Do I Really Want to Hurt Me?

Sooner or later it happens to the best of us...

Call them what you will, Boo-boos, Owies, Rink Rashes--what have you. Injuries are part and parcel of the derby life.

(For this and other lovely injury photos see: Rat City Rollergirls Hall of Pain.)

SCDG Injury Status Check:

FM Rachel: plum-sized booty bruise (and btw, honey, thanks for showing me, it's adorable!)

FM Nikki: shoulder pain galore last night after a taking a spill.

Barbarian Librarian: Hurt knee from skating like a banshee (and falling) at tryouts on Monday.

Roxy Scarmichael: Daily butt bruise update: which elder statesman or rock star does her salad-plate-sized bruise (gleaned from the CA State Fair 'assphalt') look like today?

And that's just in the past week! Yikes!

Now I'm not a big faller. (Oh great, here I go jinxing myself, right?) In fact, I don't have to go past my two hands in counting the number of times I've fallen since I started this whole derby insanity. But as Coach Charlie Redstick was explaining last night, this is not necessarily a good thing... Some of us don't fall because... well... um... because we are scared to.

Unfortunately, we 'fraidy cats with our fear of falling are more likely to do things that are not in our best interest, and thereby hurt ourselves in order to AVOID a fall. In fact, Charlie says back at that fatefull practice where she tried to catch herself instead of just falling she should have embraced biting it and thereby would have avoided dislocating her shoulder.

I don't like getting hurt. My knee has been complaining to me for the past couple weeks and that's scary enough. (Apparently players of 'a certain age'--mine-- can expect constant aches and pains. Oh yay.)

But even more so, I don't like being out of control and therefore I do not fall.

While learning rock climbing I was supposed to practice 'falling on purpose' (don't worry, this is while you're geared up with harnesses and ropes and such) and I HATED the VERY IDEA!! Fall on purpose? Right, next I'll be sure to cut off a cop on the freeway and willingly slam my hand in a door! But, as Coach Charlie was saying last night "Good jammers are good fallers." I'm afraid that to become a good player I'll have to get to know the hardwood on a more personal level (isn't picking up my mouth guard off of it and putting it back in my mouth intimacy enough?). This is probably where I'm going to be (another Charlie quote) 'pushing my comfort zone'--something we Freshies should be doing as our skills improve. Somebody, sing Weird Al's "Eat it" with me and let me revel in the ensuing bruised flesh and bruised dignity!!

For now, I'll try to reassure myself with the words I used to 'drop the derby bomb' on my mom: "Don't worry, this is a much safer hobby than motorcycling!" Yeah, but for a while could I wear my leather chaps on the track?