Falling for derby

Brain injuries weren't a thing back then...

Oh, blog, it's been a while. A lot has happened since I broke my ass back in October and almost all of it has involved complaining about how much my tailbone hurts. I'm about to blow your mind: It still hurts. I think my coccyx just hurts now, like, that is just its status quo.

Anyhoo, I'm sure I mentioned 50 or 60 times that falling so hard harshed my confidence mellow, big time. It took me some time to get back to regular skating, partly because of the intense amount of pain and partly because it is just hard to get back into a habit. I was in (literally) paralyzing pain for about 2 weeks and then just horrible, horrible pain for two more weeks. And then I had to eat cookies and drink alcohol for most of December. But, I am now (finally) back in the damn habit. I skate four times a week; two team practices, one derby class, and one solo rink skate just to work on skills with which I just can't dominate team practices. My transitions are crap so I need to work on that for a couple of hours by myself, just stuff like that that requires repition. I credit my Monday night 7-9 skate at the local rink with finally giving me my mother scratching plow stops. 

Speaking of plow stops (or "plough" as they call them in Canada) I seriously did not ever think I would be able it plow stop. Ever. It seemed like a ridiculously impossible feat, like I might as well climb the K2. Then I borrowed a friend's slightly harder wheels and viola! Plow stop. I can do two foot and one foot fairly reliable. I am working in walking plow and hard plow. Seriously though, the difference in the wheels was only a couple of digits. I started on Radar Bullits which are 93a and I switched it Atom Lowboy slims which are (I think) 96 and it was the difference in plow or no plow. Now I am using a combo of both with the 93a as push wheels. But, I digress... And, anyway, 27/5 is the new K2.

The best news I have is that I have started practing with a new team, The Camel City Thrashers out of Winston-Salem. I know it has been said, here and other places, that derby people are the best people but CCT are actually THE best people. They're so friendly you feel like you're just one of them even when they are awesome and you suck like the wind. They learned my name at the very first practice I attended (which might not seem like a big deal but it can feel like one when you are new) and when I actually came back for a second practice they did such a good job of pretending to be happy to see me I totally fell for it. The veteran skaters take time out of their actual real lives to come up with these practices where you cover all of the skills, the rules, endurance, agility... just everything with not a moment wasted. And they do it for free. Actually, they pay to do it because we all pay dues. And the coaches and vets are patient but they don't let you goldbrick... There's no wussing out on skills that scare you... Which brings me to the topic for next time: fear.

...where the good lord split you.

I haven't written for a while and the reason is because I could not really sit on my ass long enough to compose a post. Two weeks ago, during a perfectly reasonable booty push drill, I landed my first ever derby injury. One minute I was being pushed and the next I was flat on my back of the cement floor of the Carolina Rollergirls Chop Shop. I very nearly blacked out.

Now, many of us have endure the ass cracking here or there... You fly off the end of a slide as a kid and land on your butt, you're drunk and you fall down and go boom. It hurts at the time but you go on with your life.

This was not that.

First, it hurt. If I hadn't been wearing my mouth guard there might have been tooth damage. Then I was almost amused by how much it hurt, like, I remember laughing while Slim Skatey got me an ice pack and kindly told me to roll my ass off the track so they could keep going. Then it was numb. It was so numb I got back up and kept skating. By the time I got in the car for the 40 minute drive home (about an hour after the "event") I had started to suspect I was in trouble.

I dug up an old Vicodin and slept for 13 seconds that night. The next morning I had my every 6 month mole check with my dermatologist (melanoma, holla!) and she looked my copious freckles over and politely told me to get myself to the nearest doctor and get some x-rays. Apparently my general inability to sit, stand, walk, move, lay down, or laugh raised some red flags.

So, I drove myself (on one ass cheek) to Duke and had some x-rays. The male nurse shamed me for being a stay at home mom (I didn't bother to tell him I'm a midwife because I just had a feeling it would not raise his level of respect for me) and had never heard of roller derby. Wtf? Let me go ahead and say that when your sacrum has born the full brunt of your lousy skating it doesn't feel great to lay on the metal x-Ray table. I didn't even bother to worry about radiation, that's how much it hurt.

To end the suspense, my ass is not broken, or at least not really badly broken. Apparently that does not matter because according to the doctor it's going to hurt just as much for just as long. And he was not joking. This pain has been hot, liquid, molten lava pain. Pain worse than childbirth and I am not fucking kidding about that. I swear to glob, my tailbone is pointed the wrong direction now and all I can picture is what I learned in midwifery school about how you can set a broken coccyx by putting a finger in the rectum and two fingers in the vagina and cracking that sucker back into its original location.

Long story short, I have PTSD now. I'm completely terrified of landing on my ass before it's completely healed. And then also after. There is no way I am going back to the open practice until there's not even a hint of pain (when will that be? It still hurts so much) but tonight I got back on skates and I sucked. I'm worried.

My body... it hurts...

Items purchased by me in the last week:

A giant spiked ball to roll my feet on
A giant stretchy band thing to do ankle "pre-hab" exercises with
Potassium pills
Kinesiology tape
Yoga toes spacers

...bringing my derby spending grand total to... One billion dollars!!! Also, a small glimpse into how much pain the bottom of my body is in.

My peroneal tendinitis does not in any way, shape, or form enjoy plow stop work. If you know anything about peroneal tendinitis (think outside of your foot, a band running from below your ankle bone up the outside of your leg) then you know it is in the absolute worst place for plow stopping. The mere idea of a hard plow (look it up if you haven't seen one) is enough to make my tendon throb. And, since I can't even do a regular plow stop I'm working on it for literal hours every week. At this point, I care less about the accomplishment of a try-out skill than I do being able to stop working on it.

Yesterday I went to the roller rink at the 4-6 session where I was literally the only person there and I just worked on skills at which I suck. I plowed, mohawked, jumped, did reverse cross overs.... and I learned that I am MUCH better when no one is watching. So, one of my new goals is to learn to block everyone else out so much it's like I'm alone. Theoretically, I know no one gives a shit what I'm doing or how stupid I look but still... it was pretty awesome to have the rink to myself.

Oh, here is the link to the exercises I have been doing:

Ankle pre-hab

She has a bunch of other great videos too.

Push!

When a baby is about to make her way under the pubic bone often the mom will push her down a couple of inches and then in between contractions her head will slip back up an inch. We call it "two steps forward, one step back" and until the head is under the arch there's just gonna be some rocking back and forth.

Right now my derby progress is one step forward 1/2 step back. And I am cool with that. Right now my goal is to become comfortable on wheels. That sounds small but it really isn't. Your brain doesn't want you on wheels and it will do everything it can to get you to stop rolling around and threatening its safety. Mix in trying to do a bunch of fancy derby stuff and your brain will revolt. This plays out for me via VERY shaky legs. Every time I do something new my legs shake like a mother fucker and it makes me so mad.

In order to combat this shaky leg bullshit I have started some meditation type positive thinking. I tend to get very nervous on my way to practice or if people are watching me when I go to the rink to just skate. Something about the pads makes people assume I know what I'm doing or that I'm about to do something interesting and they all watch me. The only interesting thing I'm about to do is a bunch of unsuccessful plow stops. So now, I just repeat to myself that I'm going to stay calm, I'm not going to be shaky, and no one cares what I'm doing. It actually works!

Tonight at practice we did pacelines. Even though by all rights and means I should be terrified of these things I fucking love them. I'm terrible; I fly off the rails and I'm sure the rostered skaters think I am a total wad but I don't care because it's so much fun. I have so many skills to work on and I am so bad at literally all of them that it's just kind of of fun to do one thing that feels like derby.

We also did squats and planks and I wanted to kiss myself right on the lips for all of the working out I have done for the past 5 years. I may not be able to skate backwards but I can fucking plank like a motherfucker. And squats? Pffft. I can do squats for an hour without breaking a sweat. It's like the one, single, small thing I have going for me.

I'll take anything I can get.

Free for shipping: One pair of feet.

Take my feet, please.

I forgot to take my potassium pill tonight before I went to practice and I'm going to just go ahead and chop my feet off. If it makes national news ("Derby crazed woman chops off own feet!") please know that I was a willing participant in the removal of my feet.

Seriously, my feet are holding me back. I'm in decent (ok, barely decent) aerobic and muscular shape thanks to working out like a rabid spider monkey for the past 5 years. I have been doing zumba, Pilates, and piyo (which is the satanic bastard child of Pilates and yoga but it's really just insanely hard plyometrics at the speed of light.) And thank fucking Maude I have been working out because I am not easily winded and my legs can take a lot of work without getting tired. If I were struggling aerobically and if my legs were tired this bullshit that is going on with my feet would break me. It isn't my skates and it isn't blisters; in my case it is straight up foot pain.

Basically my feet are in a constant charlie horse. Once we do plow stops or backwards skating (and by "do" I mean once I fail miserably at both) my feet are in AGONY. I'm not a wuss, I do not mind pain, I had a baby in a fishy pool in my own bedroom. But this foot pain is really in its own category. If you have never had a charlie horse count yourself lucky and eat your banana. If you are a newbie like me and your feet are trying to kill you here is what you can try:

1. Drink a ton of water
2. Consume potassium (I take a potassium pill but many skaters have suggested eating mustard by the small packet during practice. I cannot speak to this because I want to throw up just thinking about squeezing a mustard packet into my mouth. Also, I love pills and whenever I can solve all of life's problems with a pill I will do it.)
3. Mind your trucks. Now, I am no where near ready to give truck advice because I am still scared of my trucks but I have been told that super tight trucks make your feet work harder and that can cause cramping. Should you choose to loosen your trucks do it a quarter turn at a time and take them for a cautious spin before you go mohawking around the track.
4. Get some insoles. Granted, this did not help me even a little bit but when I pulled out the insoles that came with my skates I could see that they were just foot shaped felt. I bought shock doctor hockey insoles. You don't want a squishy gel insole.
5. Experiment with your laces. You want your skates to be secure and snug but feet are weird shaped and what is secure at your ankle might be strangulation at the ball of your feet. I use two laces in each skate (one for the top half and one for the top of the foot) and I give the wide ass ball of my foot slightly more breathing space. You can also skip grommets to relieve pressure.

When all of the unsolicited advice I just gave you doesn't work ice your feet when you get home. I stick mine in a literal bucket of ice water which is hellaciously painful after a few minutes but it eliminates the later, can't fall asleep death foot pain that I'm experiencing right now because I did not ice. Roll your feet on top of a lacrosse ball or a frozen water bottle. Soak them in Epsom salts. Take magnesium and/or use topical magnesium. Do whatever kind of foot strengthening exercises that might exist. Beg your loved one to massage your feet.... I don't know, my feet hurt so much I can't go on typing, I need to write around for a while.

Keep them doggies rollin'

For as hideous as my first open practice at the Carolina rollergirls space was, Monday's was awesome. It was my second time so I was approximately 30% less nervous. My legs did not shake and I consider that a huge victory because when you are you aren't 100% confident on wheels the last thing you need are shaky knees. I didn't necessarily achieve anything earth shattering (like that motherfucking asshole bastard twat waffle plow stop) but I got a little more steady going backwards and I jumped just the tiniest bit.

My coach (she isn't just mine, as much as I would love that; she teaches all the newbies) Ballista Blockheart, or Ballz to those who know (or fear) her is THE BEST. I may have mentioned that I am a midwife and I trained under many talented preceptors to whom I am eternally grateful. The time I spend with Ballz is really not unlike time I spent with my midwifery preceptors. I apply a lot of what I learned about being trained as a midwife to being trained as a derby player.  Open mind, no ego. I am there to learn, not be defensive, not take things personally. If you are thinking about getting into derby and you are not already a gifted skater go ahead and cram your ego in the nearest garbage can.

I got some pointers from one of the best derby players in the state, Elektra Q Tion, and that was surreal. I kept telling myself to fucking pull it together and not be a goddamn wuss puss in front of her and then I kept not pulling it together and being a total wuss puss. To her credit she did not laugh at my sad little 1/4" jumps but instead was incredibly patient and encouraging. Derby women may look scary and play fierce but (unlike many midwives) they do not eat their young.

Now, if only I could master whatever the hell is causing the charlie horse cramps in my feet... And also how to post pictures to this blog, there has to be a way...

Back on the horse on wheels

After Monday's soul defeat at the CRG warehouse I was worried about myself. But, then, I realized I had already spent in the neighborhood of $600 on derby so I can't quit. Also, I hate quitting so I'm just not gonna.

I went and skated tonight, seriously wishing for an empty rink so I could look like a complete idiot in privacy. That wish did not come true but I did meet two other derby veterans who took pity on me and gave me some plow stop tips. (Side note: I still cannot perform a plow stop. I think maybe my feet don't bend like other people?) I remembered the words of my coach, "practice... But don't practice wrong" and I believe I made some really good progress on my crossovers. I mean, I probably didn't and Friday she will tell me how and why they are totally wrong but they FELT better. I realized that in order to cross over with any meaning you have to sort of angle your body and kind of try to get as perpendicular to the floor as centrifugal force will allow before you just fall over. I envisioned myself as if I were climbing a mountain side ways and just leaned into that mofo. Oh, and also, LOOK in the direction to you want to go. Sounds like a stupid tip but trust me, it is game changing. And don't flail your arms. And turn your chest in the direction you want to turn.

See, you're on wheels and that seems hard enough but then there are all these steps to remember. "Clench your right foot muscle!" and "Get lower!" (Always lower, FYI.) and "Drag your vagina on the ground!" and no I am not joking about that. I have been told by more than one person that is the key to a double plow stop. The midwife in me wants to tell them that one cannot drag their vagina and that in fact you would want to drag your vulva on the ground.... but, would you?

After a month of being smug about not having any blisters I have a giant fucking blister. In an attempt to put an end to the life ruining foot cramps I have been experiencing I pounded a shit-ton of water before I skated, I took potassium, and I altered the lacing of my skates. Two of these things helped, one did the opposite of help. I'm on top of it; I have blister bandages, vitamin E, and moleskin. I will not let the searing pain of a 3" blister take me down. It never ceases to amaze me what people will go through to play derby; it really goes to show you that it is an obsession.