Yesterday's class and skate session was a weird mix of positives and negatives. Positive: I had a really good sense of balance going forward. I could step out on the rink and just get to skating. My endurance is picking up as well. Negative: My legs weren't cooperating at times and my skates were vibrating like crazy. I kept stopping before I was ready as a result. Shae mentioned something about my bearings possibly being dirty so I look at my skates - yeah, they're filthy. Not necessarily the bearings, but there's a load of crud all over the wheels. I know jack shit about skate maintenance so I posted on FB a call for help, and luckily enough received a response! Laura was my absolutely savior and let me come over today for a lesson in skate maintenance. We loosened my trunks, she showed me how to tighten my toe stops and taught me everything I need to know about cleaning bearings. Apparently I was supposed to wipe down my wheels about once a week or two, so it took a lot more effort to get the thick crud off the wheels, but now you can finally see the swirly pattern on them again! (I might not be able to skate, but at least I look good when making an ass of myself on the rink.) We took the bearings apart but that was a huge pain. I apparently have very large bearings (they're the generic ones that come with the skates) so it took a ton of effort just to get them in and out, never mind taking them apart. I need to upgrade my wheels for derby anyways so I shot rollergirl.ca an email today with order questions and will simply put on new wheels and bearings next time these need to be cleaned.
Now I'm worried - what if I fall a lot now that I don't have the layer of gunk making my wheels grippy? My wheels are too hard for the surface we skate on, and it's going to be a little while before my new ones come in (aka I've not ordered them yet.) Laura warned me that the cleaning combined with the hardness of the wheels means I'm going to have a little bit of a tough time when I first get out there. I don't mind looking like an idiot in class/public skate but I don't want to go to my first day of recruitment falling all over the place. I had actually reached a point on Saturday where, other than the vibrations, I felt ready to start doing crossovers, even though they're a level 3 thing. I won't learn them until I can start moving backwards a bit and can master one leg turns, but I feel ready to at least start the basic movements now.
Oh, right, backwards skating. I almost forgot to mention that. I can't backwards skate to save my life. Everyone else was able to start getting themselves to move, whereas I'm just sitting there. I can't even figure out how to get myself to start moving. Maybe now that it will be easier to get my wheels going, I'll have an easier time at backwards movement.
Time until recruitment: 1 week, 4 days.
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