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.