Rinse and Repeat

Hi. I wonder how many times I can write the same article about skating? 

I’ll cut to the chase.

No car. Shit attendance. Shit at skating. Back to square one. Shit. 

I nearly didn’t go skating tonight but I’m so glad I did. I had a long day at work and on top of the week from hell finding about not so well family, my anxiety nearly got the better of me. My heart was racing just thinking about putting skates on but strapped them on I did. 

Force Ten Gail was coaching us newbies and working on different skills for once was a really great change of pace from the grinding away at falls and t-stops (that I still haven’t even slightly mastered) that I’ve done before.

We did balance, weaving and stance tonight and whilst it seems a small achievement I managed my 30 seconds on one of my legs, improved my weave time from 17 seconds to 11.04 seconds and finally started to improve on my wonky skating. I’m not quite there yet but my left leg is finally starting to behave and actually get off the floor when I skate along.

Still making teeny baby steps but seeing progress was really nice. I’ve definitely refilled my pot of enthusiasm and I’m really hoping 2017 can be the year I beat those mins! 

Outdoors and on the floor

Turns out skating outside is much harder than skating inside on a nice, shiny sports hall floor. 

Twice I’ve tried to skate down the seafront and made it about four feet and embarrassed myself. Sand is enemy number one on wheels.

I’ve upgraded to different wheels and won a small victory fitting them on my old r3s. I’m hoping this set up is 20% easier than my crappy old rio rollers. 

Expect regular “things that I skated into today” updates. 

This Girl Can. Most of the time.

Once again I’ve been a bit up and down with my skating the last few weeks. One week I raged so bad (partially because I wasn’t used to my new 92a wheels and skating felt HARD again) I actually had a good anxiety fuelled cry when I got home. There have been so many times I’ve nearly thrown my skate tool down in a paddy and quit trying.

I haven’t though!

I’m quite proud of myself for sticking at it. I’m the biggest quitter a lot of the time. I get really into a hobby, hit a bump in the road and give up within months.  I’m trying really hard to not be that person again.

I’ve made a few progressions in the last few weeks too.  I pretty much nailed my transitions at Tuesday training and, whilst I’m not quite there, I’ve got the basic gist of a derby stop. Don’t ask me to do it at any speed but I understand where my body needs to be now. I’m finding just watching the other girls so useful just to work out how they position themselves whilst skating. I know I don’t bend my knees enough yet and I’m trying to work on not looking at the floor so much! Those are the reasons I have a horribly brusied bum at this moment in time.

I’m trying to lower my goals into small manageable chunks so my February goals are going to be:

• Doing a single derby stop to some kind of competent degree
• 10 laps in 5
• Being able to backwards sticky skate without Bazooka Salt kindly dragging me along
• Being able to t-stop whilst rolling slowly

Cross your fingers for me!