Roller Derby Boot Camp
Day 7- aka the day they made everything hurt
I both love and hate endurance practices. Sprint, fall, sprint, fall, sprint, slide, spint, and fall again. Wait for your turn to sprint and fall again and while you’re waiting do some squats! Oh, you’ve done the sprint drill 4 times already? Okay, now do the plank while you’re waiting! Congrats, you’ve done the sprint drill 8 times and can now rest.
Let’s break you into three groups and go over some old and new skills. We’re testing two of you on Sunday and we forgot to teach you something! (That would be me.) Group 1 go over your T-stops and plow stops. (I can finally, finally, finally stop within the 10-feet!) Group 2 work on crossing the track. (The new skill we haven’t done before but need to be able to pass for the basic skills test. We had minimum time to cover this and I was a bit put off when I asked if there was more to it that I needed to know before I test on Sunday and she just told me that if I can weave through cones I’m okay. That didn’t really answer my question, but if she’s confident in me, I guess I don’t need to worry?) Group 3 work on static walking. (Ugh…can’t get this one down pat. My wheels like to roll. I know how to stop it, but I can’t seem to stabilize myself enough to keep it from happening. I can walk on my toe stop just fine, but side-by-side will be a bit rough.)
Alright, now that you guys got those skills down, lets do another endurance drill! Skate around the track and when we yell “front”, stop and do push-ups! When we yell “back”, do bicycle kicks! When we yell “go”, toe-stop sprint and skate again. Let’s do this for about 10 minutes and kill your arms! (Yeah, this was a little brutal. My arms are weak to begin with, and I started my push-ups regular style and then had to switch to doing them on my knees. Sigh. Talk about burning; My arms are a bit sore today.)
And now i’m all nervous about testing on Sunday. I feel like I know this stuff and do it correctly, but there’s still that part of me that thinks that i’ll screw up enough things to not get an average score of a “3” to pass the test. (They have a 4 point system of grading. A 1 means you absolutely suck. A 2 means you have the concept down you just don’t execute it properly. A 3 means you do most things perfectly. A 4 means you’re a rockstar. I don’t know if this is a WFTDA thing or if it’s just the way my club does their grading?) At least the 25 in 5 isn’t do or die. If I fail that but pass the skills test, I still go on. I have until the end of the year to pass the 25 in 5. I think i’ll try to skate Friday or Saturday to get some nerves out and practice some things.
