Slowly De-N00bifying

Last night was 80's night at one of the local rinks. Scott and I went out with our friends Tony, Alisha, Teddy, and Shannon, and it was a great time! At first Iwas pretty unsure of myself, and my ankles hurt terribly, but I pushed myself and i probably skated about 70% of the night, which really tested and built my stamina. By the end of the night, I was skating relatively smoothly and quickly with no ankle pain at all! It was really a great experience, Scott got to see a very brief demo of roller derby, and I cannot wait for practice tonight!!! :-D
To hook up with your own Derby league, or to find an upcoming bout in your area, just google roller derby and the name of your town, or maybe the closest city to you. I myself am looking forward to actually watching a Bout in person for the first time!

What do YOU want to hear?

Hey Guys. Just a quick post to ask for some feedback-I wanna make this blog as complete and interesting as possible, so if there's a particular aspect of training or the sport you wanna hear more about when I blog, please feel free to ask for it! also, i welcome comments and feedback of any sort! THANKS for reading!

First Practice

Went to my first practice from 5-7 pm yesterday, January 27, 2008. I was soooo incredibly nervous! when I got there, I was immediately greeted by Ram Jam Betty- who is a sweet gal and as it turns out, a pretty skilled Rollergirl. She made me feel much more at ease, and I was feeling pretty comfortable by the time Raven Darkhold got there. She was thrilled to see me, and was awesome about helping me find and put on gear. I felt really dumb, since I was making her miss warm ups and stretching, but she said not to worry about it. Then, once I was all geared up,I discovered my skates were too small. Don't it just figure? Well, took me another 15 minutes or so to get the gear off, get the new skates on and gear up again, but then my feet felt SO much better. A really nice gal named Christina took me under her wing and skated slowly with me at the opposite end of the rink from where most of the girls were doing speed drills. I know it shouldn't have, but it just amazed me how hard it was to get my legs back under me after not having skated on quads in 13 years! My ankles are still pretty weak, so I am gonna get acewraps to see if that will help- I think though, that they should get stronger with time. After about 20 minutes, Adam, one of our Refs, came over and taught me my first stunt fall. I did it really clumsily, but I guess okay for my first try. Then, almost immediately after I stood up from the stunt fall, I fell for real. Backwards, in slow motion right on my butt, in front of everyone! Only hurt for a second or two, and I did not hit my tailbone, fortunately. That was my only fall of the day, which I count as a good sign! :-) After skating with Christina a little more, I sat and watched the girls Jam for the rest of practice. This was when I fell in love with the sport. I'd read a little about it online, but watching it really made it click in my head. The teamwork required and the focus- that is right up my alley. During this time, a bunch of the girls came over and introduced themselves, which was super nice, and made me feel very welcome. After a few cool down laps, we sat around and stretched, and discussed upcoming plans for practices and the travel team for the next Bout was announced. All in all a very cool experience and I cannot wait to get on skates again!

You wanna do WHAT??

My Husband did not say that, but i am fairly sure he thought it. I've never been super athletic, and I fall very far on the girly side of femininity, but i really wanted to do this! I've know a girl or two involved with Roller Derby for a while now, and it has always seemed interesting, but probably not for me. I had a stereotype in my head of all these punk rock angry women beatin each other down. Until this past Saturday night.We went to a housewarming party for some friends, and I met a few Rollergirls there. We talked, and I discovered some really cool chicks who were nothing like what i expected from this sport. Raven Darkhold (her Derby name) invited me to come to a practice and try it out for myself- assuring me it wasn't as hard as it seemed. Sunday morning i was chomping at the bit to find out when and where the next practice was!