This morning...was it THIS morning? Really? Wow!

O-K!

Practice was at 9 am, and it's now almost 1 am, and I took a nap and have done like 400 things today including take one of the weirdest bus rides of my life, so EXCUUUUSE me if I don't remember everything or my recollection of practice is hazy.

So, this morning, right. Well, firstly I stepped in dog poo and did not want to expose the warehouse to that, so I wore my flippie-floppies for stretching. And then we jogged 2 laps around the derby track, backwards. That may have been the worst part of practice today.

Anyway, we geared up and I am happy to say my new skates are certainly getting better. WAY less pain today. We did some things around the track, but it was like squats and I was tired, so I forget. Then the grannies took over the track with Sin Plicity and we n00bs went to elsewhere with Drew FearMeMore. Despite her gruff name, Drew is actually really sweet and very helpful. She's an approachable trainer.

Drew had us squat around the outside of the track, then there were some one-legged glides. Then there was some stickyskating in both directions.

Then we did some stops, drops, and hops. Frankly, I just liked the rhyming. We DID do all 3 things, but the stop

s and drops/falls were first. We did t-stops and plows back and forth between the track and the benches. Drew was impressed with our progress so she tried to teach us hockey stops. They aren't strictly required, but they're useful. Mostly we did poorly. I managed to bust my ass, but then the next one I tried, I DID!! I did a hockey stop. However in the ass-bust, I took a knee to the thigh resulting in my FIRST EVER DERBY BRUISE!!! FIRST, Y'ALL!!!!

From there we moved on to knee-touches, and double knee falls, and then we worked on to baseball slides. Then we did 6-point falls, moving back onto the track. I worked REALLY hard to not use arms to get up. None at all. And I succeeded. So that was big.

Next we did hops. The one-to-one and two-footed both. Then Drew invented this awesome obstacle course that led off with us skating the inside line, then sidestepping then swerving around cones, and finally lateral movement for 1/2-3/4 of the track. I really worked on lateral movement and felt successful with it.

My brain is struggling to remember what happened next. I can do it. Oh, booty blocking! We lined up jammers and blockers and blocked around the track. I put to use some of my knowledge/skills gained the other night. I wasn't super awesome, but I'm making progress. I'm trying to think if there was anything else we did...

I can't remember. Sorry Drew. Loved your plan, but I can't remember it.

We did some awesome core-work, everyone's favorite. V sit-ups and leg lifts and stuff. Then we de-geared and cooled down. It was, as Drew said, a chance for us to work on basics. So I seized the opportunity to do so and saw some real results. And I got my first bruise. Yay!