Rock kicking and team mates

One of the ways I get frustration out of my system, especially in the past, is to kick something. Kicking rocks is a useful way to get frustration out since, when done correctly, nothing gets hurt. Kicking walls usually leaves holes and kicking animals in right out. Growing up in the mountains meant I had no shortage of rocks to kick.

Yesterday, I wanted to kick some rocks.

Going into practice, I was frustrated. Work had kept me busy so I hadn't had much time on my skates. The weather has been crazy and unpredictable so I wasn't able to go outside either. I knew going into it that it was going to be a tough day. Maybe if I'd thought about it differently, it wouldn't have been so tough but I think I needed it to be hard.

Practice was held in a different location than normal. There's been at least one other practice in this location, which I only got to witness as I got to practice too late for it to be worthwhile to gear up. We started with 10 laps around the "track" (it's an arena's concourse). Since my toe stops kept falling out I had one of the coaches come take a look at them and then adjusted them. This made me one of the latest girls out there doing my laps. During the laps, my feet were adjusting to the new arch supports. They suck but they're also awesome. My knees weren't hitting each other nearly as much as they have in the past. Other skaters were cheering me on as they passed me and I managed to get them done not too far behind everyone else.

We then broke into groups from least to most comfortable/experienced. My group,the least comfortable was mostly girls from my group level. However, we also had some more experienced girls who were getting back onto skates after injury. Our first station was working on footwork and weaving. Both of these are really hard for me. As I didn't know what we were doing the entire time, I hadn't brought my basketball over to the group. Why a basketball? One of the coaches recommended using one between my legs during fast feet drills to help strengthen the hip muscles so that other agility work is easier. The concern was speed over form and it wasn't too bad. It was also refreshing to see that I wasn't the only one who has trouble with this area still.

Then came the weaving. I dread weaving. I understand it mentally but my muscle memory is wrong. When learning how to skate, I had a lot of trouble with cross overs. I still have some trouble but that's less to do with my body and more to do with my head. So to psyche myself out, I would skate through corners by bringing my outside leg in front of my inside one without picking up. This has apparently developed the habit of skating turns with the outside leg in front. As I worked through the drill, I became more and more frustrated. I fall a lot. I always have. Eventually I imagine I won't fall nearly as much but I'd been told in the past that because of this, I wasn't athletic enough to do derby. So as I'm falling, my brain is pulling out those voices and I was already feeling unsure about myself and where I'll go in derby from feeling like an outsider. The coach pulled me over to look at my trucks. He pointed out that they were probably still a little too loose and that I needed better plates. These plates are definitely a step up from my last ones but I need to get better. My frustrations had nothing to do with myself but with my plates binding up when I was turning. It was the equipment and not me that was holding me back. Feeling a little better, work in that area ended and we moved onto the next one.

Here the coach is also a good friend which means I sometimes get extra attention. I'm sure it's a hard balance so I try not to be too much of a hog of her time but I love getting feedback from her. She was having us work on stops. Snowplough stops I have down pretty good. I still can't stop at the same speed I skate but I can stop reliably with them. T-stops mock me. It seems that almost every time we work on them, I've forgotten how to do them. Then, when I'm on my own and working on them, I get them. I started to get frustrated again. Really frustrated. The third stop, turning around and onto toe stops, is difficult to say the least. Before yesterday, I hadn't actually worked on them since tryouts last summer. I've watched other people do them but just don't have the knack. And then the falling started, though it probably started before that stop. I hit a point of frustration where tears started to stream down my face. The coach told me to grab some water and that it would be okay. At this point, a couple of girls asked if I was hurt and I explained that I was frustrated and that I wanted to go kick a rock. They understood. All of them understood and as I started to cry harder, out of pure frustration, a couple of the girls gave me hugs and told me that I was doing well. One last time through and then onto the last station.

The last station was sticky skating and gaining speed while doing so. I can do sticky skating but I have a hard time gaining speed while doing so. This was a hard station. Every break found me on the ground, panting and trying to stretch out as best I could. Yet it seemed that I was starting to connect with some of the other girls. I wasn't the last one looking for a group, feeling left out and awkward. When we did an exercise with partners, I had one without having to feel awkward.

The best part was, after a bit of core and stretching, having other girls find me to tell me how much they'd seen me improve. It's one of the first times that I really felt like I belonged. I don't expect to like or be liked by everyone but I want to feel like a part of the group. I started to feel as though I belonged. I know it's mostly in my head but having others welcome me and give me good comments helped my head be less of a mess.

The biggest thing I learned from practice was to not focus on the negative things, the things that sucked but to find one or two good things that went well. So the positive things. In the third station, we started with shopping carts with three of us. The back person had to push the other two. I was the second one to push and I got us some speed, which was really cool. The other two girls even commented on it, making me feel really good and pushing harder. The other thing was learning that it's my gear is causing a lot of my frustration. That's an easy thing to fix. One of the coaches even offered to go to one of the local derby stores with me to get a better plate. He's also willing to lend me some different wheels to try out to see if that helps me as well. My current wheels, Poisons, are really grippy and are getting in my way at our normal practice space. I'd originally bought them for the last group I was in as we were skating on untreated concrete. Now, on a different surface, they're just too grippy. I'm hoping to get it taken care of sooner rather than later. Maybe I'll make a trip tomorrow or Thursday as my time allows.