Better Every Day

In that period of time between graduating from college and finding a real job, I decided to run away and join a drum corps for the summer. No, seriously. I had no idea what I was going to do after college, so I decided to learn a completely new instrument and ride around on a bus, touring the US while learning an 11 minute show.

That 11 minutes would change my life.

It's been almost a decade since that summer and I still look back on it fondly. A small part of me regrets part of the reason I did it, which was to prove to someone else (another drum corps) that I could march in a division I corps. (Note: Back when I marched, there were 3 divisions of competition. Division I was the elite and large drum corps) Yet, even for that crummy reason to march (this is why I didn't start skating again just to prove to some people in a small league that I could do it; they wouldn't care and it would be the wrong attitude), I learned a lot of valuable things from it.

We marched with the motto of "Better Every Day". Too often in life, we're worried about how we compare to others and we want to be better than them. In my drum corps, The Pioneer, Better Every Day was about self. You never compared yourself (in theory) to your peers but to yourself. Yesterday, you could hold the horn up for 2 minutes without getting shaky arms, then today you strive for 2.5 minutes. It was about seeing the small improvements and then being able to look back over a period of time and seeing how big all of those small improvements really were.

This was probably one of the best things I learned because man has it come in handy over the years.

Last summer, I was epically sick and could barely breath, so I didn't skate much until just before Debs started up again. This summer, it's been a matter of priorities. Over the course of the summer, I've come to terms with the fact that skating isn't my number one priority and that this is an Okay Thing. I work a very demanding job and I'm newly married AND I'm suddenly a Parental Figure. Responsibilities have changed as has my time commitments. Instead of freaking out and despairing melodramatically about how I'm stuck in a place and how Everyone Else Has Surpassed Me, I'm thinking more about the little things that I have improved on.

I can look back on this blog and read all of the things that I can now do, but the biggest one has been my change in confidence and attitude. I'm so happy for my Deb sisters who made it through boot camp and thrilled at those who were drafted. I know that I'm going to be far below in skill compared to those who didn't get drafted but hey, they just spent a summer getting their butts kicked by roller girls. They worked *hard* all summer and I know that it's not a commitment I can make in my life right now. This is also an Okay Thing. It's hard work and I enjoy it and I love how much I've improved.

Saturday I took a free parkour class offered at Fight or Flight Academy and then had an hour to kill before the class I was taking as part of my membership. So what did I do in that hour to stay limber? I went and found a place to skate for a bit. This was, annoyingly, my first time on my Antiks and to say I love them is a huge understatement. They felt like an extension of me. It was amazing! I didn't have much time on them between trying to find a place to skate, my husband calling and then having to get back to the gym, but it was a blast.

It was actually that second class that inspired me to write. One of the biggest things I've been learning in parkour is how to change downward momentum into forward momentum. This involves rolling. My dear husband has challenged me to be able to do a roll while wearing skates. I'm not entirely sure that this will ever happen but then I never thought I'd do parkour or derby either, so we'll see.

At 4pm on Saturdays, the gym offers two parkour classes; a beginner's class and a 30+ class. Often the two classes are lumped together but yesterday I was asked what I wanted to work on. I was surprised to learn that I was going to get my own 30+ class, which would really be more like a private lesson as I was the only one who qualified for that age group. I asked if we could work on rolling because it's been one of my weak points. I then spent an hour rolling and doing various exercises to improve my rolls.

Having spent two years learning how to fall on my knees and to fall small, it's been interesting trying to roll long. Rolling long means that my energy and momentum is moving forward instead of down, which would be into the ground and hurt. It's been really frustrating (and makes me dizzy) to keep trying these rolls and only feeling myself flop onto the ground and do something that isn't at all like a roll. Yet, over the course of the hour, Skinny, the trainer, started to point out all of the little things that were improving in my rolls. They were smoother. This one was longer. Once I started using my legs (there's a blog post about explosives legs being in derby and parkour somewhere in my head) and arms, instead of just letting them exist, I got more power in my rolls and could stand up. By the time we were done (Skinny insisted that I end on a good note), I was actually doing shoulder rolls that looked and felt how they were suppose to, mostly. 

It felt really good to hear that I should be working on and celebrating the small improvements because over time, they will become big ones. It was also encouraging to hear that all of these things require constant training and that you never stop working on the basics.

Over the course of the afternoon, I could feel all of those small changes and how big of a change they've had in me. I know that tomorrow I will be better at skating than I was today because I'm working on things off my skates and finding time to get back on my skates. Tomorrow, I'll get better at parkour because I'll find time to work on one thing to improve some muscle.

I am thankful that there's about 3 weeks left until Debs starts up again because I know I'm going to need it. I'm not sure where skating and derby are going to land on my overall priority list but I do know that my main goal is to get better every day.