee falls. No one knew anybody else's number. There were points were I have no idea how I didn't run somebody over, and we did it for a rather long time in which I was certain I was going to pass out.

It was hard to push through and there were times were I just wanted to go home, however my roommate kept telling me to just push through and at the end of practice there was an opportunity to keep skating or go home. Somehow we managed to keep skating and we got to practice with the Psycho Girls which was amazing. I am so touched with how encouraging all of them are, and how sweet they are. Honestly if it weren't for most of there words of encouragement I would just have thrown the towel long time ago.

Oh! I almost forgot! The coach told my roommate and I something funny. We were paired to practice blocking and she tells us "Understand that if I can make you guys into blockers even I will skate away from you guys". Which pretty much means that she has faith that we can become amazing blockers, and the rest of the Psycho Sisters believe the same thing so... I can't let them down. As frustrating as it is I have to keep pushing myself hard, even if I think I'm getting nowhere.

Remember how I said I didn't get a bruise on last post? I lied. I have a bruise from doing crossovers were  I think part of my leg landed on my wheel.

Boyfriend's comment: "That's gross." I took it as a compliment :).