Ruminations

I've been looking at my schedule for this week and feeling pretty pleased with myself. I've got agility practice tonight, strength training tomorrow, speed Wednesday, speed and practice Thursday, more strength training Friday, and practice Sunday. I may find something to do Saturday, too, just to make the week solid. I love knowing I'm working towards my goals. That's always been a problem for me in the past. I get excited about things, but don't follow through. It's another way that I know derby is for me. I can't not follow through, I love everything about it.
I also get to re-test for blocking on Thursday, which makes me happy. I know I have the ability to pass, I just have to keep my head in the right place during my test. Once I pass, I can go to league blocking and pack awareness classes, which will be invaluable. Also, I'll be able to fully participate in home team practices, so the teams can get to know me, and I can get to know them. Our coach often urges us NOT to attend some of the practices available to us once we've passed, however, because once you're in blocking practices, your chances of getting injured go up. At the same time, not going to practices makes captains think you don't have enough interest, or aren't committed. It's an interesting situation. At least all the strength training I've been doing will help prevent or lessen injuries in my upper body. Though I really need to be working my ankles more, to prepare for these practices.
It's interesting skating with the new people. Especially since I know I was in the same position 4-5 months ago. They're less steady, more skittish, and much more prone to grab people when they fall down. I found myself getting frustrated at practice yesterday because of these things. I had to take a step back and think about how I was when I first started. I still make mistakes now. They will learn, just as I did, what to do and not do. It's also odd because while we're all working on basics, we still get split up for some drills so that we can work on the more advanced things we've learned. Our coaches deserve a lot of credit for basically teaching two classes at the same time.
As much as I enjoy working on blocking for most of our practice time, it's also nice to be working on fundamentals of skating again. No matter how good you are, you can always learn more by working on the basics. I know my crossovers still need work, and it's good to focus on them again. It also brings home your weak areas in a way our more advanced practices didn't. For example, I really need to buff up my one leg skating. This will help with blocking, crossovers, agility, everything! It's easy to see how everything is connected at this level, and how improving one thing leads to so many others.