Roller Derby Boot Camp
Day 4
AKA- I can jump over a 5” cone!
Practice started as usual- warm ups and stretching. A few drills around the track- skating as fast as we could, T-stops, skating right (I can now almost do crossovers in that direction!), plow stop, then water break.
We then split into our usual drill lines and worked on another endurance drill. We had to skate midway, do a one knee 180 turn, skate back to the line and do a two knee fall. Get back up, skate towards the end while doing a right knee fall and a left knee fall along the way, and do a baseball slide at the end. Get back up and skate back towards the drill line while doing one knee falls and end it with a four point fall. We then went to the back of the line and while we waited to go again she had us do calisthenics. First we did squats, then after our second time doing the drill we did lunges, third time we did crunches, fourth time we did the plank. Fifth time we could whatever one we wanted, I chose squats as those were the easiest. After everyone did the skating drill 5 times, we were done (thank god).
They then broke us into three groups and we rotated from station to station learning 3 different things. I started off at Station 2 and there we learned how to do lateral jumps. This is where we skated straight ahead, balanced on one foot and then hopped to the other foot while pretending there was an obstacle for us to jump over. We kept going back and forth doing these jumps and we all slowly improved. I was overconfident on one and fell. At least I fell forward on knee pads, so no harm done.
Then we moved over to station 3 and learned how to jump over cones! First we started by jumping over a duct taped line on the floor. After we all successfully completed that, she laid cones on their sides for us to jump over. The cone tips that we were jumping over were probably only 1.5” high. Not too bad. Then she laid more cones down and we had to jump over the cone base, which is 3” high. To pass the skills test, we must be able to jump over a 3” obstacle. This was a bit daunting, but I reminded myself that these cones will move if I hit them. They will not trip me up, the only one who could do that is myself. So, I skated towards it and jumped. And landed successfully. It was exhilarating and surprisingly easy. After we did the 3” test, she wanted to challenge us and laid the cones up sitting normally, which gave them a height of about 5-6”. We didn’t have to jump those, but could if we wanted. So, I gave it a try and did it! I was running on the high of being able to successfully jump that high for the rest of the night.
Station 1 was an easy one. Weaving through cones spaced about 10ft apart. She moved them closer so they were probably 5-6ft apart and had us weave through those. No problem there.
After we did all the stations it was cool down time. And we were all running high on a good practice and I have to say, it felt good. :)
