A couple of weeks ago, Cinzilla had these scrimmage tanks I ordered ready for me at practice. Seeing my name and number right there in black and white made my throat go "Ulp..." a little. Am I ready to don these babies and scrimmage with the big girls?
I've experienced various delays with time off skating--including sprained (not broken!) wrist, and laparoscopic (non-derby related!) ovarian surgery. Perhaps this has made me a little too comfortable hanging back a bit? Many of the girls I tried out with have passed their scrimmage assessment tests and even placed on the Hellcats team. I watch them with pride, (my sisters are kicking butt!) but sometimes wonder, shouldn't I be pushing a little harder to catch up to these girls? Don't get me wrong... I've been having an absolute blast at practice with the new batch of fresh meat. (Birthing the Baby, anyone?) But time has flown and oh my gosh, now they've gone and reached their 90 day mark and aren't so fresh anymore themselves. I'm feeling like very moldy, maggoty meat, indeed.
Gotta move along! It's time for me to take things to the next level and push myself into the land of the scrimmaging--aka: the skaters who have been cleared for practices that involve full contact--aka: hitting. In order to be cleared for scrimmaging a skater must demonstrate a bunch of stuff including:
- good form (good, good. I can do that),
- that she is a safe skater with clean hits and clean falls (Pretty sure I've got that down)
- that she can conduct herself appropriately in a pack (Yeah, I'm good with that too)
- Oh, and show aggressiveness. That's where the "ulp..." comes in. The pacifist, non-athletic part of my brain whines, "I've always been a lover, not a fighter! I've never been mistaken for Sporty Spice--I didn't do soccer (or any other sport) as a kid. There's no hitting in salsa dance!!"'
As much as old voices in my head argue, I cannot deny that derby has taught me a lot. Physical and mental challenges abound. I've skated way past the point where I want to give up, shown up for practice absolutely dead-tired and left rejuvenated, and launched myself at girls trying to go 'through' my target--trying to channel every irritating library interaction of my workday into one big wallop to the quadriceps of my drill partner.
There is so much in derby that is absolutely nothing like anything I've ever done before in my life. It's been a challenging and interesting process on so many levels and I'm loving how strong it makes me feel. Really, it makes sense for me to push for this thing I really hope to master: feeling like I can really be an ass-kicker to be reckoned with. So, with that I say "Bring on the Scrimmage Assessment!"
Wish me luck at tomorrow night's practice where I'll kick off the scrimmage assessment process by having Coaches Shammy and Crushed N. Slayedher look at my skating form and determine whether I'm ready to move to the next level.
And if all goes well, I'll be able to post a picture of me
wearing those scrimmage tanks soon!
