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…
Tags: betty blitzkrieg, blitzkreig, blitzkreig deluxe, claire ashworth, fresh meat, roller derby, vrdl boot camp, white star assessment
