Wheeee!

Today's practice was awesome. The day started off not-so-great with a slightly difficult move (as in helping a friend move, not a derby maneuver or something.) We grabbed chinese afterwards and simply did not feel like leaving the apartment, but we pushed ourselves to get out and go, even knowing we would not be successful at today's part of testing. We did most of the level one skills test on Thursday, but today we had to do stuff like one leg glides, pace lines (which none of the members of special mittens have done), sticky skate, etc. I still can't manage to sticky skate around corners, nor can I get my legs up. I know I did horribly on today's testing bits, but I feel like I did much better on Thursday, so hopefully it will all balance out.

After that, we started some of the basics of blocking, as well as hip whips and pulls (aka pull carts.) I freaking LOVE pull carts. They were much easier than I thought. I love the challenge of pulling along those extra people though. It gave my legs a great work out. We only did one lap, but I feel like I could have kept going. Hip whips I wasn't very comfortable on. It just felt odd to me to grab someone at the hips like that and pull them back. I was terrified of tripping up Itzel or pulling her back into me. I also think I might have been too far to the left in order to do it properly. I'll make sure to work on hip whips whenever we manage to make it to an extra skate session this week. And blocking? Love blocking! (Even if it does feel like everyone has bony shoulders when doing shoulder blocks.) Gauntlet was a lot of fun - frustrating because I'm not as fast of a skater as some of the others and I noticed some of the new girls kept moving further and further out so there was a lot space between people, but when I knocked up against the Psycho sisters, it felt great. It was just touches - not actual blocking - but I know blocking is likely going to be what I do most, if not all, of the time. It was great to get that small taste of it.

My roommate is doing derby as well, so I suspect that the house is about to become a giant blocking session. If you're coming to my place any time soon, I recommended you stay down in derby stance and watch out for anyone coming up behind you. You're about to be hip-checked.