It's certainly been an action-packed month for me. A lot of firsts, a ton of new, exciting, and at times mildly frightening experiences. Lots of learning.
My first news to report is that I submitted my name for the league draft to potentially be picked up from the rookie team to an actual home team. To my surprise, I am a new member of the Damagin Dames, whose color is purple. Anyone who knows me understands my affinity for that color, so needless to say I am totally hooked up in the team spirit clothing department. To my dismay, I also had to get a photo taken and write a short bio for the TCDG website. Check it out! I hope I didn't go a bit overboard with the jaunty crossed arms and eyebrow raise in the photo. I was trying to visualize myself after a season of working hard, training and scrimmages, attempting to pose for the skater I aspire to be.
I also went to my very first bout last weekend, which was extraordinary. Both the TCDG A and B teams are like superheroes to me. They are FREAKING AMAZING. Teamwork, teamwork, communication, strategy and skills!!! If I turn out half as good as these girls I will be thrilled beyond my wildest dreams. Seriously, it's something to aspire to. To witness the blockers working together, having such 360 degree awareness of the entire pack and both jammers,simultaneously defensively and offensively blocking was fantastic. I loved the whole experience, from beginning to end. And the jammers. Wow. I don't know where to begin with my level of just utter, gushing awe. I haven't been this into a sport since the entire 2006 baseball season ending in my heartbreak at the National League Championship between the Cardinals and my Mets. Just look at this catch by Chavez. Outstanding.
I have been scrimmaging for 2 weeks now, and it would be accurate to describe me as on my ass or in the penalty box much more than any time spent actually skating and in the game. The majority of the rest of the time I spend shuddering in my skates, breathing shakily and in a haze of confusion and fear.
Goals I have set for myself: crossovers with my left leg when skating clockwise, or reverse derby direction. My observations about this are that I seem to be reasonably proficient at this skill if I am the only person skating. Once the whole league is on the track a strange phenomenon occurs. It's as if I've never balanced just on my right leg and my left leg has a large weight lashed to it, preventing me from lifting it to perform a cross over. The Alexander Technique teacher in me is fascinated with how strong an interference my brain can provide to efficient functioning. The derby girl is annoyed and frustrated with my one-sided and very stubborn muscle memory convincing me that non-dominant leg crossovers are an impossibility.
Besides being an ambi-cross-overer another goal is running on my toe stops. I want to achieve a more explosive start. I have no problem picking up speed once I'm going, but I would really like to be able to start with more power as well. Again, I believe my thinking is the interference here. I can do quick footwork drills side to side, front and back on my toe stops. Given, I am a total wackadoo, but doing burpees, hopping up and then down into a push up on them is one of the most fun things I can think of. But my thinking warns me that taking off running on them at the start of a jam or drill is insane, that I will more than likely break both of my ankles, collapse in a pitiful, twisted heap and be run over by everyone. I really need to have a heart to heart with my thinking and somehow get over this.
Wednesday night we did my newest all-time favorite drill: working on plow stops, with someone pushing you from behind as you skate and also as you execute the stop. This is the first time the plow stop really started to make sense to me physically. Because it's impossible for me to look at movement from a non-Alexander perspective this was a genius piece of coaching to impose the extra momentum and weight on us as we practiced the stop. For me it really turned the volume up on the muscular organization and directions required to effectively do the stop.
What I discovered was the deeper you bend, crease in your hips, stick your butt out, the more weight you can direct down into your wheels and the floor as you angle your toes in the easier it got. Being the pusher, you feel way more resistance as the person in front exaggerates all these details in the stop. And as the pushee, you can feel the targeted parts of your legs kick in more clearly with someone pushing you as you stop.
The exaggeration of muscular work needed with the partner pushing you really helped me make a lot more sense of the plow stop. I learned that if I tuck my butt even slightly and as a result shorten my lumbar curve it makes it harder and a little painful in my hips to stop, especially with the added momentum/weight of the person behind you. Your lower back starts to take the brunt of the work that your legs should be doing and I imagine long term plow stopping like that would eventually cause some pain there. I found it helpful to think about all six leg joints bending deeply in the stop, lengthening along the backs of my legs and letting my sitbones aim back on a diagonal rather than straight down at the floor.
The Alexander teacher in me has also been pondering derby position. In Alexander speak, it is pretty much the same thing as "monkey," what we refer to as the "position of mechanical advantage." It's not a fixed position but a place where the most optimal counterbalances of our bones and muscles occur.
Our spine has the ability to lengthen through our movement if we utilize monkey. A lengthened spine with its inherent spring-loaded action can provide us with balance, power, stability, and recovery. Derby is all about stimulus and response. Our balance of muscle to bone is constantly renegotiated in response to the multitudes of different stimuli that occur as we skate. We can never be fixed in one place in our organization. We need speed, agility, power to body check someone, adaptability and balance to counter a block or recover from the ground as we are repeatedly knocked to it.
The minute you tuck your butt as you skate it shortens your spine, compromising not only your lumbar but also cervical and thoracic curves. It severely limits your movement potential. A compressed spine also really limits the availability we have in all of our leg joints. Myself included, I see a lot of people stand up out of prolonged skating in derby stance and put hands on their lower backs, twisting or bending back a bit to relieve achiness in their lumbar region. There's a strong partnership between legs and back in skating, and I think when our backs are hurting we also need to consider our legs and what we are doing with them and the muscles surrounding the ankles, knees and hips. I think about this partnership a lot, how my legs influence my spine and back and vice versa.
Speaking of partnership, I believe the kiddos are plotting against me. Aldo showed me this photo from "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish" the other day at naptime. He pointed to the yellow fish falling backwards and told me (in an eerily calm, quiet and sweet voice) that was me. Ever curious, I inquired who the other two were. He told me the red one was Daddy and that he was "the little happy smiling blue one."
My daughter Oona, has a habit of staring deadpan (and with what I would consider extremely intense eye contact for a one and a half year old) at you when you are telling her no. Then she blantantly continues whatever it was she was doing that had caused you to tell her no in the first place. This staring contest is often times punctuated with cackles of laughter erupting out of her as she maintains eye contact and continues to do whatever it was she was doing. Aldo used to do something similar when I told him no. He would pull his shirt up, show me his belly and stare blankly at me.
This week she pulled down the curtain sheers on one of the windows. I'm guessing this could perhaps be my fault in part because I chose to show them "Singin in the Rain" and they were transfixed by "Moses Supposes." She was laughing wildly at me as I told her no strongly, struggling to wrestle the metal curtain rod out of her vice-like grip and rehang it in the window. With military precision and faster than I could blink the two of them then worked as a team to take down the sheers in two other windows. It's the beginning of a beautiful partnership, similar to that of Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor as they terrorize their poor diction coach and dance their way through that scene. Many days it seems I am playing the part of that guy.
My first news to report is that I submitted my name for the league draft to potentially be picked up from the rookie team to an actual home team. To my surprise, I am a new member of the Damagin Dames, whose color is purple. Anyone who knows me understands my affinity for that color, so needless to say I am totally hooked up in the team spirit clothing department. To my dismay, I also had to get a photo taken and write a short bio for the TCDG website. Check it out! I hope I didn't go a bit overboard with the jaunty crossed arms and eyebrow raise in the photo. I was trying to visualize myself after a season of working hard, training and scrimmages, attempting to pose for the skater I aspire to be.
I also went to my very first bout last weekend, which was extraordinary. Both the TCDG A and B teams are like superheroes to me. They are FREAKING AMAZING. Teamwork, teamwork, communication, strategy and skills!!! If I turn out half as good as these girls I will be thrilled beyond my wildest dreams. Seriously, it's something to aspire to. To witness the blockers working together, having such 360 degree awareness of the entire pack and both jammers,simultaneously defensively and offensively blocking was fantastic. I loved the whole experience, from beginning to end. And the jammers. Wow. I don't know where to begin with my level of just utter, gushing awe. I haven't been this into a sport since the entire 2006 baseball season ending in my heartbreak at the National League Championship between the Cardinals and my Mets. Just look at this catch by Chavez. Outstanding.
I have been scrimmaging for 2 weeks now, and it would be accurate to describe me as on my ass or in the penalty box much more than any time spent actually skating and in the game. The majority of the rest of the time I spend shuddering in my skates, breathing shakily and in a haze of confusion and fear.
Goals I have set for myself: crossovers with my left leg when skating clockwise, or reverse derby direction. My observations about this are that I seem to be reasonably proficient at this skill if I am the only person skating. Once the whole league is on the track a strange phenomenon occurs. It's as if I've never balanced just on my right leg and my left leg has a large weight lashed to it, preventing me from lifting it to perform a cross over. The Alexander Technique teacher in me is fascinated with how strong an interference my brain can provide to efficient functioning. The derby girl is annoyed and frustrated with my one-sided and very stubborn muscle memory convincing me that non-dominant leg crossovers are an impossibility.
Besides being an ambi-cross-overer another goal is running on my toe stops. I want to achieve a more explosive start. I have no problem picking up speed once I'm going, but I would really like to be able to start with more power as well. Again, I believe my thinking is the interference here. I can do quick footwork drills side to side, front and back on my toe stops. Given, I am a total wackadoo, but doing burpees, hopping up and then down into a push up on them is one of the most fun things I can think of. But my thinking warns me that taking off running on them at the start of a jam or drill is insane, that I will more than likely break both of my ankles, collapse in a pitiful, twisted heap and be run over by everyone. I really need to have a heart to heart with my thinking and somehow get over this.
Wednesday night we did my newest all-time favorite drill: working on plow stops, with someone pushing you from behind as you skate and also as you execute the stop. This is the first time the plow stop really started to make sense to me physically. Because it's impossible for me to look at movement from a non-Alexander perspective this was a genius piece of coaching to impose the extra momentum and weight on us as we practiced the stop. For me it really turned the volume up on the muscular organization and directions required to effectively do the stop.
What I discovered was the deeper you bend, crease in your hips, stick your butt out, the more weight you can direct down into your wheels and the floor as you angle your toes in the easier it got. Being the pusher, you feel way more resistance as the person in front exaggerates all these details in the stop. And as the pushee, you can feel the targeted parts of your legs kick in more clearly with someone pushing you as you stop.
The exaggeration of muscular work needed with the partner pushing you really helped me make a lot more sense of the plow stop. I learned that if I tuck my butt even slightly and as a result shorten my lumbar curve it makes it harder and a little painful in my hips to stop, especially with the added momentum/weight of the person behind you. Your lower back starts to take the brunt of the work that your legs should be doing and I imagine long term plow stopping like that would eventually cause some pain there. I found it helpful to think about all six leg joints bending deeply in the stop, lengthening along the backs of my legs and letting my sitbones aim back on a diagonal rather than straight down at the floor.
The Alexander teacher in me has also been pondering derby position. In Alexander speak, it is pretty much the same thing as "monkey," what we refer to as the "position of mechanical advantage." It's not a fixed position but a place where the most optimal counterbalances of our bones and muscles occur.
Our spine has the ability to lengthen through our movement if we utilize monkey. A lengthened spine with its inherent spring-loaded action can provide us with balance, power, stability, and recovery. Derby is all about stimulus and response. Our balance of muscle to bone is constantly renegotiated in response to the multitudes of different stimuli that occur as we skate. We can never be fixed in one place in our organization. We need speed, agility, power to body check someone, adaptability and balance to counter a block or recover from the ground as we are repeatedly knocked to it.
The minute you tuck your butt as you skate it shortens your spine, compromising not only your lumbar but also cervical and thoracic curves. It severely limits your movement potential. A compressed spine also really limits the availability we have in all of our leg joints. Myself included, I see a lot of people stand up out of prolonged skating in derby stance and put hands on their lower backs, twisting or bending back a bit to relieve achiness in their lumbar region. There's a strong partnership between legs and back in skating, and I think when our backs are hurting we also need to consider our legs and what we are doing with them and the muscles surrounding the ankles, knees and hips. I think about this partnership a lot, how my legs influence my spine and back and vice versa.
Speaking of partnership, I believe the kiddos are plotting against me. Aldo showed me this photo from "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish" the other day at naptime. He pointed to the yellow fish falling backwards and told me (in an eerily calm, quiet and sweet voice) that was me. Ever curious, I inquired who the other two were. He told me the red one was Daddy and that he was "the little happy smiling blue one."
My daughter Oona, has a habit of staring deadpan (and with what I would consider extremely intense eye contact for a one and a half year old) at you when you are telling her no. Then she blantantly continues whatever it was she was doing that had caused you to tell her no in the first place. This staring contest is often times punctuated with cackles of laughter erupting out of her as she maintains eye contact and continues to do whatever it was she was doing. Aldo used to do something similar when I told him no. He would pull his shirt up, show me his belly and stare blankly at me.
This week she pulled down the curtain sheers on one of the windows. I'm guessing this could perhaps be my fault in part because I chose to show them "Singin in the Rain" and they were transfixed by "Moses Supposes." She was laughing wildly at me as I told her no strongly, struggling to wrestle the metal curtain rod out of her vice-like grip and rehang it in the window. With military precision and faster than I could blink the two of them then worked as a team to take down the sheers in two other windows. It's the beginning of a beautiful partnership, similar to that of Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor as they terrorize their poor diction coach and dance their way through that scene. Many days it seems I am playing the part of that guy.
LEBOWSKIIIII! Girl, I'll just say: plow stops are your essential derby move. In derby you never skate. You are either sprinting or slowing down. And the plow is your best buddy. Love your plow stop Lebowski. It's all in your butt. Not kidding. Get your butt down low. Nope. Lower. That's what gets a plow right. You can stop on a dime if your ass is down to your ankles.
ReplyDeleteAnd for toe starts? If you aren't about to fall over every time you do a toe start, you're holding back. Lean & run like you're dodging fire. Your 3rd or 4th step should make you fear a face-first plant on the track. You'll pick it up, but those first few steps you should be leaning so far out you'd think you were crossing the finish line at the Olympics.
Much love, your (previous) coach (oops, I should shut up now),
Ani