Well how did that happen?

Today at practice, I had to leave early due to work but there was a big, no, a HUGE eureka moment for me today.

This was our first non-assessment practice on skates. For all I know, it was also our first practice entirely on skates (that whole leaving early thing leaves one in the dark sometimes). We started with a warm-up of 80/100s. First, I realized that I no longer hate this drill. I mean, it's still hard (skate at 80% speed for a minute, then at 100% speed for 30 seconds and then back to 80%, repeat) but I don't feel as though I'm going to die. Second, to my surprise, my feet didn't hate me either and actually moved most of the time. It's still not all of the time but it's certainly more than it use to be and I'm certainly gaining speed. I was vaguely aware of people telling me that I was looking good when I'd zip past them. And I think I was actually zipping past people.

I wasn't looking forward to practice. I knew I'd have to leave early and I've been in a funk the last couple of days. Personal life can sometimes take it out of you and it certainly has been draining for me. I was so angry and frustrated last night that I couldn't even lay down to sleep until almost 2am and that was mostly because I killed my phone's battery and it seemed like too much effort to get out of bed to charge it so I could keep wasting time. Sleep didn't come easily and I certainly didn't feel rested. So I wasn't really looking forward to practice because I was convinced that I'd be too much in my head and that I'd not get anything out of it. Add on top of it that my skates, my lovely Vanilla Curves which I love and adore, aren't really good derby skates. There's no support in the ankle area because they're jam skates and you want loose ankles when you jam skate. So now, instead of buying new boots, I'm looking into temporary fixes as there are other things that are higher priority money-wise. I've spent a little time on my skates and learned at last week's practice that I've cranked down on my bushings too much so I probably need a harder set of the magic cushions. The time I spent on my skates was trying to adjust my trucks so that I wouldn't have another expense. Getting them loose enough so that the bushings are bulging makes them too loose for me so I've combined my old, really hard bushings with the magic cushion, which seemed to do the trick.

When we were allowed to skate before practice started, I let me worries and anxieties and all the other things that would keep me in my head and felt myself pushing them out of my mind with every push of my skate. I don't know if there was a physical difference to be seen in me but it certainly felt different.

After warm-ups and stretching, we worked on edging. Somehow I ended up towards the higher end of skill level (we were to self-assess and I put myself in the middle; when groups were formed, my group was the second to the high end) and I was actually okay with that. See, I've had a problem with skating knock-kneed. To fix this, I've been doing a lot of sticky skating which means I've gotten to know pretty well where to find my edges. Of course, finding them when I'm being deliberate and trying to build up certain muscles and knowing where they are and using them all the time are two different things.

As we worked through the different drills, we got to one that I've always dreaded because I struggle with it. It's edging work where we skate around a cone. Pretty much every time I've done this, I have fallen. The whole "body-working-as-one-unit" thing usually isn't happening when we get to this drill. I didn't care though. I didn't care what I'd done in the past because I'd built on that. I'd managed earlier to fall during the 80/100s and get back up while I was still sliding, which is a new thing. It's the way it's suppose to be but I've not noticed myself doing it before. To my honest amazement, I got through the drill without falling, stumbling or flailing for the first time ever. I think I actually shocked myself a bit. It wasn't perfect but it was certainly what I was suppose to be doing.

It's often said that if you aren't falling in derby, then you aren't trying hard enough. Part of me wondered if perhaps that was true today until I got out of my skates and started walking. There are definitely muscles in my legs that aren't happy with me for the work I did today. I think often, my falling was almost a reaction, a "I have no idea what to do, but I can fall" sort of reaction. That seems to be out of my system. If I fall, it's usually that I've pushed a little harder than I realized I could go, such as during the 80/100s. When I fell, I think I was going faster than I'm use to and I did something that caused me to fall. I honestly have no idea what happened other than I was down, doing a baseball slide and then back up again. We did cone weaving and had the option of doing it on one foot, so I decided that I should try it. I didn't try it. I did it.

I know it's all been tiny little steps and hops but it's certainly caught me off-guard with how much has changed. I know that I'm not the only one who sees it either. It seems as though every practice, at least one or two more people comment about how much I've improved from where I use to be, sometimes even just where I was a week before. This is absolutely exhilarating to suddenly see so many new strengths in my body and my skills.