Second Week Roller Skating

Today there are two other new girls. Melinda has been skating for a few weeks now and is preparing to take something called the Minimum Skills Test. The other girl, Sandy, is skating with us for the first time. Sandy is athletic. (I am not.) Sandy is slender and tall. (I am not.) Sandy is taking to the drills quickly and naturally. (I am not.) Do I hate Sandy?

Nope.

Sandy does the most beautiful thing. She asks questions. She asks about our current drill, about derby in general, about the rules of the game. This is beautiful because every time she asks a question, we pause. I get to kneel on a chair under the pretense of getting a drink. Really I am taking the weight off my aching feet and wobbling legs. I kneel, sip, circle my ankles, and listen through a haze of exhaustion and pain as Angela explains the game to Sandy.

Angela is our New Girl instructor today. She is on crutches due to a knee injury. Today is extra awesome partly because she is awesome and partly because the new girls have our own track today.

We go through it all again, except this time I'm sore and achy from last practice. We do knee drops, T-stops, plow stops. We practice skating in the dreaded Derby Stance. We also start talking crossovers, which Sandy can - of course - already do.

Crossovers are that thing that in my mind always separates the people who can actually skate from piddlers like myself. If you've been to a rink, you've seen it. Someone skates around a corner. They pick up their outside foot and set it down on front of the inside foot. Crossing it over, as it were At this time, my best strategy for skating around corners is to hold my breath, tense my body, keep my wheels on the floor, and hope I can make it all the way around before I need to push again. Apparently this does not cut it in roller derby.

I try to do a crossover. I start skating. I hesitantly pick one skate up in preparation of crossing it over the other skate.
BAM!! Right on the butt.
I get up, start skating again, try to pick up one foot.
BAM!!
Up, skate, foot,
BAM!!
BAM!!
BAM!!

Half of these falls are not on my nice friendly kneepads, but on my sore bruised butt. I'm definitely going to feel that later.

Angela has some great suggestions. She has me stand in one spot and just try crossing one skate over the other. I pick up my skate.
BAM!!
We have identified the problem definitively. I cannot lift a foot for even a moment without the other skate leaving the floor and my butt landing on said floor. This is kind of a big deal. I keep at this exercise for a while and eventually can lift one skate and put it . . . Kind of forward. It is not in front of the other skate and is most certainly not crossed over. This, however, is my victory for the day.

Angela gives me homework. To build my legs, I will stand in one spot and drop to my knees and back up over and over. To get used to crossing over, I will wear my skates on the carpet and practice stationary crosses.

Once again, I can barely move at the end of practice. I can't wait until the next one.