Tryouts. Hmph.

So I went to practice last Thursday, and apparently the schedule was a bit rigorous early in the week because only 10 of us showed up! LOL! We did falls, of course, then packwork so we can establish some sort of cohesion and actually play together. 5 mediocre girls playing together can be more adventageous than 5 awesome individuals!

Anyway, during drills our team of 3 worked really well blocking Daniel, then were tasked with a play requiring one to booty block Rose and another to hit her. Um, I'm scared of hitting Rose. She weighs less than I do, but I just bounce off of her! And sure enough, that's what I did, came down on my knee and a shooting pain went through it. What's weird is that it was my RIGHT knee, not the left one that I hurt at the expo bout. I sat out the rest of practice, pissed at the world.

So Sunday comes around and I'm so nervous I don't know what to do with myself. I am VERY happy to make it through tryouts, but I have NO IDEA what my score will be. I don't even know how many laps I completed. But whatever, it's over! (I also managed not to have shooting pain through my knee until the next-to-last jam - and Mike our magical EMT hit a pressure point that made the pain ease up much quicker than normal. Let's not talk about the 1000 mgs of Naproxen I took to ease the pain in my back during tryouts.)

Yesterday I met with Ruby, Mya & GI at a sushi place to discuss marketing stuff before the team meeting. After the team meeting we got our results. 2.6 out of 4 and 24 laps in 5 minutes. Eesh. Our new rules specify that to transition from new recruit to Storm Chasers (our version of Fresh Meat) you must skate 25-in-5 and score a 3.0. Lightening Broads (LB), 26-in-5 and 3.1, Tornado Alley Rollergirls (TARG), 28-in-5 and 3.5. So if we were being strictly judged, I'd be back in the new recruit section. LUCKILY I know from the last tryouts that many many of our members are being placed on a team (LB or TARG) when they don't make the requirements, and have a 3 months probation period to bring up their scores, skills and speed to desired levels. I really really really hope they put me on LB probation, but we won't find that out until sometime Wednesday. Keep your fingers crossed. :)

Here are my scores:
Basics: 2.75
Falls: 3
Balance & Agility: 2.85
Skating with: 2.37
Blocking: 2.16
Laps: 2.5
TOTAL: 2.6
(24 laps in 5, 5 laps in 1)

Tryouts this weekend - EEK!

Weigh-in went moderately well on Nov 29 - I lost 2.8 lbs for a weigh-in of 197.4. My situps and pushups went DOWN though, I think Aunt Flow had something to do with the situp decrease.

Monday we started practice up again. Each session begins with 30 minutes of "Brian torture" where we are made to complete strange exercises rumored to have come from the P90X routine. Mondays are "newbie" days, so we refined basic skills. We're also re-learning falls so that we land less on our knees (rockstars are now banned!) and it's very odd to do a superman / four-point fall that starts with landing on your wrists. We did this both Monday and Tuesday and I'm wearing holes in the side of my wrist guards already. Our new "go-to" fall is a barrel roll. Say what?! Fat girls flail, which is not conducive to barrel rolling. Tuesday we scrimmaged, though I dropped out after my knee cursed at me a little. I refuse to voluntarily hurt myself before Sunday!

I am so sore today. Every muscle in my body hurts. I haven't been this sore since starting derby. Stupid off-season.

And then tryouts are on Sunday. I'm still super nervous about laps. :( I will probably make the Lightning Broads team, but put on probation (which means in 3 months I have to try out again and show improvement in my problem areas).

Oh yeah, did I mention we are now renting a warehouse?! So practice is available 7 days a week, which is pretty damn awesome. The downfall is that the space is not climate controlled (but neither was our other location) and it's incredibly dusty. The floor is concrete and it's also slick, so we're encouraged to use hybrid wheels.