Some days I feel as if learning how to ref is like learning a foreign language. You eventually reach this point where you feel like you know the rules, you know the words, but you just can't spit it out. They commit the penalty, you watch it go down, but you don't say anything because every word related to derby has just fallen out of your head. By the time you realize you want to call it, it feels really late and someone else is already committing a penalty in front of you. Other times, you call it, but the words don't come out in the right order.  Half the time I'm calling a person's name, the penalty, and the color. The other half, I'm calling it properly. I'm JUST NOW starting to remember to use the freaking hand signals.

We have our first WFTDA bout in less than a month, and I'm freaking out.

1. I haven't started calling things on a regular basis yet. I'm just now starting to open my mouth at practice, and even then I'm not that loud.

2. I'm not ready to fuck up in public. Fucking up is bad enough at practice.

3. I'm not ready to fuck up in front of other derby teams. I don't want to make the league and my fellow refs look bad.

4. My foot/leg is giving me trouble still. I have horrible form still and favor that leg, particularly when doing things like trying to stop at a good speed.

5. I still suck at dodging and weaving. Someone's going to take me out and it's not going to be pretty.

::zombie noises::

My normal non-practice days:
6:30AM - alarm goes off
7:15AM - wake up, realize I only have 20 minutes to get out of the house, freak out
8AM-5PM - work
530PM - home, dinner
615PM - 10PM - studying for State Gov with small breaks every 20 minutes
10PM - 12PM - studying for GIS with small breaks
12-630/715AM - sleep

Normal practice days:
8AM-5PM - work
Day 1 - 530PM-7PM - study for state government
7:20PM - leave for practice
11:30PM - get home, shower, bed.
Day 2: 5-6PM - commute
6PM-?? - class
?? - 10:30 - practice
11:30 - get home, shower, bed


I know I say this a lot, but I'm exhausted, both physically and mentally. This particular semester is killing me. At least in previous semesters, I've had something resembling a social life. I miss people. I miss going out and taking walks.

If graduating school doesn't turn out to be the best thing ever, I'm going to be very upset. I keep telling myself that I have longevity on my side when applying for post-graduation jobs (because that's one thing a 22 year old graduate doesn't have - a job history showing that I've worked the same job for freaking ever and will stick with things until I'm good.)

It's killing me though. I have a con I want to prep for. I seriously need costume stuff like crazy. I need to get my hair cut. I need to try to find a way to get rid of this old bed frame before I go nuts. There are a bunch of bouts this weekend that need refs and NSOs that I'd love to go help. I need to go to an open-skate session.

Three more weeks of the class from hell, then Ascendio, then my GIS paper is due, then blissful, wonderful freedom.

We're officially in the lovely transition period between OSDA and WFTDA. Last night was our first full night of WFTDA scrimmaging. It went well, I think.

1. I feel more comfortable with WFTDA than OSDA, possibly because I've probably seen a ton more WFTDA bouts now. We were the only OSDA team in the state, so if I went to see anyone else play, it was WFTDA. Since I'm more comfortable, I'm actually calling things, even if I'm not calling things properly yet (that's my goal for Monday.)

2. The packs are starting to slow. They still have a tendency to pick up speed occasionally, but the drills that the coach has been doing with them seem to really be helping slow the pack down. OSDA is a very quick-paced game. WFTDA is MUCH slower, which seems to give the blockers a chance to think about strategy more, form walls more efficiently, etc. (As a ref with craptastic skate skills and an appreciation for strategy, I really enjoy this.)

3. Penalties are more frequent. It's not because WFTDA's rules are tougher. Quite honestly, most of the things we're calling in WFTDA are things we called in OSDA as well (though I'm not sure how much of that is because I started reffing near the transition when the league was using the OSDA league discretion rule to add additional rules as necessary.)  However, in WFTDA, you're free to make more penalties than you could in OSDA. Some penalties that were a minute in the box in OSDA are just minors now, so they can do it four times before they get their minute. Plus, with more freedom came bigger hits.   There were definitely more instances of skaters flying into ref territory last night.

With my personal transition from skater to ref, I've found I've become a bit more lazy. I can't remember the last open skate session I went to. I've been horrible about doing my physical therapy. I used to be great about doing half an hour of exercises minimum each day just for my ankle. Now it's a miracle if I take a minute while I'm at the copier at work and balance on one ankle waiting for the copy job to finish up. To be fair, part of it is my school schedule. I'm taking an insane eight week class that includes a freaking ton of reading, a 50 question quiz, two essays (both requiring additional readings), and 8 discussion posts in response to our classmates' essays *each week*. I also added on that Wednesday class that I mentioned in another post. The professor normally tries to get us out at 8-ish, but the book assignments are insane so I didn't make it out until 9:30 in the beginning. It's 20/25 minutes to the rink from the HPA building, so that would have put me as arriving at probably 9:55, change out of work clothes, gear up...I'd maybe get 15 minutes of skating. *sad face*

I think I'm pretty set on not doing recruitment again in October. I kind of like reffing right now. I mean, there's always a chance things will change, but reffing works well with my school schedule while still getting me out of the house and exercising. That's really all I've been looking for. I might reconsider skating after graduation once I figure out the post-graduation job situation.

Practice this week was interesting. There was pain, new experiences, and a new (old) love.

 To begin with, on Sunday we went to the beach before heading over to watch a friend's bout. While at the beach, my back ended up *torched*. I haven't had a burn this bad in years (if ever. I honestly don't remember having a burn this bad before, excluding when I ended up with third degree burns on my ear from the sun at renfaire. This was worse just because it was over such a large bit of skin that's so important to every day functions.) All week, I've been tense anytime someone was too close to me out of fear that someone would accidentally bump my back, or knock me over in a way that I hit the sunburn. Even moving my arms hurt like a son of a bitch. I don't know what would have happened if I would have fallen at practice on Monday. I'm not 100% sure I could have made it back up. It actually felt a lot better by the end of practice, possibly due to all the sweat keeping the sunburn moist, but it would be back to sucking by the next morning. So yes, as you can imagine, not bending or being able to get close to other people made me as graceful as one could be. XD Naturally, this is the time to try jam reffing for the first time.

 Jam reffing is *hard*. Seriously. My go-to stop is plow stopping, which I can see might need to change here soon as it's not a great stop when coming up on the pack and getting in close to the inside pack ref and the other jam ref. When the night first started, I stood in the middle and just watched. Even just being in the middle is crazy hectic. I've only ever been on the outside of the track, so I've never fully experienced this. Once I got used to that, it was time to jump in on jam reffing. I started out just doing the WFTDA jams with the new Psychos. I actually feel more confident with WFTDA rules just because I watch so much of it. (Plus it's a little easier to keep up with the new Psychos than it is with skaters like Gitmo and Lost Angeles. Both are crazy fast skaters.) It's going to be awhile before I feel confident enough to do that in the bout. Right now I'm focusing on keeping up with people. Trying to keep track of points and penalties while doing it seems way beyond my capabilities. It was a lot of fun though, and at least I had a chance to skate.)

 Wednesday one of the more experienced refs took pity on me and gave me some one-on-one skate instruction. We worked a little bit on my crossovers (which apparently suck more than I realized.) After awhile of going around, I mentioned that I feel like I'm fighting my feet all the time, and she had one of the skate rink's employees take a look at my skates. A bunch of my wheels were too loose, my back trucks were way loose, my front trucks were too tight and awkwardly angled. J fixed everything up for me, gave me a warning that it's going to be completely different skating, and sent me on my way. And you know, she was right. It was like I was on a completely new set of skates. I felt like a baby trying to walk for the first time. Once I adjusted though, skating was easier. I picked up speed, my crossovers are smoother and I almost look like I know what I'm doing. And that's when I finally fell in love with my skates.

 I can't wait until practice on Monday.

Slowly becoming a ref

Conversation at Monday's practice. I was talking to one new ref about the game I went to the night before, and one of the older refs jumped in.

 Ref 1: So how was the bout?
Me: It was great! One of the Lakeland girls was ejected. It was pretty awesome - first time I've ever seen it happen!
Ref 2: Spoken like a true ref.

First (and last) scrimmage

My first scrimmage was just as exciting and terrifying as I thought it would be. I'm still pretty useless in a pack, but felt like I was getting better. Not good enough though - I was still the weak link in the wall each and every time the jammer passed. I have very vague recollections of the jams. It's just a weird mish-mash in my brain of sights and sounds. I remember Deni jamming and heading for the inside line. I tried to block her and fell on my ass. At the moment, I wasn't too sure what happened because I was sure I should have hit her with the way she was coming up, but then the pack ref outside the track called her for a track cut as I was scrambling up, so I'm guessing she went inside the lines. I remember being pivot and getting stuck somehow inside the pack trying to help my jammer get through, only to realize that we left the inside line open and trying to haul ass to the outside (fact: I can not haul ass. XD) I got knocked around a bit but managed to stay on my feet at least. I think I only fell once... maybe. I don't know. Again, it was kind of a blur. I also had the sour taste of not being good enough in my mouth (a taste I hope to never experience again.) I'd love to give it a try again, though it will be my last scrimmage until probably the next time I get the balls to go through a third recruitment (I've decided to hold off another recruitment until I'm sure I can pass the minimum skills on the first day. After two recruitments, I'm not risking failing a third.)

Wednesday, I went in again and kind of wished I didn't. Not because I didn't want to be there; I just didn't want to be there so soon after being cut. There were a lot of awkward conversations and pitying looks from people. A few of the Psycho Sisters came up and told me that they're glad that I'm back, which made me feel a lot better about being there that day. Plus, two of the newest Psychos that used to ref genuinely seemed excited that I'm reffing. They helped me keep my sanity.

I'm not entirely sure why I felt that way during practice. I mean, I've seriously thought about reffing before. Shae and I discussed it a lot when we first were looking into this and considering joining. I'm genuinely excited about the opportunity. I guess it's just the stress of the mess going on at my job right now combined with being a failure for pretty much the first time in my life.

I have to admit though - I'm excited to get a ref shirt. XD I can't wait to see how long it takes me to actually start.

Not Surprised

I didn't make the league. I was 100% expecting it. It was a relief to be the first one called over, too, so I got it over with. I'm not skating to my full potential, I need time to heal my ankle, etc. They're all true points. I finished up physical therapy about two weeks ago, and I'm starting to hurt again (quite possible due to a weird fall I took while testing when I effed up my tomahawk.) This gives me time to try to work on healing it up. Exciting part though?

I'm going to start reffing!

Okay, it's not the ideal for me. I wanted to actually *play*. But I've honestly thought about reffing before, so when they offered the opportunity, I jumped on it. I've got most of the gear; I just need to order a shirt. It's a great opportunity to become familiar with the rules. I still get to skate, so I still get the exercise each week (which is what I'm in this for anyways.) I don't need to pay dues each month, so that helps in my recovery process. Mondays I would help with scrimmages, Wednesdays I would be able to join in drills to work on my skate skills. I'm honestly not sure how often I'd actually end up making the Wednesday practices. I think I'm going to add in a Wednesday class this summer to try to get my degree in quicker. I'm so close to graduation, I can taste it. Now that I've added in that class, I just need to figure out how to throw in two more classes before the end of Spring 2013 in order to graduate that April.

Nerves

We find out our test results tonight. I'm trying not to get my hopes up. Going strictly off of my test results, I have no chance. I'm still struggling with endurance, and I have no speed. My hip checks need some work, particularly on my right side where I'm still struggling to even be able to balance my weight on my right ankle. I feel like I did a good job on shoulder and drag blocks, but I don't know. Maybe what felt right to me wasn't actually right. My positional blocking still needs some work. That's one area that I've really struggled with. I used to go to Barber Park to try to work on stuff like that with Shae, but right after I got back up on skates, they closed the rink at Barber Park. I think it re-opened this weekend, but it's a little late now.

Whether or not we make the league is decided by a vote. The league members review our test results, attendance, participation in events, attitude, etc. My test results aren't great, but I've fulfilled my event requirements, maintained a good attitude at practice, and attended all but one practice (though most of them don't actually count for shit due to being off-skates.)

Best case scenario? I still have a lot of practice time to make up due to being out so much. Maybe I'll make it up and they'll decide on my status at that point.

Worst case scenario? Not only do I not make it, but I get told that I'm done, pack it up and go home. I mean, it's my second recruitment. I was already an Honorary and didn't really improve. This could be it for me.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm a bit of a pessimist? 'cause I am.

Testing

Testing is this week, and I don't know if I should be nervous or not. o.O I missed a month or so due to injury, so I'm certainly not going to be an official league member afterwards. At the same time, I don't want to embarrass myself out there and I want to make sure I do well enough to be able to scrimmage with everyone else.

Last time I had testing, I skated all weekend - went to a bunch of skate sessions and wore myself out. It didn't seem to help any, so this time I'm relaxing at home. I did extra ankle exercises to try to help with that, did the roller derby workout video, and am now hanging out on the couch with the ankle elevated and iced. The ankle is mostly better now. I get twinges a couple of times a day, particularly when I'm back at my normal desk which includes an awful stool that leaves my toes pointing down all day. However, when I'm skating, it feels a lot better. I'm not getting pain anymore. This is the first week I've skated without pain. But the whole area is still really tight, so I still stop every once in awhile to sort of roll it out. They thought it would be another month or two before that goes away, assuming I do my exercises. The leg is also extremely weak compared to the other. It fatigues very easily, so by the end of practice, I'm not always certain I'll be able to take that baby step off the rink. But it's getting there.

I really don't think I can express how nervous I am right now. I went ahead and picked up a small container of Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate ice cream to drown my sorrows in after practices this week. I'm a little worried about what's going to happen with me after recruitment, what with missing so much practice and all. Our couch posted a little note on the forums that I think was designed to calm us down, encourage us to ask questions if we have them, but I think I'm going to wait to ask my questions until the end. I need to see how I do this week before I can even think about the next step.

I know this is a fairly common statement on my blog but... I AM SO BEHIND. I started skating again about two weeks ago now. I had to miss one day due to awful food poisoning (I will never be able to eat a chicken tender ever again in my life.) It was only my first completely missed practice in this recruitment, but it feels like so much more since I was off-skates for so much of it. They've been doing a lot of pack drills and I'm having difficulty keeping up. I can stay with the pack, but I can't move around very quickly. While moving on the outside should be be harder for me being a slower skater, in a way I found it was easier because I can occasionally stick my bad leg out to the side and give it that quick stretch it needs every once in awhile.

There was another drill that gave me trouble over the last few practices where we practiced forming walls and helping our jammers past the blockers. I am *totally useless* in a pack right now. I'd look behind me, see the jammer is coming up on my right, try to cut across the track only to find myself looking at the jammer from behind. I'd rush up to try catch up with them, but being quite possibly the second slowest skater in recruitment right now, there's just no catching up. We've run through the drill a number of times and so far I've not successfully blocked a single person (unless you count the time I accidentally wheel-locked myself and tripped, taking out one of the blockers and giving my jammer a chance to pass by.)

The ankle is holding up well, considering all it's been through. The pain is about gone. I skated last night pretty much pain free. There was a little bit of difficulty during warm-ups, but once I tightened up my skate and my heel stopped shifting in my boot, it was fine. They're shifting me to once a week now in physical therapy instead of twice a week, but it's going to be more aggressive, so we'll see how I do after that. The fact that it's not hurting though gives me hope. My leg is still completely useless. By the second time I attempted my five-in-one, I could barely support my own weight. By about halfway through practice, I've got that burning feeling you get in your muscles when you're working muscles that have never been used before. By 3/4s of the way through, it's numb and has the consistency of a noodle. But at least it doesn't hurt! Weak, I can handle. That just means it's time to get to the gym.

I'm back up on skates again and promise I will update soon!

In the meantime, Five Stages of Grief and the Third Year Beginner - I am very familiar with the stages mentioned in here. This is pretty much everything I was feeling after last recruitment, except I was much worse than this girl. Hell, on my five-in-one last time around, I was 20 seconds over. I wasn't quite at the point of needing to talk to a mental health professional, but still, you get the general idea of things. So, yeah, interesting read for anyone who doesn't end up making it on a team.

Ugh. I can't handle this any more. I need to skate. I promised the physical therapist I would take a week off from skating again, and I did. I'm getting back up on Wednesday. I think I've also reached my limit in physical therapy. The pain was bad in the beginning, but going to PT just made it worse and worse. I'm going to talk to them on Wednesday morning about being discharged. This is getting ridiculous. I was supposed to be in for three weeks. It's almost two months now. I'm missing my entire recruitment and some things were said tonight that made me feel really self-conscious about the fact that I've been sitting out for so long, that I'm on my second recruitment, and made me seriously sit down and face the fact that I might not make it through this time... again. Everyone else looked great tonight out there skating, and they're all doing crap that I just can't do yet. It's going to take so much to catch up, and I'm going to be hindered so much by the fact that my ankle hurts more than it did in the beginning.

Plus, a couple of the Psycho Sisters recently sprained their ankles. They're up and going again, though taking it slow. If they can do it, I can do it... right? I really want to get up and do these drills. I think I probably could have handled tonight but I still felt a bit of pain and, again, I had promised I'd sit out a little longer.

I also think I'm going to start ditching the ankle brace. I kind of feel as if that's adding more to the pain than it's taking away, because it's hindering my movement. I'm having trouble bending at the ankle because of how restrictive it is. I feel like it increased the pain in the plantar fascia as well as in the right side of my calf above my ankle.

So basically, everything the doctor told me, I might be throwing out the window.

Fun Fact of the Day

When you're injured and already sore from skating and some off-skates plyometrics, getting drunk and jumping on a trampoline is not the best recovery plan.

Just had to make a quick update before work. While I felt like a horrible person for quitting early, it was totally the best thing for me. I still have the lovely body soreness that I use as a gauge for whether or not I pushed myself hard enough at practice, but don't have the crippling ankle pain this morning that I had on Tuesday morning. Yay!

Physical therapy tomorrow to hopefully get shit straight.

In which I set a plan for improvement

I finally made the decision today to take care of myself. I've been in some serious fucking pain for two days in a row, partially because of pushing myself in practice more than the doctor originally wanted me to, partially because I've been in shitty work shoes walking around like crazy for two days straight. Tonight I didn't skate as hard as I probably could have. I sat out for the last half hour or so. After about 10 minutes of sitting out, I know I could have gotten back up and tried again, but I didn't want to risk getting up, feeling horrible pain again, then sitting out again.

I didn't get to finish out some necessary practice time. I'll fall behind a little more still. But hopefully I'll get caught up soon. Once I feel a little more comfortable with the ankle situation, I'll start heading over to Barber Park and practicing more, talk Shae into coming down from Ocala and working with me, and maybe trying to hit the Luna practices on Sunday.

But yes, taking care of myself. While the doctor hasn't said this, I recognize that part of my ankle issue is my weight. I've struggled with weight problems for a long time, stemming from poor nutritional habits built during childhood. So today I downloaded an app for the phone to start tracking food and exercise in order to try to lose a little bit of weight. I'm also back to taking my vitamins again, something I got off of fairly recently. I've done stuff like this before, but I've never kept up with it because of it being inconvenient, getting bored with it, falling off the wagon and never getting back on, etc. but hopefully derby proves to be the driving force that keeps me going on this.

I'm also going back to my weekly goals. Having just a small amount of things that I really need to focus on helped me out a lot early in this recruitment.

1. Derby stance. I need to do this even more. I think the new exercise I picked up in PT should help with this. It reeeeally works the quads.
2. Balancing on my right leg. The right leg is the problem leg, but if I can't balance on it, I'm going to struggle with blocking. I have a hard time hitting on that right side, and fall fairly easy on the right.
3. Staying positive. I whine. A lot. Not necessarily in practice, but on here. It's a new goal to make some sort of statement about something awesome that I did.
4. Controlling my arms. I need to keep my elbows in when making a hit and doing crossovers. I feel like a chicken flapping it's wings.
5. Do the full range of my ankle exercises instead of only half of them.

And to start off my goals? Something positive: I took a hit, fell and did a pretty decent superman without even thinking about it.

Things could be better...

I could kick myself for practice last night. I'm really struggling right now. My Monday physical therapist is a big, beefy guy. He's absolutely wonderful, really pushes me hard each time I'm there. I love going to him because no matter what, he keeps me going. Now that my ankle is healing up a bit, I've been noticing pain in my plantar fascia. Last week, my Thursday therapist gave me stretches to do and did an ultrasound on it. This week, my Monday therapist spent about five minutes rubbing out the scar tissue. He's super strong and it *hurt*. It was quite honestly some of the worst pain I've ever felt in my life, even worse than when they were rubbing out the scar tissue in my ankle. I cried a little for the first time whole process. So I went into practice on Monday still sore from that.

Being in derby stance for long periods of time hurts.

Putting weight on my leg hurts.

Crossovers hurt.

Sticky skate hurts.

Endurance exercises hurt.

Do you see a trend here? =/

Physical therapy helped me out in so many ways. Ever since I got back onto skates after starting PT, crossovers are a million times easier. Before, since my ankle turned outwards naturally, I tripped over my own feet or really had to concentrate to force my ankle to go in the right direction. Now I just put my foot over the other like it's no big deal. If you would have told me I could do that a few months ago, I would have laughed in your face. With just standard skating, I'm feeling a lot more confident than I was before.

On days like yesterday though, I almost wish I had never bothered. My bank account is depressingly low. I'm losing hours at work because I'm always at physical therapy. I'm missing opportunities for overtime because I have appointments with the doctor or physical therapist. The first week after I started, I was allowed to skate but instantly regretted it. I was in so much pain that week and gave a poor performance on the rink. It was like the whole thing made me suck harder. Last week, I felt great, but this week... ow. I almost didn't even go into work today because my ankle hurt so bad. And while I'm skating with more confidence, I'm doing certain skills (such as jumping) with even less confidence (which is really saying something considering I've always been a nervous jumper.) I'm already behind everyone else so I don't want to sit out anymore and, being that this is my second recruitment, I don't want to quit and wait to try for round 3. But *guh*, if I don't get my act together, I'm not going to make it. Again.

On a more positive note, if I do make it into the league, I've already spoken with Spikey about ordering some Antiks. The doctor wants me to use a high topped boot to try to protect my ankles from twisting, plus my right foot is smaller than the left, so hopefully upgraded skates will help. They're a bit out of my price range, but they're less expensive than a month of physical therapy copays, so it all balances out in the end, I think. I also think I'll end up with a bruise on my hip soon from blocking practice.

Back up and rolling!

I received permission this week from the doctor to do some skating. Whoo! It's been pretty freaking exciting. I did some light skating in the beginners rink on adult night plus received permission to skate a bit in practice. I'm noticeably behind in practice, but I feel like not being on skates for awhile made it okay in my mind. I know it doesn't help me any in testing, but at least I feel like I've been trying my hardest and there's nothing else I could really do.

My doctor's note clearing me for practice doesn't actually take effect until the 27th, so I wasn't able to do the Level 1 testing this past week. It's a little disappointing. I really wanted to know where I stand on various moves as of now, so I know what to work on, what I'm doing wrong, etc. Per the doctor's orders, I'm supposed to do 30 minutes on, 10 minutes off, with up to an hour of skating for the first week, and slowly increase it as time goes on. The doctor was afraid if I actually skated at practice and not just at open skate, that I might push myself too hard. However, with my schedule, if I didn't skate at practice, I knew I wasn't going to be able to skate more than maybe once a week. The league owners weren't there on Monday, so since the doctor's note was dated for the 27th, no skating for me. On Wednesday though, the league owners were back so I was able to get permission to skate as long as I took it easy.

I skated mostly pain-free for practice. Any time I noticed pain, I stopped. The ankle itself rarely hurts anymore. We're still having problems with the plantar fascia, which the physical therapist thinks I strained trying to take pressure off of the ankle. Even that though is getting better so long as I keep doing my daily stretches. (I've been horrible about doing them this week.)

I made great strides this week though! For example - the more I skated, the more painful the ankle was before. I reached a point at the end there where six laps was my max. SIX. I did 16 on Wednesday before my ankle was ready to give out (though the last few were noticeably slower). We have a month to go before we test for our 25 in 5, so I'm hoping I'll be able to get my endurance up by then. My crossovers are improving majorly now that I can actually put weight on my right foot. They're still not spectacular and they completely fall apart as my leg tires out, but it's still a win that they've improved not by skating, but through physical therapy. Makes me feel a little better about last recruitment. A little.

Physical Therapy

The good news: Three weeks ago, I started out with two degrees of dorsiflexion. Today, I have 15 degrees of dorsiflexion. They said that's huge improvement in that amount of time, particularly since I backslid the first week.

The bad news: I need 20 degrees, which means no skating this week either. They want me to get up to 20 before I "can do some light skating" (whatever that means. I'll get a definition before I get up on skates.) They're pretty sure I'll get it in about a week at this rate as long as I keep up with my exercises, so I'll be going in on Monday to be checked out by the doctor. If I have 20 degrees and no pain at that point, then I'll be discharged. For some reason, I thought they said 10-15 degrees before, but no, apparently it's 20. I looked it up online to see what they said ('cause if everything I could find said 10, I was going to get on skates no matter what) and the Internet confirmed 20 is normal.

So hopefully I won't fall too far behind in the next week, though it looks like I'm going into testing without having been on skates for two weeks. Awesome.

(crossposted to Tumblr)

Hope

Review: Riedell Toe Guards

I bought a set of Riedell toe guards at the rink in Kissimmee when I was there for an open skate session since the rink we skate at for practice does not allow us to use tape on our skates. I skate on Sure Grips which are a little too wide for traditional toe snouts, so I just picked up the standard style toe guards.

These things were awful.

For one thing, they felt really flimsy on my skate. No matter how much I tried to tighten things down, they kept slipping all over the place. I was certain that a good fall would rip them up. They never did rip but that's because I had to take them off in the first hour of practice.

Why?

Because when I did a knee fall, the light blue color of the toe guard left blue skid marks on the rink.

>.<

The owners absolutely *baby* our rink. It's so well cared for that I felt instantly guilty for it. Luckily, we were in the beginner's rink so I didn't fuck up the actual rink. But still - even the beginner's rink is a million times better than the rink we used to skate on.

Now I don't know what I'm going to do with these toe guards. I still need toe guards desperately because the constant falling is killing my skates, but now I can't return these ones because they're very definitely used (they have a huge scuff on them) and I can't afford new ones because of the upcoming physical therapy costs. Boooo.

An emo post

Today was the first day in this recruitment that I realized - I can't do this. I can't. Skating is painful. My body has adjusted to the brace already and simply moved the pain above and below it. Today we did an exercise where we skated five laps, did two cool-downs, waited for everyone else, then skated six laps sticky skate, waited for everyone to catch up, then did seven laps. I was ready to cry halfway through the sticky skating. I have to push on that bad ankle in order to make it around, and I just can't do that. It's horrible.

It didn't help that today was the first day of physical therapy. My ankle was poked and prodded for about an hour before going in there. The physical therapist said that I have to work on improving movement of the dorsiflexion. I have 2 degrees of movement right now. Apparently I should have 10 to 15. Basically, I can't keep my foot straight and bend my leg at the same time... something that's kind of important for skating. So I need to do a few weeks of physical therapy, and then probably a lifetime to exercises at home to both stretch and strengthen those muscles. However, my insurance doesn't cover it. Not for a long time anyways. I have to pay a $40 copay each time for the visit, PLUS the full cost of the actual therapy until I hit my $2,000 deductible (fun fact: I have nowhere near $2000.) The physical therapist is also worried that I'll just undo all of the work we do when I go skating, so I'm trying to keep it easy. I told the coach what's going on and was told not to jump, and sit down when it started giving me trouble. I hate this. I hate this so much.

I want to do this. I want to do this so bad. But I don't know if I'm strong enough to handle it.

Weekly Goals

Goals I posted last week and their current status:

1. Do a crossover during warm-ups on Wednesday. - Successful! Plus we worked a bit on them on Monday and I felt better about them. Am I perfect? No. But I'm definitely better off than before, particularly now that I have the brace.
2. Scrounge up the money for an open-skate session. - Successful! Open skate at a rink in Kissimmee. I had lots of fun, even if I ended up quitting after about an hour and 20 minutes due to ankle pain.
3. Finish reading "Down and Derby". - Done and passed on to Shae!
4. Do ankle-strengthening exercises every day. - Done until Saturday, when ankle exercises became too much.
5. Drink at least 3 20 oz. cups of water per day. - Semi-successful. I definitely achieved this on weekdays, but not on the weekends. I still hate water, and its even harder to drink it when I'm at home with crappy tasting ice.
6. Let myself fall during practice. - Completed on Monday! We were doing jumps, so I fell... a lot. I also fell early on working on plow stops. These stops are the bane of my existence right now and when I was playing around to try to make them work for me, I crouched a bit too far back and landed on my ass. Ow.


Goals for this week:
1. Work on side steps and grapevines on my own.
2. Double knee falls - there should be two hits, not one giant one!
3. Work on my crossovers.
4. Learn to stop in a limited amount of space. I need to get over my weird fear of stopping in a pack!

Ankle update

My "weak ankle"? Yeah, it's a broken ankle. XD Whoops. The doctor took some X-rays of both my ankle and my hip (since I walk with one leg towards the side, they wanted to make sure it wasn't something that started up in the hip.) The hip looks fine, but in my ankle, I have a piece of bone that's floating free. The pain that I'm feeling is the muscle getting squished between the two bones, and occasionally the bone hitting against the other one. She thinks I did it when I was younger (it's definitely not new.)

I seriously couldn't be happier.

1. They can fix it non-surgically. I have to start taking Aleve twice a day for a little while to help with pain and inflammation. Next Monday, I start physical therapy. I also have an ankle brace to help with skating or any other form of exercise.

2. It's not all in my head! A part of me was always afraid that I was making up the pain, that nothing's wrong with me and I'm just trying to make an excuse for why I was having such a hard time with skating. This takes a load off.

Fresh Meat Day 2

I feel so much better this recruitment than I did the last. Last night we worked on falls and stops some more, as well as doing side steps and grapevines. I did pretty well on most of it. I still suck at plow stopping, but I t-stop like a boss. I also did knee glides last night! I really struggled with those last time, so it was pretty awesome that I picked it up fairly quickly. I was so shocked when I went down the first time and came right back up that I just stood there for a second like "OMG, I DID IT?!?!" before moving out of the way for the next girl. When I skate this weekend, I'll make sure to work on these a little bit so I don't stand there looking like an idiot afterwards, as well as my plow stops, crossovers and double knee falls.

During warm-ups, I managed some crossovers! This was particularly exciting because I recently adjusted my trucks, so I felt pretty awesome that I could do (crappy) crossovers even with that. However, my ankle still hurt like a son of a bitch during warm-ups, even with me doing ankle strengthening exercises this week. In fact, I worry a little bit that the ankle strengthening exercises made it worse, because I went into practice with a little bit of pain from doing the exercises for a few days. So I finally gave in. I've scheduled an appointment on Monday morning first thing in order to see a sports medicine physician to check it out for me. I really think it's just a weak ankle from what I've seen on the Internet. I had a bad sprain on it when I was a kid, as well as a couple of minor sprains in high school and once doing faire back in 2004. Hopefully they'll just tell me to do some exercises and tape it up when skating until I get the ankle built up.

Practice 1

Seriously, I don't know what's wrong with me. I was doing crossovers at the rink in SC like I actually knew what I was doing, and on a rink I was unfamiliar with that was slicker than I'm comfortable with. Why couldn't I do them last night? We were doing warm-ups and every time we hit a curve, it was like my legs were magically glued to the ground. Itzel said she thought it was just a mental thing. It could have been. I was a little freaked out about it being the first practice and skating with OPCDG again. But not doing crossovers meant instant ankle pain from the weird way that I take turns when I don't man up and do what I need to, so halfway through warm-ups, I was ready to die. I was in pain, I was embarrassed that I couldn't skate after all this time, I hated that so many people were passing me and crossing over like they were born on skates... I'll be honest. As they blew the whistle and we headed over to the beginner's rink, I thought about not coming back on Wednesday. It sucks to work so hard to try to get something basic like that and still have issues.

Once we got back into the beginner's rink, I felt much better though. We did our normal stretching, they spent some time getting birthdays, putting names on helmets, etc. Afterwards, we worked on falls and stops. Falls came right back to me (well, excluding 180s, which I've always sucked at, and baseball slides on the leg I don't fall well on.) Stops were difficult to do because there were so many people in such a small space. I was afraid I was going to trip someone when doing plow stops, particularly since I have ridiculously long legs. I suppose it's great practice for stopping in a pack though, which I really need to work on. I worry so much about my suckiness affecting others (tripping them, or landing on them with all of my weight.) I'm slowly getting over it, but it's a process.

I feel like I'm more in the middle in this recruitment. There are more people my age, more people closer to my size, and more people with approximately my skill level skating. I feel like I actually have a chance this time.

Derby Goals for the week:
1. Do a crossover during warm-ups on Wednesday.
2. Scrounge up the money for an open-skate session.
3. Finish reading "Down and Derby".
4. Do ankle-strengthening exercises every day.
5. Drink at least 3 20 oz. cups of water per day.
6. Let myself fall during practice.

Getting Lower

Shae and I went to Barber Park early this morning to get some skate time in. It was great, really. We didn't push ourselves all that hard but honestly I'm out of practice and she was sore. (Plus, the combo of sucky outdoor wheels and not mouthguard made me nervous as hell.) I love skating with Shae though because every time, she always manages to explain something in a new way to me in order to help me out.

One of my (many many many) problems is that I don't get low enough. I know this. Everyone tells me this. Even worse, I tell myself to get lower, bend my knees more and what happens? I lower my back at my waist and get thrown off-balance. ;lksdjf;sladfj Every. Fucking. Time! Or I feel like I'm getting low and bending my knees and it's pointed out to me that, no, I'm standing up very straight still.

It's the little things that help. Shae mentioned that if I can touch the top of my knee pads, that's the highest I should be at any point in time. I lowered myself in that position and thought "You have got to be fucking kidding me." That's as HIGH as I should be, meaning I should be lower than this if possible? NO WAY. But I tried it! Not perfectly, but I did try to use that as a guideline through much of our skating and... it helped. It helped a lot. I was feeling a little bit better skating, even on the shitty shitty wheels I was skating on. I didn't get my knee falls where I want them to be, but I did work on sticky skating and feel a little better on that. Obviously, I need to work on it more. I will probably always need to work on it more. I'm sure the girls from Team USA are still getting on themselves about getting lower when skating and perfecting certain skills. Hopefully the combination of Barber Park extra practice plus actual recruitment time will finally get my muscles to remember all these moves and get me placed on a team this go around.

(Also, I'm pretty sure if I was doing it right before, I wouldn't be sore from two hours of the lightest skating ever. Definitely need to work on my core, too. I couldn't get up without using my hands. Balls.)

Recruitment: Round 2

Monday was my first night of recruitment round 2. This was just a required informational meeting to fill out paperwork, answer questions, etc. It's almost as nerve-wracking to go through a second round as it is to do the first round. The first time around, you're very optimistic about your chances of making the team. You're absolutely certain that by the end of two months, you'll be passing your minimum skills and by the end of four months, you'll be ready to roll for your first bout. However, by the end of four months, I still couldn't pass my minimum skills. My confidence has taken a beating. At the same time though, I'm starting out probably at the level that many of the girls from last recruitment started at. There's hope!

The intimidation factor from the first recruitment is gone, too. You know, in the very beginning, you're in complete awe of the women already playing. You've been watching them for x amount of time. They're practically gods to you, and now you're trying to be one of them. They're taking their time and talking to you, helping you out, etc. Every time I opened my mouth, I was kicking myself because I was certain everything I said was stupid. I'll admit - I still feel that way at times. It seems weird and wrong to try and be a part of them after looking up to them for so long. But at the same time, everyone was absolutely amazing. The girls I went through recruitment with last time and a few of the more seasoned skaters stopped to say hello, wish me luck and tell me they're glad to see me back.

I'm still very nervous that I'm going to completely blow. I had a dream last night that it was our first practice and I completely forgot how to skate. I spent the entire night on the wall, unable to stand up properly. My legs were all rubbery in a cartoon-ish sort of way, so the only thing keeping me off the floor was my arms clutched on the wall. I think one of the weirder parts of it was that it was definitely the smelly, dirty wall from Universal Skating Center, but it was around the rink at Semoran.

I feel like I'm constantly doing squats to prepare right now, but I'm not getting in the cardio or endurance training that I really need. I'm also not skating nearly enough. Until I pay off my car stuff, I can't afford to go to many open skate sessions, but at the same time, I don't have a good pair of outdoor wheels, so I'm hesitant to go to Barber Park. I might have to suck it up and just go, but really all I want to do is skate on my new wheels. I received some decent birthday money from my granddad (a few months late, thanks to the United States Postal Service) so I bought a set of D-rods at Shell's recommendation (and a little bit of research).

I've been skating on some narrower wheels after reading a bunch of stuff about how it's better for pack skating. However, since stability is an issue, I wanted to try a wider wheel. as;dlfkjasd; THESE ARE A DREAM COME TRUE. I've only skated with them once since receiving them just before Christmas, but I'm in love. I feel like my crossovers are better, my stability is better, my confidence higher and I CAN PLOW STOP. Not quickly, but a hell of a lot better than before where I felt like my wheels were stopping but my ankles weren't. I swore I was going to topple over or break an ankle doing them before. My speed is also better. Dad and I were the same speed last time I went to visit him (which was days before our minimum skills test.) I was definitely faster this time! I could easily lap him a few times. I suspect a part of it is the combination of my awesome new wheels and their freaking amazing new slippy floor (the local rink in SC just re-did the floor. It's all shiny and glittery. I was entertained just looking at it.) I'm hoping that wider wheels were all I needed to get a little more speed going. Apparently some people (particularly bigger girls) find this to be the case. It certainly felt like I didn't need to work as hard to get to a decent speed. But I suppose we'll see come January 16th!