Tremors, Tears, Teammates and Trust

Last Sunday was the first time I was on skates in 3 weeks. Easter we didn't have practice and then the next two weeks I had to work. The other days also found me full of working and bad weather keeping me from skating outside. The good news is that I acquired new plates, aluminum instead of plastic. The bad news is that I got new plates and no time to try them out before practice.

It was a hard practice and I was in the "easy" group. They divided us into two groups. Those who wanted to be pushed really hard to prep for tryouts and then those who wanted to work on basics. I went with the second group and we were still pushed hard. I started with too many new factors. New plates and new arch support were working against me. My feet were killing me and I was struggling to stay on them. I eventually reached a point where I needed to stop and take out the supports. Taking them out did help but I was still exhausted.

Eventually we started doing pace lines. Weaving from front to back scared me but was easier than I'd imagined. Going from back to front seemed impossible. I started once and fell two people in. I tried again and got two people in. At this point, I'm on the ground and I notice my hand is shaking, almost as though I had tremors. I was near tears when Wet Spot, one of our coaches, skated over to me and told me to take a moment since I was failing due to being mad. I hadn't realized it until the words came out of his mouth but I was mad. I was mad with myself for not finding time to skate over 3 weeks and I was mad that I was falling, again. I'd chatted with Hanna, one of the other coaches, before practice and I was feeling better at the start of practice realizing that I wasn't the only one feeling like an outcast in the group. Yet here I was falling and feeling awkward and frustrated. Yet Wet Spot in his guidance got me to calm down and realize that it was my anger that was holding me back.

After a few calming breaths, I got back onto my skates and caught up to the line. This time, I wove through the line with my team mates cheering me on. I kept close and low (or at least, I think I did) and quickly moved to the front. It was amazing! I felt good and successful. It was one of the high moments of practice. The other one was seeing Hanna do a bit of a victory dance as I managed to run on my toe stops and get into a stride. One of the best feelings was not only having my team mates cheer me on but actually doing what they were cheering me about.

One of the last things we worked on was transitions. I currently loath transitions. I'll get over it. I use to loath skating with my knees bent as I use to loath skating on only one foot. All of these things scared me. I'm not afraid of falling. I fall all the time. I'm actually pretty good at it these days so it's not a fear of falling. It's that I don't trust my body to do what I'm telling it to do. We have a history of being a huge tangle of limbs and awkwardness. My body and I just don't get along. I'm now grown and should trust my body. But I don't. Too often have I tried to do something and my body hasn't responded. I've only recently started to feel comfortable in my body and derby has helped with that. Moments of "oh, *that's* what my core is and how I use it" and "oh look! that's so much easier if I bend further at the knees" have been very frequent since I started really getting into derby. There's a feeling of confidence that I haven't had before.

So as we were working on transitions, I was falling. A lot. I just couldn't get my feet to do what I wanted. My flexibility needs to be worked on as well as my confidence. As I worked on turning, Wet Spot showing me different ways to take my first baby step at transitions, I kept falling. Instead of getting mad, I simply kept trying, hoping that I'd understand. Wet Spot had me doing what seemed like silly things, such as using a trash can to balance against and go into second position in ballet (I mistakenly called it fourth at the time but have since looked it up) to get use to my hips turning out. My first real baby step was when I simply put my right foot back as if to turn and I stopped myself. Wet Spot came up next to me and helped me complete the turn. And by "helped me", I mean, I grabbed onto him like a small child learning how to swim and let myself be guided around until I was facing the other direction. At this point, covered in sweat and a bit of glee, I mumbled that it was all about trust. Wet Spot later confirmed that it really is all about trusting my body to do the right thing and to stop fighting it.

So how do I go about trusting one thing that I've seen as an enemy for most of my life?