And so a Derby girl was born

Thursday, 28 July 2011

DERBY!!

Have i mentioned that i am having a love affair with Derby? NO? Hmm, thought for sure i had mentioned that.....strange!

Anywho, i am neck deep by now, totally in love with Derby. Practice tonight was great, even though i didn't get to stay the entire time, stoopid work getting in my way of Derby!!.......Anywho, more practicing, more rolling, stopping, falling (totally on purpose :) ) and balance finding.......oh yeah...BEND YER DAMN KNEES!!

Dii Mented and FireCrack Ya were great teachers, and inbetween sweating my ass off and trying not to do an ass plant, i watched the other girls...and gordo....put through their paces.......sheesh, looked painful and for some reason, yeah i can't wait to be able to join them.....

Can't wait for Friday!! DERBYDERBYDERBYDERBY!!!

Oh and my good friend Barb also came by to watch the goings on, yeah she has been bitten by the Derby bug......YAYYYY!!!!!!!

Wednesday, 27 July 2011

Arena Practice....here we go!!!

So Friday night is arena practice..my first one....now that i have my own gear away i go!!! i picked up a few fellow derby girls...and boy....and headed to the arena.

Once inside the dressing room, i begin to strap on all my gear.

Ok, so now everything in on, and as i am sitting on the bench...i realize that i have to get my wobbly butt out of here, across the floor and onto the arena floor........GOOD LORD WHAT HAVE I DONE!!

after a few sweaty moments, and alot of squeeking from me (wasn't quite screaming but some strange noises were definitely coming out of my mouth) i made it to the arena floor!! YES I HAVE ARRIVED!! unscathed and pride somewhat still intact.

so i says to myself..and i know its me cause i recognize the voice....Self! we are gonna skate all the way around the outside of the arena......here goes!

I DID IT! i made it all the way without landing on my ample ass....i can't believe it! and I'm fairly certain that i have a shit eating grin on my face the whole time i'm making my way around the floor!

after i made it, i gracefully fell to the floor (seriously on purpose) to do some stretching.  Other girls were showing up and getting ready for the night of practice.  I watched them as they glided around the arena floor, faster and faster...wow these girls can move!!

Pixel Ninja, coach excellent, sectioned off a little area for me, being as i was a newbie and really not ready for the drills that they would be doing, and i went off to practice what i had learned so far.  Every now and again i would stop wobbling enough to have a look at what they were doing. Dreaming of the day when i would be there with them, flying across the floor, cutting corners, and skating like the wind!

did i mention that they were great???

I practiced turning, stopping, falling and weaving, it was absolutely awesome to have that much room to practice with...loved every minute of it...except for the damn feet cramping, lol...Hell i even remembered to bend my knees!!

I went so fast i actually felt a breeze!!! a small breeze but hey, it was a breeze!!..probably was the equivalent of a brisk walk in reality but when i retell this, i was moving like the wind...shhh....and as usual that shit eating grin was still affixed to my face.....LOVE IT!!

So the end of another practice came early for me, i had to get my now sweaty, sore bum to work...I can't remember the last time i felt so good...DERBY ROCKS!!

(i totally took my skates off before i headed to the dressing room, i didn't want to tempt fate twice in one night! )

Friday, 22 July 2011

more freshmeat......

Wednesday, good day...Derby practice day!! My umm .... better half's cousin got in touch with me through facebook, she had found out that i had joined roller derby and wanted some information.  I told her a little bit about it and mentioned that wednesdays were freshmeat night and being as it was wednesday she should come out and give it a go.  She agreed and we decided that we would meet up and go together.

So after work i got my stuff ready, took some advil (sore arse from falling gracefully) and cousin and i headed out.  she was nervous and i was stoked! i knew she would love it as much as i did. 

FireCrack Ya and another derby girl were doing the instuction for the really freshmeat girls this wednesday.  Cousin and I got suited up and got to it. 

She did great!! i knew she would...... and if i do say so myself i did pretty awesome too! i can stop no problem now, getting up even quicker than before and mostly remembering to BEND MY DAMN KNEES, lol

i was really getting into the groove and during one drill where you skate forward, drop to one knee and then get up and continue skating i some how forgot that the goal was dropping to one knee and promptly dropped right on my aching arse.  Same bloody spot every time i have falling.....gonna be a permanent bruise there i think... but i picked myself up and tried it again...

next we were shown how to weave in and out of cone obsticles.....yeah not so much weaving and bobbing on my part..i do however think i should get double points for taking a few of the cones out..just sayin.

While hanging off a wall, i was discussing how shocked i was that the front of your shin can cramp, i mean, there's no muscles there that i can see, but there it is, PAINNNN.....turns out i just needed a little adjustment done to my skates and voila, happy shins r us!

We finished the night off in a seriously sweaty, tired and sore but happy mess....Cousin, i do believe is hooked and i am slowly making progess...and enjoying every minute! Time to go ice the bum again :)

First Outdoor Skate Date

......one of my derby girls asked if anyone wanted to go for a outdoor skate date..seeing as i was now the proud owner of my own gear i jumped at the chance....


we decided that we would go use the parking area at the U de M campus.  Nice place!


Skates on and all ready to roll, we realize that there is a little bit of hill.........can i just stop right there and say that i certainly found out that hills are so not my friend! scary shit going down that hill...I'd like to say that it was really steep and scary.....but umm, yeah, it was a very, small, gently down slope.  FireCrack Ya has some serious skill and handled the hill like a pro, i on the other had whimpered and yelped the whole way down...ending off the event with a spectacular fall right on me arse.  Although i was pleasantly surprised that it didn't hurt as much as i imagined it would on the way down, it was a rather bone jarring occurrence the I'm sure was felt across the country.

I picked myself up, with the encouragement of FireCrack Ya and attempted the uphill battle...literally.

Turns out up hill is a hell of a lot easier.....OOPS! bend yer damn knees! fall number two happened at the top of the hill...remember boys and girls..BEND YER DAMN KNEES.....(you would think it easier to remember when its yelled by everyone constantly, but nope! not so much)


FireCrack Ya noticed that there was a nice level stretch just below where we were so we decided to go down there....she was very graceful and made it down the hill, i decided to roll (like you did when you were a kid, lay down on the grass and barrel roll) instead, figured it was safer and me arse was still a alittle ouchy.

We skated for a little while more and FireCrack Ya gave me a few pointers to help me along...Thanks again!! Can't wait to have another Outdoor Skate Date again :)

......moving on.........

So a couple of practices have come and gone, and now i can actually stand and move on my own! I have started after that first night doing squats and lunges, so that even though i don't have my own gear yet, maybe it won't be so hard to get up off the ground whilst on wheels!

Now i find myself at my third practice, i missed a  week due to work, and i while im gearing up, i realize that im scared shitless to stand and move again!

I voice my fears to Di Mented....she smiles, says yep! get up!........LOL soooo what choice do i have but to get up and get started, I don't know why i was feeling like that but no worries i got going and was OK!! i even learned how to turn that night.....AND it no longer took me 4 days to get up off my knees!!

Improvement???? I think so!

It funny, still not very good, improving and all but hooked!! and maybe a little obsessed....all things Derby run through my mind now....can't say im not enjoying it.

Muddy River Rollers hosted a Derby Jamboree.....one of our sponsers (yes we have sponsers) was coming down for the event AND the stars aligned just right and it turned out my job owed me some back pay so i jumped on the chance and ordered my OWN GEAR!!! Neon Skate brought it down after speaking with me about the sizing of the gear...

Since i was working and oncall i couldn't stay as long as i would have liked at the Jamboree BUT i did catch a few bouts, picked up my pretty pretty tutu, AND got my new gear! all ready to roll..........

So i was thinking....

Yeah, thats where i usually go wrong, by thinking, lmao.........

So one night i was talking to my ahem...better half......cough! we were throwing ideas out about what i could start doing to better help manage stress, get out of the house and have a little fun at the same time.  It was a hard conversation since my idea of excersise is walking to the fridge, back to the couch and don't forget to stretch! yeah stretch out back on the couch....anywho, can't remember who mentioned it, either him or me, but roller derby came up.  I said hey, i would love that, but i didn't think there was any place around here that had roller derby going on. 

Next day i went into work and my boss came into work saying she wanted to show me a video, so of course we sat right down to watch it... hey we were working!!........and lo an' behold, it was a video from Muddy River Rollers!!! MONCTON HAS ROLLER DERBY!!!!!!!! i just couldn't believe it! I looked them up and tried to get some more info...about three months later I was at the Disability Awareness walk and who should i see but some beautiful, awesome, sexy Derby girls who were there in support of Disability week.  Of course i immediatly started chatting to them asking questions and saying that i was very interested, turns out the were DIEPPE ROLLER DERBY.....after chatting and exchanging contact info i said i would see them the following Wednesday night at 'Fresh Meat Practice' (yeah its totally called that, LOL)

All week i was so excited to go to Derby practice to try it out.  They had told me that they had some extra gear so that the newbies could give it a go before having to run out to purchase any gear.  Perfect!!
And a good friend of mine also wanted to try it out so we planned on both going together!


WEDNESDAY..................

So i find myself at Fresh Meat Practice, already sweating i might add and nervous as all hell.  What the hell was i thinking, 33, slightly overweight...ahem ok, more than slightly and not so physically inclined.  I found myself wondering if the doctors at the ER would do up a pretty cast for my broken appendages or if they would make me stick with white as punishment for thinking i was still a teenager....
Dii Mented, Coach for the new victims.oops, i mean fresh meat handed me some gear, and said don't worry, you will be fine....i wasn't convinced but what the hell, i was there now, couldn't very well back out now!!

So i suited up......now keep in mind, its been a long long time since i had skates on, only ever really used roller blades....my cousin and i, when we were kids had a pair of roller skates, she would put one on and i would wear the other one...somehow i don't think this made me ready for this!!

All dressed and not so ready to roll...i realized that although i can stand up, i can't move...no really, i can't move myself...Dii Mented seriously rolled me around on the floor....wow! what skill i had!

Dii Mented took me and the other new girls and started teaching up the basics, you know, how to stop, roll, fall, etc...that woman has patience of......well....i don't know but boy, she sure is great! They really do teach you from the ground up, even if your like me and can't move on your own volition...no worries, they WILL get you rolling!! lol

Now i have to get serious here for a few moments, because i have to mention that these girls, all of the Dieppe Roller Derby Girls, were great!! very welcoming and supportive....for example...when i finally got the guts to let myself fall, while shouting...I HAVE PADS!! they all cheered! (yes i know, i'm a little off) AND when i finally was able to get myself up off the floor after struggling for awhile...they cheered me....it made even the smallest of victory for me seem so much more!

That first night was hard, hard work....but you know, even though i wasn't able to actually move myself i was hooked!!!!! couldn't wait for the next time!