It's Hittin' Time

I think that last night was the first time we worked on really hitting people at Fresh Meat practice.

Due to the inclement weather (remnants of Typhoon Melor), only eight or nine of us showed up for our hour-long practice.  We started with some pace line and pack drills and then we moved on to some mini-scrimmaging.  Each team was down a pivot, so we each only had three blockers and one jammer. We worked on opening holes for our jammer by hitting fellow blockers and we were also allowed to hit the jammer.

For some reason, I always seemed to be on the ground or stuck at the back of the pack.  I had one moment of glory, however, when on our second or third jam, FM Kat was jamming and I was still stuck in the back of the pack.  I wanted to help out Kat, but the blocker in front of me was FM Kellie.  Kellie is a force to be reckoned with out there -- she played hockey for years and is just a super solid skater.  So for me, a not-so-confident skater, I had a moment of hesitation before taking her on.  I had no choice, however, but to engage.

I made contact with FM Kellie and down I went!  I heard a body or two (or three) hit the ground after me.  I don't really know who all went down, because I had, well, um, closed my eyes when I went in for the hit.   Hating the idea of causing skater pile-ups, I just started to automatically apologize as I scrambled to my feet.  Coach Charlie was skating toward me with this giant smile, telling me to stop apologizing.  She shook my hand and congratulated me for doing what I was supposed to do!  Kellie and Kat also gave me congratulatory taps and words.  Yay!  I still don't know what I did or if I could do it again...

We finished the night by breaking into groups of three.  The skaters on the outside took turns hitting the person in the middle into the next person.  For example, I would hit FM Evelyn into FM Alayna and then Alayna would hit Evelyn into me.  I threw multiple elbows (sorry ladies...still new at hitting!), but overall I think I had some decent hits.  Coach Crushed N. Slayedher complimented me when I hit without a tell, because there was no change in my body language prior to going in for a hit.

I spent an inordinate amount of time on the ground yesterday and my bottom is really sore this morning.  My left shoulder muscles are also pretty tender.  I think I had a pretty good practice, but I really need to work on remaining upright after collisions.