Blitzkrieg Deluxe » fresh meat

WHITE STAR : THE FINAL SKATIER

blitzkrieg deluxe — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:27:49 +0000

These are the voyages…*cough* sorry, got a little carried away…

So white star test, the bane of my existence for 7 or so months, was finally upon us.

I was fine up until the morning at which point I became a bundle of nerves reminiscent of the exact situation I was in last year. So much nervous energy.. I couldn’t sleep in or sit still around the house. I just wanted to get it all over with.

We started out basically stretching and practicing everything that was going to be on the test to warm us all up. I have to admit I didn’t really push myself too hard at this point because a) I didn’t want to wear myself out and b) I didn’t want to hurt myself before the test had even started.

And then came the test *gasp*

Now from what I remember (which is probably not 100% accurate) my results went something like this :

ENDURANCE

Laps: 25 laps in 5 minutes = 3/5 – Increased fitness will help with number of laps. Last time I got 19.5 so at least I can actually see some progress there.
Cross over form: = 3/5 – appears a little unbalanced.
Derby Stance =3/5 – Need to get lower.

Stance and cross-overs suffered due to me being so tired. Increased fitness should in theory help me improve everything to do with endurance.

STOPS

T-stops = 4/5 – Possibly need to get a little lower.
Plow-stops = 4/5 – Shorter stopping distance would be good.

FALLS

1-point = 3/5 Needs a quicker recovery, be in better stance.
2-point = 3/5 Needs a quicker recovery
4-point = 4/5 Probably needs a quicker recovery.

JUMPS

Basic jump: 4/5 – Need to increase balance so I don’t seem as shaky when landing.

GRAND TOTAL 3.44(3.4) out of 5 WHITE STAR PASS! WOOTLES :D

While we were waiting for the results we played some tag games and practiced some whipping, lots of fun. There was a pretty good vibe going around. Everyone seemed so relieved the test was over.

Wifey had organized a dinner booking down the road for everyone after the test which was a great idea. It was really good to sit around with everyone from the coaches to other white star takers and completely stuff our faces, relax a bit and totally stink out all the other punters. Awesome.

So this means that just under a year of me buying my first pair of derby skates I am officially in a roller derby league. I’m not sure it will fully sink in until the first training session but I’m just going to relax for a little bit now… maybe… anyone for rollerama?? :D

The good news (besides the obvious) is that I don’t have to write a boot camp experience for the third time. From this point on everything is going to be pretty new to me. This means more challenges, probably more tears but hopefully a lot more progression towards perhaps, one day, being able to play roller derby in an official capacity.

I really hope that everyone that didn’t make it the first time goes back for the resit in a couple of weeks. I know how crappy it feels to not make it the first time. It sucks hard. Just quietly, I was pretty upset the first time, a lot more then I probably communicated to people. I felt completely defeated. Honestly though, I have no idea where I would be now if I had just given up the first time. Derby is not easy, it’s not ever going to be easy and if it was easy I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be all that interested. Stay with it girls. It won’t be the same without you.

See you soon <3

BOOTCAMP 4 : LIVE FREE OR SKATE HARD

blitzkrieg deluxe — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 08:48:25 +0000

Will I grow out of using blog titles based on movie sequels? nope and I’m not even sure that I want to.

So this week started well. I managed to scam some printing and binding resources from my place of employment to finally get a copy of the rules organized. I am yet to read them even though they have been officially sitting on my desk at home for a week. I even coloured in the front with pink biro rather then actually do any productive reading. At least I have the guys at work walking around the office making random ref singles… office favourite seems to be “grandslam” so maybe i’ll actually start learning from them.

Rollerama sessions were great as usual apart from me trying my best to do jump 180’s and stacking hard. You know the kind of stack i’m talking about. Your feet fly out forwards from under you and it feels like you’re floating in mid air for hours before you crash to earth butt first. It was pretty embarrassing on a night where there are derby veterans present. However I still went from person to person asking if they saw my uber fail and proudly announcing that I landed on my sidebum.

As an added bonus one of our “crew” won the nightly roll the dice game and I got to share in the spoils…in skittles form…I tasted the rainbow and it was delicious.

Then came boot camp week 4. Poor wifey hurt her bot bot and deemed herself too sore to participate. This meant spending almost 2 hours sitting around watching us noobs with only a bag of peas for company :(

A lot got crammed into this weeks sessions:

SATAN’S MATTRESS: A game/relay type thing where you skate towards a wall and as you get close move into a baseball slide,then flat onto your back while sliding towards the wall but not hitting it with your feet. then waiting for the whistle and getting up and doing it again as fast as you can. REALLY hard work.
WEAVING: Wide weaves and narrow weaves, very strange sensation and a lesson in weight distribution. I’m not very good at narrow weaves but I am better then I used to be.
JUMPS: Starting from jumping a line - to jumping a cup – to finally jumping a box. I never feel quite safe jumping so i’m hoping I will eventually get used to it. I did manage to jump a little box though so *squeals*

Apart from those new things there was heaps of activities recapping everything we have learned so far which was good. We also did some more transitions and sprinting endurance practice. I’m still critically unfit I think so the more of this stuff the better.

OMG HELMET WOOT! The highlight of my week was totally getting my new helmet back from J-F Tranquille. It’s been painted absolutely perfectly. I knew when I asked him initially if he could do a custom helmet for me I would be in good hands. He SOOO delivered! He took my love of Wolfinstein,skulls and Blitzkrieg and made something better then I would have ever imagined. Ok i’ll stop gushing now..but srsly… OMG OMG OMG lols. <3 J-F

So now the wait begins to actually wear it. I figure I will wait till after the white star. I still can't register the name for a while yet but passing the white star (laces crossed) will be enough validation for me!

Quick disclaimer: I’d like to clarify that even though my name and helmet is world war 2 inspired I am totally not a fascist nazi racist jerkface. kthanx.

So there’s no bootcamp this sunday the 13th, which is a bummer, but we’re off to Radalaide instead for the Great Southern Slam. A totally worthy compromise. Reports and badly taken pictures to follow..

HERE WE GO AGAIN : IDERBY 2.0

blitzkrieg deluxe — Sun, 16 May 2010 11:02:05 +0000

So pretty much exactly 6 months since my first boot camp experience with VRDL comes my second with SSRD. This time it was very different.

Last time I barely knew anyone at all except for Bec, who I had seen at rollerama a couple of times and even then we had idle friendly banter at best.

This time there was a small squad of rollerama regulars who I have come to know and love, as well as Bec who has since become my derby wife !

Last time I was sick with nerves and could barely sleep the night before because I was so worried I was going to embarrass myself with my lack of skill.

This time I was so excited I could barely sleep the night before. I knew the last 6 months of practising the same old skills on a weekly basis meant I was not going to be as hopeless as last time…or did it ???…yes it did.

Last time I was getting frustrated with my mind and body for not cooperating, getting stressed out that I was holding people up, pissing off the coaches due to weakness and sweating my proverbial balls off in 35 plus degrees.

This time I was only getting frustrated with my mouth guard for being lame but I was still probably pissing off the coaches, this time due to laughing too much instead of QQing about passing out. I was still sweating it up albeit in a more comfortable 20 degree heat.

Last time my pads and gear were all new and uncomfortable like.

This time everything fits a little better, I’m so used to wearing them that it feels wrong to skate without them. This time however…the gear PONGS !

Last time I could not skate more than 19.5 laps in five minutes.

This time i could skate 22 ^_^

The skills we need to learn are the same as last time. We need to be able to do the following to pass our white star to be invited to join South Sea Roller Derby.

Toe stops and plow stops
One knee falls, two knee falls, 4 point falls
Jumps
Skate 20+ laps of the track in 5 minutes with good form (bend those knees!) and cross overs

All things considered I believe I am much more prepared mentally and physically for boot camp and derby. I know how to do everything on the list and even though there is room for improvement on everything I’m pretty sure I’ll be happy whatever happens.

Basically I am having a boat load more fun this time around (OMG I’m already making nautical references !). Being relaxed, being in the most awesome company and knowing how to do more than skate around in circles sure does have its advantages.

Bring on week two !

In other news : the blog has a new skin! I think green is my favourite colour at the moment. Can you tell? A big thanx to misty meaner for letting me steal her photos from sunday.

BOOT CAMP : WHITESTAR TEST

blitzkrieg deluxe — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:16:35 +0000

Hooray assessment day !

the air was so thick with nerves you could chew it. everyone was scared shitless, myself included.

i headed over early to get a decent warm up with the 2 becs. we got there, kitted up and paid our monies and got out on the floor. Started out shaky as usual but got down and just tried to keep my mind off the white star test.

We started out stretching and i got possibly the 2 best pieces of news i’d had all day:

1) If we fail today we get to have another shot at in in just over a week
2) We are not being tested on cross-overs in the reverse direction.

At this stage reverse cross overs are the bane of my existence.. i’m just too awkward for them. I felt pretty much the entire group breathe a little bit easier after this announcement. However the relieved smiles were quickly wiped off peoples faces minutes later when it came time to start the actual white star tests. eeep !

So this is how it went down yo! :

STOPS: specifically plow stops and t-stop. I think i did these ok… well by that i mean i stopped and didn’t stack. But my plow stops are something i think i’m going to have to cultivate over a long period of time before they look any good.

FALLS: specifically one knee (each side), double knee and 4 point falls (both knees, wrists and elbows). These again i think i did ok on. Not perfect by any means but i managed to do the one knees on both sides without any major incident, the double knees were ok with one knee going down just before the other and the 4 point.. well it’s not my strong point but they were better than they were last week.. which isn’t saying that much

ENDURANCE: 5 minutes around the track sprinting, focusing on form(stance, cross-overs) and basically trying to do as many laps as possible with 2 – 4 other ladies on the track. omgomgomg i was so scared of this one, especially seeing as i tend to over heat and become a sweaty mess. But it ended up alright i think. I had a few uneasy moments but was able to keep the same brisk-ish pace the whole time with a few crossovers included for good measure… i think. special shout out to peta for yelling out to me and making me panic lol <3

JUMPS: what we had all been dreading. Jumping over cones. This was my major downfall of the day. I DID the jumps and i DIDN’T fall over but the style was ridiculous. Jumps are the thing i am most concerned about but i’m sure i can put in a bit more work on them if i have to.

After jumps it was warm down time and the realisation it was all over. everyone seemed relieved, like a polar opposite of how we were when we came in. the strangest thing was that i just wanted to keep on skating.

All in all i’m not prepared to speculate about whether i’m going to pass or fail. We won’t know for a couple of days most likely so i’m just going to continue skating and try not to think about it (yeah right).

I think the favourite part of my day though was heading over to the local pub with some other lovely freshies to relax, have a drink and a good laugh at ourselves. The bar wench was not impressed with the stench apparently which provided many lols.

I wish all the girls that were there today the best of luck and hope to be skating with them again very soon. Also the coaches were awesome, every week we were encouraged and helped with everything. They were all approachable and patient and willing to dispense the same advice over and over and over and over again.

Seriously this was the best experience i’ve had in a long time and whatever happens after today i WILL be involved in one way or another with the VRDL. I think i’m becoming obsessed…

BOOT CAMP DAY THREE

blitzkrieg deluxe — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:00:57 +0000

a productive week i think.

I was pretty sore up until Wednesday when i ventured out and did a little bit of form practise at rollerama. no derby girls to chat to so i didn’t stay long and came back on thursday.

thursday was awesome. met a lot more girls and had lots of good chats. it’s become pretty obvious that most of us are as nervous and unsure as everyone else which is kinda reassuring.

I spent most of the sesh just skating around and trying to plow stop, which now i can kinda do. not that well but maybe enough to get me over the line… i’m really not sure.

this brings us to sunday. it wasn’t hot this week which was a plus but we started with jumps, i don’t think i was too warmed up because i was the first girl to stack on my first jump no less. but after that i found something resembling a rhythm sorta. i over heated like i tend to do and needed to take my helmet up and drink more than most people. SO WEAK ! i feel like i constantly need to apologise to the instructors because i feel like i’m going to pass out. hopefully as my fitness improves i will be able to handle the heat better… or maybe i just need to cut my hair ._.

after the jumps it was falls. i think i’ve improved on these a little. just need to practise the 4 point falls a bit more. need to be more compact… like i’m in a bloody great nutshell.

after falls it was stops. t-stops are alright and plow stops are getting there unbelievably. more practise this week required but i’m feeling more confident for a change.

after the stops it was pace weaving. i could feel my eyes widen and mouth drop at the thought of moving round the track weaving in and out of people. i was almost literally shitting myself. but once we got going it was alot easier than i thought. the hardest bit was actually staying the right distance from the first person in front.

then came the “air traffic control” where basically once person stood at the end of the track making signals. each signal related to a skill. eg) arms left = strafe left/lateral movement, arms down = double knee fall, arms up = jump. we all lined up and got ready to go. i was first in my line and for some reason when the whistle went i just started going… i was however way to early and was taking part in the instructors demonstrating. i didn’t realise till half way down that no one else in fresh meat was with me. i felt like the biggest douche… so i skated to the end turned arnd and sheepishly returned to the front of my line. OMG HOW EMBARRASSMENT !!!. most definitely the biggest faux pas so far. i just hope people just think i’m just an idiot rather than an arrogant idiot.

after that disaster it was endurance while practising our cross over form in the anti clockwise direction (normal derby direction). it was all fun and games until we changed direction.. i can not cross over going clockwise. probably the thing i will need to practise most this week.

all in all i left the session feeling soaked to the bone in sweat, still cringing but also feeling a little bit better about my abilities. i know next week i’ll be a nervous wreak for the white star assessment but right now, tonight, i’m going to kick back and pretend everything’s going to work out fine.

it’s going to be a week full of skating me thinks, on any day i’m physically able to.