okeydoke

I did not, repeat, NOT, throw up on Tuesday.  But I suspect the warmup was a bit easier than usual.

I'm not gonna lie - tonight is gonna suck

I haven't been to an A team practice the last three weeks, I haven't done any exercising outside of practice.  I fully expect to vomit and die; my only hope is that they don't happen simultaneously.

I had an epiphany last night about positional blocking - you don't have to get wide and low.  If I do that, it just makes it harder for me to get where I need to be.  A moderate stance is easier to move from, juke-wise.

I was really horked off for a lot of last night's practice, but I honestly don't remember why anymore.  I suppose that's a good thing.

and so on and so forth

I really, really, honestly and truly intended to go to practice on Sunday.  But, my mother-in-law died (she'd been sick for while, so it wasn't a shock, but still) and I needed to keep an eye on Maverick while Roy went to the funeral home.

But I did help out with Boot Camp!  There were about a dozen or so skaters there, and my group is the awesomest.  They picked up the hang of everything quickly and I am confident they will do amazingly.

in which I realize YET AGAIN I really should probably exercise outside of practice

yesterday afternoon I got a text from the coach of the A team - some (previously injured) skaters were finishing up their tryouts at scrimmage, and they were going to be skating short - would I be willing to skate with the A team during scrimmage night?

Um, sure!

Usually during scrimmage night we do B team vs. A team.  Last night was a black/white mixup for the first half, then B team vs. A team.  During the mixup I ended up jamming twice, which went okay - I got lead jam once but had to call it off before I could score, second time I had a bit of a problem getting through.  I could hear the A team coach yelling at me to KEEP MOVING MY FEET while I was jamming, so I tried doing that.

Then came the second half, when I skated with the A team.

I really need to do more (read: some) core work.  I kept falling.  A lot.  It was frustrating and I got really annoyed at myself for being such a slacker.

But there were some cool parts, too.  One lineup I was in, everyone else was an A team jammer. I made a comment like "one of these things is not like the other," and Captainness Awesome was like "what are you talking about?" and I said "you guys are all jammers" and she said "so are you," which isn't true but it was nice of her to say.

Then in one of the last jams of the night, the jammer on the B team jumped the apex, and I made sure to be RIGHT WHERE SHE WAS GOING TO LAND.  BLAMMO.  It wasn't a hit; it was a full-force collision.   I think I landed on my right ear.

But she got the penalty, so it was all worth it.

So yeah, more actual working out is in order.
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I was asked to help out again for the upcoming Boot Camp, as sort of a "den mother" to new skaters - lead them through the stations, cheer them up when they need encouragement, that sorta thing.  I'm looking forward to it.
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 I don't remember where I left things, but both my plates are screwed up with regards to my toe stops.  On my left skate (my primary stopping foot), I was able to pull out a bit of plate that is supposed to surround the hex nut that holds the plate together so the toe stop doesn't move.

this is bad, right?

 And then something happened with my right plate so the same thing's happening, although there doesn't seem to be any corresponding metal that I can yank out.

I went the hex nut route for a while, but I was still having problems with the nut coming loose and all that (which kept happening to me with my old nylon plates).  So I switched to Blue Loctite, slathering the bejesus out of the threads of the toe stop and the inside of the plate and whatnot, but I think it's still loose.

Maybe I should just weld the suckers in place and be done with it.

When last we left things...

...it was over a week ago.  I didn't go to Sunday practice, but not because I'm lazy or anything like that - I was out of town.  I didn't go to last night's practice, because Maverick had a band concert.

I *did* go to practice on Monday, but it was kind of annoying because when we divided up for skills and scrimmage, the teams were a bit lopsided.  I would yell out things, but I'd yell them out a second too late and by the time I got what I wanted to say out, it was too late and the other team had accomplished what they wanted to accomplish.  Sigh argh.

Anyway, the sneakers work pretty well, for the little bit of jogging we did on Monday.  (Mondays we spend 10 minutes tops on our off-skates warmup; on Tuesdays we spend 10 minutes just jogging.  Then comes 20 minutes of vomit-inducing interval stuff.)

ok, let's see what's happening

we had our closed-door bout on Saturday, against Syracuse.  They have a practice space that is deep in the bowels of one of the shopping malls there, and it's kind dark and chilly (at least until you get warmed up) and if you open the door leading to it at the wrong moment one of the outer pack referees might get a door to the face.  BUT IT'S THEIR PRACTICE SPACE AND THEIRS ALONE, so I'm jealous.

Anyway, we won by some totally insane amount (checking Facebook......253-48).  Afterwards we found out that their B team really only has six members, so the rest of their roster was made up of A team and Fresh Meat skaters (apparently one jammer said to our jammer at the line "I've never done this before - even in practice!")

Sigh.  I was talking to one of our referees afterwards, and he said something I've been thinking for a while - that unlike a lot of leagues, our B team has a pretty high skill level.  3/4 of our team has played for more than two years (more than half have played 3+ years), and to put us up against a bunch of "THIS IS MY FIRST BOUT" skaters is....well, it gets annoying, to be honest. 

I finally bit the bullet and got a new pair of sneakers.  My old pair were about five years old and I think they contributed to my knee issue the last time I went jogging.  I went to this local store that does personal fittings and threw myself at their mercy, and they gave me (well, not gave me, but provided me with and then I purchased) a pair of Nike Air Pegasus 29's.  We'll see how well they work out the next time I skate, which isn't going to be until Monday at the earliest.

JAMES BROWN IS DEAD

so I pulled some muscle or other in my back on Thursday (between my shoulder blades) and it was really acting up last night.  I sat out most of the second half of practice, trying to get it to relax.  'Twas annoying.

I don't have practice tonight, because the coaches and captains decided that the Tuesday practice before a bout is only for rostered skaters.  So no puking for me tonight!  I'll have to figure out something to do instead.