February 13 GALantine's Day Derbyball Spectacular

I was the kid in highschool who was so anti-gym class and sports that I would protest by running the opposite direction of the ball in gym class when we played basketball or football. I would sit down on the grass when I was inevitably placed in the farthest nether region of the outfield in baseball. A total dork, I was the kid who was pitifully bombarded with balls in dodgeball. I was perpetually the last one picked for teams. I loathed gym class. Until I discovered I could do super cool things like archery, ping pong, and bowling if I fufilled my gym requirement in summer school.

It's not that I wasn't athletic. I was a dancer since I was 9. I was super shy, didn't have many friends and I really missed out on the fun and camaraderie of being involved in a team sport. I was always pretty good on skates. I started when I was 5, and for most of my gradeschool and high school careers I LIVED for being on skates and going to the rink. Where I grew up they would do all night skates, where they'd lock you in from 8 pm to 8 am. And I would skate that entire 12 hours, stopping only for the bathroom or a snack.

Everything is more fun on skates.

Or maybe I'm just more fun on skates.

Last night at practice we played basketball on skates. And suddenly the absolute rush and excitement of being on a team came into sharp focus. I actually loved basketball last night, and I have to say, I don't think I was nearly as atrocious at it as I was in my tortured, super dorky high school days. I could actually dribble. I could dribble while skating backwards!  I was proficient at passing the ball back and forth with my teammates, while skating both backwards and forwards, and I surprised myself with my aggressiveness of blocking. I actually attempted to knock the ball out of people's hands and jumped a few times to knock it out of the air. True to form, I still couldn't make a damn basket to save my life. Always the overachiever, I was constantly whipping the ball all the way over the backboard. But no one laughed at me, at least not maliciously. My teammates actually still passed me the ball. Amazing.

I'm told there is video and I can't wait. I'm sure it was quite the spectacle. For Vice Quads practices we are in a little gymnasium in a gradeschool. It really was excellent use of the space, and in my opinion pure coaching genius. This activity contains so many of the skills we need for derby. The footwork, skating in different directions, running on toe stops, teamwork. We were sliding like crazy people for the ball when it rolled, tomahawk stopping all over, shooting from standing on our toe stops, squatting down and swooping the ball up after someone  dropped it. Laughing our asses off and sweating like maniacs.  Totally totally awesome.

When I put my skates on it does something to me, alters my confidence and personality in the most outstanding ways. I fancy myself an entry level super hero. I become brave. I take chances. It has always offered me that, since I was 5 and put on my first pair of metal, adjustable strap on skates and conquered my bumpy driveway, that awesome wind on my face, egging me on.

Saturday's practice was also totally fun too. I was just unable to lift my arms to write about it for 2 days after. We did a ton of military crawls and a wrestling type warm up. We were on our hands and toe stops, legs bent and torso raised off the ground. We had to walk forwards and backwards in that position many many MANY times. Fun fun fun. So. Much. Fun.

My newest goal is to be proficient at crossing over when skating the opposite direction on the track, both forwards and backwards. When skating counter-clockwise (normal derby direction) I have no problem crossing my right leg over. When skating backwards clockwise, I am the queen of crossing that right leg over. I'm like freaking Nancy Kerrigan, performing in the Ice Capades. (Ooooo....there's another excellent derby name, Nancy Impairigan!!)  Whenever skating direction dictates a left leg cross over, be it clockwise forward or counter-clockwise backwards it's as if there's a humongous magnet holding that left leg to the floor, not allowing me to lift it and perform the cross over. It's wacky how confused my body gets, how instilled the muscle memory of skating counter-clockwise most of the time is, and as a result how foreign crossing over with the left leg becomes. I know I can do it, but in the moment my body is totally confused.

Being that it is Valentine's Day it wouldn't be right if I didn't pay a little homage to the crazy little pot- bellied angel dude in this post. He has hit me hard with one of his heart tipped arrows and I am smitten with all these amazing, energetic, hilarious women and this sport.

My daughter, my inspiration.

One has not fully grasped the joys or more accurately heartbreak of parenthood until witnessing 4 grown women struggling to hold down your one year old as she repeatedly grapples her way out of their attempts to restrain her. This is how I spent last night.

I'm still pretty frazzled from the whole experience this afternoon and not sure whether I should be really proud or terrified of her strength and spirit.

Her drive to fight and keep trying to escape from a total of 8 hands, arms and two huge sheets wrapping her like a burrito was extraodinary, along the lines of Beatrix Kiddo, Sidney Bristow or Buffy. She's a grappler, for sure. I know this from changing her diaper many many times a day and breaking a sweat each time, even in the depths of winter. She vigorously took on these unexpecting ladies and gave them quite a challenge. The whole scene was borderline sickening to my mom eyes. But to my derby eyes it was beyond inspiring.

I recognized one move she was attempting in her escape and warned them she was headed for the edge of the table quicker than they could blink. I don't know if they didn't believe me but it was after she executed that one that they called in the fourth nurse. It was as if she could sense the lady on her legs getting fatigued or softening her grip, because then she would powerfully kick her legs way up in the air, lifting her pelvis off the table and then slam her legs back down and the whole sheet wrap would unravel, causing them all to scramble to recover. As they fumbled, she was already over on her stomach, fully unwrapped and almost off he edge of the table.

A quick recap. Last night before dinner Oona fell, caught the toy she was holding just right on her knee and smashed it into her chin. She bit her tongue as well and blood was pouring out of her mouth. She also had a 1/2 inch gash on her chin and the sides of it were pretty open. She was only really unhappy when we tried to hold her, get some ice on it and assess how bad the cut was. She managed to eat a huge dinner, which is unusual for her because she can be an annoyingly fussy eater. She truly was only crabby when we tried to comfort her. She didn't want comforting, she wanted to be free to continue exploring and wreaking havoc.

It is this drive and fighting spirit that motivates me. I was much more shaken from the whole experience than she was. I got her out of the hospital and into the car and in moments she was silently crunching her goldfish crackers. When I brought her into the house and put her down, chin glued and taped shut she was off and running from room to room, attempting to lift her brother's potty training stool over her head as if nothing had happened or it wasn't past her normal bedtime. Her adaptability astounds me.

Although she is at times both exhausting and infuriating, I'd love to be more like her. Joyful. Taking wild and often absolutely ridiculous chances in the name of exploration and freedom. Powerful and insanely fast. Utterly fearless. Strikingly mighty despite her wee size. Unstoppable. Able to escape the limitations provided by 4 nurses more than 3 times her size. And most importantly, never giving up.

6 hours of Delicious Skating Goodness

3 practices this week! 6 hours of delicious skating goodness. I couldn't be more excited. Sadly, there is just not enough time for me to write this entry covering all three as well as I would like. Being a major klutz I also sustained a pretty painful injury this week.

Which had absolutely NOTHING to do with derby, but was incurred while existing in the Peter Parker portion of my life. Hee hee. "Peter Parker portion. Peter Parker portion". Say that several times fast.

It was an especially hectic lunchtime with the kiddos on Thursday. One plus to the pandemonium (oooo what an excellent derby name that would be..."Pam DeMonium") was that I was getting a ton of squats and lunges in, constantly picking up the various objects, sippy cups, and dog-toxic grapes and raisins that were being flung.

Yes people, I am just that much of a nerd. Treating every retrieval as a chance to work my lunges and squats. I also sometimes do this throughout my day with my one year old and her 20ish pounds in tow. She enjoys the ride and I get in some weighted squats with the boy dancing around us as we listen to his musical requests.

The one time I slipped out of my work out routine and bent over from my waist (all of you Alexander Tech people would have shuddered..) to pick some child type thing up during lunch I stupidly smacked my eye socket/brow into a chair and howled in agony. I saw stars, I actually felt my eyeball get nudged back into the socket, and momentarily forgot my boy's name. Luckily we haven't completely succeeded in breaking his habit of speaking of himself in third person and that brain fart was corrected. I went to the mirror and watched the lump on my eyebrow grow and the inside corner of my eye turn black. I held an ice pack on and off for the rest of lunch and surprisingly the blackening went away.

All I wanted to do in that moment was sit with the dog's head in my lap and moan or maybe whimper for a bit. My head and eyeball hurt so badly, I was dizzy and my vision in that eye was blurry. Aldo was yelling and Oona was deep in her normal mealtime insanity, vehemently refusing most foods I put in front of her. But I had to pull it together because my kids are little (2 1/2 and 1) and they were getting freaked. What helped me do that was the previous night's practice, knowing it was especially challenging and that I had done it.

One drill we did was bonkers fun, kind of like Navy Seal practice on skates. I believe some of the girls refer to it as "Satan's Mattress" or something to that extent. It involves sprinting a lap, then sliding on a knee or two, dropping and doing increasing amounts of pushups, situps and holding plank position. We did this for a long time, often with 25 push or sit ups in between sprints. Total fun. Crazy, sweaty, heart pounding, adrenaline rushing, derby high fun. The memory of that specific drill is what brought me back to my little yellow kitchen and the importance of regaining my composure.

After Wednesday's practice my "extended adrenaline rush super power" must have kicked in again. Seriously, what is with my muscles? I am never sore until a few days after practice. I felt nothing all day Thursday. And nothing all day Friday, until about 9 PM. At that time some internal clock went off and my muscles began screaming at me, pleading for epsom salts and ibuprofen.

If this was Pee Wee's Playhouse the secret word would be duality. In case my witty banter isn't enough and you want to have some extra fun with this blog, you know what to do when you read that word.

So duality. I'm thinking of the balance of several two-fold things this week. First, the co-existence of slow and fast twitch muscle fibers. We all have both types within our muscles. The fast twitch fibers are utilized for more explosive movements like sprinting and the slow are more for endurance, like in marathoners. It's so fascinating to me as an Alexander Technique teacher to observe people at practice. Derby really requires both groups of muscle fibers, but it is so clear which type of movement a skater is more geared towards in her musculature. I'm certain that although we may be more predisposed towards one or the other in our muscle composition it is still possible through training to round ourselves out a bit. You can see it in the more veteran skaters. I observe in myself that I must be more slow twitch in my composition because the endurance stuff is way easier for me and I really need to put a fire under it for the things that require super quick, explosive movement.

The other instance of duality I continue to ponder this week is how my derby and momming lives affect each other. There are times that I feel like all this super hero training, endurance, full contact, and quick footwork on skates we do at practice is actually easier than what I deal with all day with the kiddos. Yesterday we were seeing how many burpees we could do in a minute. That's the exercise when you are standing, jump up in the air, drop to the floor and jump back into a squat thrust, hands on the floor, plank position. Repeat. While on skates, it's easiest if you do the whole thing on your toe stops. I did 18. And I LOVED it. Totally fun, and somehow strangely easier than lunchtime at my house. Still rushing on a derby high, I insisted on demonstrating this exercise to the hubster when I got home and the kids were having lunch. (in my kitchen and of course with skates) The kids thoroughly enjoyed the show,by her screams of approval I'm absolutely certain Oona is a future derby girl, and after 14 years of wedded bliss if he didn't already my husband now believes I am a lunatic.

I wonder about the levels of challenge in my life, why all this derby stuff often seems easier to me than my days with the kids. When I practically gouged my eyeball out on Thursday it was the toughness of derby that got me through that moment, remembering I was a warrior.  On more exhausted, negative days I tell myself my struggles with the kids are because I'm a terrible mom. After I talk myself down from that I think maybe it's because I'm only responsible for myself in derby, and not constantly needing to monitor whether the kids have constructed a ladder of mega blocks and are hanging from the ceiling fan or messing with the poor sainted dog's genitals. I love the space it gives me to be with myself on so many different levels, the room I have to think, sweat and experience. We skate really fast but somehow within that framework it's timeless and I have plenty of room to slow down and enjoy the ride.