Monday, March 14, 2011

Drilled Into Submission

Time for derby drills! Everybody loves drills, it means you get to show everyone over and over again how well you do or do not know a skill. And, well, it is also a lot of really good practice especially with two roller girls watching you and giving you pointers the whole while.

For this training session we were split into four groups, which is good because though we have lost at least twenty fresh meaters there are still about sixty of us which can be a bit unwieldy at times. There were four stations on the circuit and we spent about fifteen or twenty minutes at each (which seemed like an hour when it was a hard one let me tell you). The stations were stops (plough and t), rockstar fall (and 180 stop), baseball fall and duck walk.

The group I was in began with baseball fall. This is a fun fall to do, in a way, once you get it. The thing that some girls had trouble with at first was not falling on both knees at once (ouchy!) but dropping first to one knee and tucking that leg, bent, under your body, and then dropping to hip/bootie while you slide in.

Also there was the whole coming to understand how to fall on your hip or ass in the right way so that you weren't totally hurting yourself. It's fun to learn. I had also learned in the warmups that my left leg has definitely been injured in a real way, in that first or second training session.

This is the muscle in my left leg that I have been able to instantly feel when I try to raise from a fall since that initial hurting time. I think it is my adductor longus or possibly magnus, which I have strained badly (I hope that is all at least) and hasn't yet been able to heal all the way. Anyway, this just means that the falling isn't the part that hurts me the most (though I did fall once REALLY hard on my hip), it's the getting up.

The next stop for me was duck walk. Duck walk is so ridiculous and hilarious yet very effective. It is tough getting your skates to be in the first position of ballet, pointing out sideways and sort of stomping about but it's fun to try. It sure does allow you to start quickly when you get it working right. It is a skill I look forward to trying to put into action in a game.

Rockstar fall looks cool. There's no denying it, the sliding in on two knees leaning back, very cool. This was no problem for me to do but my leg sure was starting to be angry with me. With this fall part of the requirement is a no hands on the ground get up. Hello burning thighs! We've met here before haven't we?

G-Force then showed us the 180 stop, which starts with a one knee slide except right after you begin your slide you take the leg still up on it's skate and swing it around the outside of your body, which swings you around and then you quickly lift up your other leg for getting up. If you do this right it just whips you right around so you're facing the opposite direction and you can get up and skate away all cool like. I really liked this, it was fun whipping around. Even with my stupid leg hurting I did some giggling.

Ploughs and t-stops were, well, stoppy. Not exciting but great practice and some good insight from the roller girls how to do them better and faster. You get the drill.

We also did measuring for endurance again. I forgot to mention that we did this last session, I don't know how cause I thought it was so cool. For the WFTDA test to be a part of roller derby you have to be able to skate around the track twenty five times in five minutes, this is called endurance. So, we got to try this last week and I got twenty laps in five minutes.

I was proud of my last weeks number, and I wanted to try and get at least one lap better. It may have been a lofty goal considering the insane drill session we had just been through but, it's good to have goals. At any rate, I was lucky to get twenty. I think I pushed to hard at the beginning and there was so little left to give, I was happy with my twenty by the end of it cause I wasn't even sure I would get that!

My very sweet husband had a hot bath ready for me when I got home, because he loves me and enjoys it when I take off my clothes. I have been trying to take good care of my leg with nice stretches, hot baths with epsom salts, massage, rest balanced with minor muscle building exercises. Until next weekend of course, then it's back into battle.

Coming Soon: Game Day!

1 comment:

  1. loved your post! I've just started derby (been to 7 practices so far) and am having the same problem - quad yoinks when I get up from a knee fall, etc. I'm going to experiment with my toe stop setting. going to read the rest of your great posts now!

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