Little me

My biological father has always been into sports. My memories of him always involve him with a basketball, playing, or doing some sort of sport. He was so good that he even was a professional basketball player and that was his main source of income for the longest time. He once even competed in some sort of Interamerican game or something like that my memory is fuzzy and the main thing I remember was that the mascot was a seal and he brought me a plush version of it. My point is that if you look at my father you would expect me to be a bit athletic. If you talk to me, I am the opposite of an athletic person. I am nerdy, I wear glasses, I have no eye and feet coordination, and I'm extremely clumsy. As such, most of my time as a teenager I had drifted more into performing arts than sports. However, when I was younger I tried a couple of times to play sports. Volleyball left much to be desired, but the hardest thing was getting told I could not play basketball.

I am tall, obnoxiously tall. When I was younger the most usual question I would get asked was if I played any sports. This got really annoying, really fast for an eleven to early teen who is just trying to figure out where she could fit in. Add to that the fact that my father was a basketball player and the awkwardness never ended. I wanted to try a sport, more importantly I wanted to play basketball. I wanted to have something that I could connect with my father. I wanted him to come to my games and cheer for me!

My PE class at school was awful. I wanted to try and play basketball but usually the boys were the ones playing and they didn't want to play with me while the girls just usually sat in a corner talking or pretending to exercise. I shouldn't blame the guys for this one too much though because peer pressure made me not ask to play as much as I should have probably asked. On the other hand every time I tried my PE instructor told me to just play with the girls (Meaning just hang out with the girls in a corner) even though our school had a female team so... yeah.

I remember vividly that they had these little things at school called basketball seminars or something like that. It consisted of bringing kids that wanted to play basketball (the only properly handled sport in my school asides from cheerleading) and just have them practice and learn the basics of the game. It wasn't something made so the kids would be part of the team at all it was just something for them to do as an extracurricular activity for a couple of weeks. I had decided I wanted to do it. I talked my parents into taking me to them and picking me up which due to the fact we lived far away from the school was a feature on itself so needles to say I was excited.

It wasn't so bad in the beginning, and I don't remember exactly what I did wrong at all. I remember practicing, and being able to kinda put some hoops in. I was the only girl in the group and the guys would still not want to play with me. Well some of them did, since I was good friends with some of them but they also quickly succumbed to peer pressure and stopped playing with me.

I must have done something very bad, or didn't seem to be catching up as much as they wanted me too because they had me doing things like walking on the lines to try and improve my balance and kept telling me I was doing it wrong. Mind you I was around 11 to 12 years old, telling a kid to do exercises like these and not explaining it to her while the other kids are playing basketball made me feel like such a freak and idiot. I even remember once the coach actually telling me that I wasn't ever going to be able to play basketball because I had no balance and I was too clumsy. She said that I couldn't coordinate myself well enough to play and that I was just making the guys look bad and not want to play. Mind you I knew these boys and they were always asking her and myself why I wasn't playing with them. Slowly I realized that it might have been that some of the boys didn't want to play with me but that the coach just didn't want me playing with them.

I told my mom and dad that I didn't want to play anymore. After that I wasn't able to get into any other sports. I did cheerleading for a little while but I didn't really want to do it that much. I really just wanted to play basketball but after that whole experience and how horrible cheerleading girls and the whole atmosphere can be I decided not to do any more sports.

At some point I wanted rollerblades, I don't even know why I wanted rollerblades. I don't know if it was a movie I watched, or a cartoon, or just saw someone rollerblading but I wanted them. I saved up all my allowances to buy this kit that I saw at a sports place. It included a rollerblade bag, knee pads, wrist guards, and skates. I put those things on and started rollerblading in my house. I'm from Puerto Rico, so there weren't many parks at all so rollerblading was confined to my house and in the front street.

I was obsessed, but I never really got the hang of rollerblading. I mainly spend most of my time waving my arms in the air, falling, and just looking like an idiot. I remember watching rollerblading movies on tv so I could find out how to skate. Every time that we got a chance to go to a park I would bring my rollerblades. One day we were at a park and I was allowed to skate around. I have to point out that in Puerto Rico there's not really any well kept park (at least when I lived there) so by skating in a park I mean skating in pure concrete. Cars will also drive in the same place we were allowed to skate so there were potholes and a whole bunch of other horrible stuff in it. This particular day I was trying to go over a speed bump...it didn't work out well.

I felt like I was going to fall so I desperately tried to maintain my balance and went around in a circle I tried to fall back on my butt (I didn't know what I do now I was only around thirteen) but somehow managed to go around again and fell. My forehead was the first thing that came in contact with the ground. I wasn't wearing a helmet. I felt a bump forming on my forehead and a headache starting. I got up and skated back to my father who laughed at me and asked if I was ok. He called me cyclops for weeks to come and so did the rest of my family. I laughed too because it was pretty darn funny.

Eventually, my roller blades fell in disuse. I guess after that fall I didn't think I was actually meant for skating. I then went into theater performing, computer, video games, and just became the complete opposite of what an athletic person is. I was just so convinced that I would never be able to play sports that I gave up the idea of it or of being any type of active person. The closest I ever came to being active was having a job at Disneyworld in which I was close friends with the characters.

I once read in a derby blog to imagine your little young self watching you on the floor and how cool and awesome she thought you were. If old me had the chance to go back in time and tell little awkward thirteen year old me that one day I would be able to put on skates, and would join a sport were people are supportive and don't give up on you I am sure she would have scoffed.

Then I would look at her and say: No really... you're going to be all right. 

I'm abusive.

I am a bad blogger. I knew that going into this but hey... at least I'm updating.

First off I was supposed to post about this a while back. My awesome friend Shae is also doing roller derby and got me this adorable sticker for my helmet. Is the first sticker I ever had and it says Freshmeat. I've decided that when I get to take it off I will hold a party on its honor:

Ha, ha I am so girly with my pink helmet and purple...stuff

Why will I make  party in its honor? Because I have a long way to go, but more on that later. I have to write about how much of an abusive person I am. I seem to have a habit of biting and abusing my gear. At first I didn't want to show any empathy for my gear because...it's gear its supposed to do that but now I kind of feel bad. First off lets start with my mouthguard...my poor mouthguard seems to be holding on with everything it can, but it doesn't think it'll make it through. 

                            

You can't see it so well in these pictures but the left side of my mouthguard is torn in half. Yes, I am planning on getting a new one soon. 

I have no idea how I managed to destroy my mouthguard but the most shocking things that I seem to have abused are my skates. Don't get me wrong, I was expecting them to have scrapes, and be as badly bruised as I was but after less than two months of skating ....

The boots seem to be coming off! I have never let them in my car during extreme heats or anything like that so I am baffled as to why they seem to be so worn down after a considerable short period of time. Plus adding to the fact that I suck skating they are probably not getting as much tear as some of the other girls. It's strange, I wonder if my height has anything to do with it. The worst part is how I noticed them. 

In the time that I haven't been updating some of the recruits that are actually acceptable have been able to scrimmage, and do other fun stuff. I have just been cheerleader and memorizing the roles of the positions, but I assure you if I ever get to scrimmage I will promptly forget everything. Anyways, last Thursday was our final test which I didn't past but I was expecting that. However, the best part was doing 5 laps in 1 minute. 

I was battling a cold, and pushing myself hard and at the beginning of my second lap something felt weird...odd. I thought my laces were just not tied properly and ignored it, but at one point it felt like my right skate was about to fold completely under me. Ignoring it, I continued to push myself forward and managed a time of 1minute and 17 seconds. 

I'm kind of angry at myself because perhaps if I wasn't sick I would have been able to make it, but on the other hand two months ago I would have never imagined that I was going to be able to do that much. So, I just have to keep practicing and pushing myself and I'll be able to master them! 

Speaking of practice on Sunday was when I actually inspected my skates and noticed the glue coming undone so I think that might be the reason why my right skate was so unstable, which sucks but hey...gives me an excuse to save up for skates! 

See those awesome girls in that video? I train with them and one day in the future I will be joining them and be as awesome as they are! Now I just have to keep focusing and pushing myself! Because two months ago I would have scoffed at the idea of being able to do anything in skates and now I can actually... stand on them? Not very impressive but... I'll get there! 

The reason why I am so motivated? Mainly because I went to a derby game on Saturday and saw two tall girls playing that became my heroes...their blocking was amazing and plus seeing all the scrimmaging going on during practice makes me want to push harder! I can do this! I know I can and even more important I WANT TO DO THIS!