Skewered by Skate

I'm having a bit of trouble sitting on my right butt cheek this morning.  Last night, I was paired with Hell Louise (Weezie, for short), FM Jacklyn and FM September for a drill on using your body to wiggle between two blockers to make a hole for your jammer to go through.  Weezie was awesome!  She didn't rush us into doing this at a pace beyond our comfort level and she gave constant, encouraging feedback.  I liked this drill a lot, but I kept locking skates with everyone and took major tumbles to the ground.  On one of these tumbles, my butt cheek landed really hard right on my skate wheel, which is what has caused me some discomfort this morning.  No bruise yet, which is something for which to be thankful -- Roxy Scarmichael's current butt bruise is quite terrifying!  I'm also grateful that I did not land with the skate wheel wedged in my ass crack.  That unpleasant experience has happened to me before and is something that I would really like to avoid in the future.

Otherwise, I thought I had a decent practice.  I was paired up with LuLu Lockjaw in the double pace line.  I was on the outside line, so I had to work extra hard just trying to keep as even with her as possible in the pace line.  This drill encouraged teamwork and when it came time to weave through the pace line, she was really good about not letting me fall too far behind and she kept her hand behind her in case I needed to grab onto it.  When we finally broke through the line, we had to sprint around the track to the front of the pace line.   LuLu let me sprint in front of her, which, as the faster skater, was a good idea because she could then set her pace to mine instead of me trying to keep up with her.  She was really positive and motivating throughout that drill and the next, when I was behind her in the single pace line.

I sat out toward the end of the night, because there were team tryouts for those girls who are eligible to play in bouts.  I don't know how many spots were available on the team, but the way these women skated makes me think that there was only one spot.  They fought so hard and looked amazing!  Great job, ladies!