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.