why hello there!

Let's see....

1. Maverick and I went to North Central Regionals a weekend or two ago.  SO COOL.  It was neat seeing teams I'd never seen before.  And the FOOTWORK!  Holy crap they can juke. While I was there I bought new fancy bearings, and they do feel much quicker and spinnier.

2. Practices have been going well.  Last night we were doing a drill where we needed to hit the jammer out of bounds before we got too far away from the pack (as represented by a pacer).  I fell, but immediately tried to get up and yell "Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidge!" to let my partner know to keep going.  That received a lot of laughs, and a "you are, like, the most 'I won't quit' person" comment (which I appreciated).

3. On the suggestion of my captain, I've been lowering my toestops.  Since we do a *lot* of toestop work, this has made me feel less of a ballerina.

4. We're instigating some new rules for the remainder of the home season - no minors, everybody starts on the same whistle, whatnot.  We had our first scrimmage with it on Thursday and holy cow was it a clusterfuck.  There were points where one team had NOBODY on the track (two blockers in the box, and the other two blockers were both on their way to the box because they got majors from two different refs at the same time).  Because there was no pack, we (the team with a full contingent) had to let their jammer go by (and get all our points), which was a pretty crappy perfect storm.  We determined our only way to combat that was to just start booking until one of the other team's blockers got back on the track.

5. Maverick wants to work our merch booth next bout.  Sweet!

excuse my outburst here

So, once again, even with a smaller roster (11 skaters), even with the other teams stacking their rosters against us, we won both our half-hour bouts (151-59, and then 162-124).  YAY US!

However, a bunch of fans were bitching on our Facebook page about how they dislike slow derby and how the bouts my team played in were soooooooooo boring and if they were all going to be like that they weren't going to buy tickets anymore because it was sooooooooo boring and how they didn't understand what was going on because they were in the bathroom when the announcers were explaining slow derby strategy WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY OUR FAULT and the third bout of the night was soooooooo much more exciting because they didn't play slow derby and THANK YOU SO MUCH TEAMS WHO PLAYED IN THE THIRD BOUT FOR NOT BEING SOOOOOOOOO BORING.

I'm only exaggerating a little.

Our fans are used to the big windy-up hits that send skaters into the front row of seats.  They're used to mad scrambles and chasing and racing and whatnot.  Slow derby is the evolution of the sport as our league has chosen to see it.  My team was successful in implementing it in the first two bouts, so that is what the fans saw.  I didn't witness the third bout (I was helping close up the box office) but from what I understand it wasn't so much "fast pack" as it was "trying to do slow pack and failing + sloppy play".

So this is my message to the Facebook fans:

1. Football fans thought the forward pass made the game soooooooooooo boring at first
2. WE STILL WON BOTH OUR BOUTS WE'RE STILL UNDEFEATED NEENER NEENER NEENER.

my sparkling moment of awesomeness

So last night was scrimmage night.  The referees were trying out new people in different spots; as a result a LOT of penalties got called.

At one point I was the ONLY person from my team on the track*.  The other team had a full contingent.  Their jammer was fast approaching the pack.  The other team was lined up in front of me, I was in back....

...AND I KNOCKED THEIR JAMMER OUT OF BOUNDS AND THEN SHE CUT THE TRACK.

(insert cheers and fireworks here)

Oh, and tomorrow's bout day.  Yay!

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*Jammer and two blockers in the box, one blocker on her way to the box (to eventually get waved off)

ow, ow, OW

So I sprained my left thumb and skinned my knee at practice last night.  Dammit, they both hurt.

geesh

so when we started the season, our team had eighteen rostered skaters.

Three of those skaters are pregnant (or recently gave birth).
Three of those skaters started the season injured.
We've since lost three more skaters to injury (one broke her arm last night at practice).

THAT TAKES US DOWN TO NINE AVAILABLE SKATERS.

Guh.

It's weird going to scrimmage night and seeing the deep, deep benches of the other teams, and we're there with our five, or six, or seven skaters who are able to show up on that given night.  (On the other hand, apparently skaters on the other teams are complaining that they're not getting enough skating time, and we're like, "okay, three jams in a row and then I'll take one off and then go back in", which I actually don't mind, and by "actually don't mind", I mean "LOVE".)

The other teams keep asking us if we want to borrow players, and we haven't, and honestly I hope that continues.  We have a good, tight knot of skaters and we work really well together.  Our practices are tight and we don't have to wait for all the little conversations to die out to hear our coaches and captains talking.

Anyway.  Last night was pretty good if you overlook the part where my teammate broke her arm.  I concentrated on agility - getting up on my toe stops, concentrating on being on only one skate at a time at any point.  Someone suggested a new way for me to get out of a cluster of opposing blockers, and if I can get it to work (i.e., not fall over), it should be pretty awesome and completely legal (I did it once, the blockers kinda looked at the ref, and he was basically like "shrug, she didn't do anything illegal").

In other news, the wart on my heel is turning into a crater.  It's fascinating in a revolting way - I was examining it with a pair of tweezers last night, picking out wart bits and seeing how far I could stick the tweezers into the hole (at least 1/4").  It doesn't hurt anymore, which is awesome, so now I can get back to doing plow stops.

So!

There's this whole controversy arising now about Oly recruting ringers for their team right before the regionals deadline.  Here's what I posted on my league's Yahoo group about it:

"I just keep thinking about the skaters that get cut from a team's roster to fit the ringers.  

"They work their asses off for the whole season, blood and sweat and tears, work hard with their teammates.  They train, they learn, they become a unit with their team.  They work and work and work and get that spot in Regionals.  

"Then they're told 'Hey, guess what?  Y'know this thing you and your teammate just spent months and months working towards? Well, we really want to win it, and we don't think you're good enough to get us there.  So we're replacing you with someone else.'

"As for Atomatrix, she said it herself: 'I'm taking a spot that someone else deserves.'"

----

 So yeah.  That probably says more about me than anything else.

(also - I read a comment one of the skaters who was cut wrote, which was basically like "This will just inspire me to WORK HARDER DON'T FEEL PITY FOR ME", which I understand, but I would totally not be that way at all.  I'd probably want to set fire to the practice space or something.)

various items

so, I now can officially say that I've thrown up during a practice.  Whee?

Monday's team practice warmup (when this happened) wasn't necessarily *harder* than usual, but it was more relentless (and I *guess* I pushed myself harder?)  Anyway, I felt better afterwards, finished up the practice and can cross that off my bucket list.

I think my skate boots are *finally* broken in, because all the trouble I was having with my toes in the last few months has vanished.  Yay!

In other news.... going back to this, skating has been okay with it except for plow stops.  For whatever reason, I end up putting a lot of pressure on my foot RIGHT WHERE THE THING IS when I plow stop, which makes for derpy-looking plow stops (as evidenced by Monday's practice, where I would do these lame plow stops in the pack and my teammates would have to grab my shirt and pull me back to stop me).  Anyway, yesterday I had a follow-up appointment and my dermatologist did a little digging around with a razor and was like "hm, now it seems more like a wart, and it's pretty deep" and then suggested treating it more aggressively and I was like "YES LET'S GO AGGRESSIVE" and I got LASERS SHOT AT MY FOOT.

DERMATOLOGIST: Do you usually take acetaminophen or ibuprofen for pain?
ME (in my head): I SKATE IT OFF.

After the anesthesia wore off (she said it would take an hour and a half; it took ABOUT FIVE MINUTES), I can now barely put any weight on my heel right now without it really really hurting.  Four ibuprofen fixes it, but every six hours I have to take more.  It'd better be better by Thursday, 'cause I got scrimmage.