I will miss this..

This was my last night of any practice with Sacred. I'm praying it's not my last practice entirely, with any league, because I love this sport so very much and I don't want to give it up for any small reason like moving. I am going to put in for a transfer to the B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls (BAD) if my work lets me have the schedule for it with school classes, as well. We'll see..

But tonight I tried my very hardest to not make it about me. I got together with one of my teammates, Harsh Mello, who transferred from Bellingham Roller Dames(pretty sure that was their name), and she and another skater from the Fast Track program, Kiersten, brought their video cameras to practice. Miss Behaved was coaching, and she let us set up the cameras, one on top of the office on a tripod in an attempt to get as much of the track as possible, and the other in my hand to follow them as the skated by. I always wanted someone to take video of me skating around the track so I could show my family and friends my progress and so I could set personal goals for myself to overcome. I wanted them to make goals that were attainable, rather than "I want to skate like Susie HotRod", which, while highly possible, is not a very practical goal when you're just learning how to do everything to begin with. Plus, I don't want them to ever compare themselves to someone else, because we are all capable of greatness in our own ways.

After we filmed everyone skating and stopping, a few of us went out for drinks. I had a beer, provided to me by my fabulous derby friends, and then they decided to go around to tell me all the reasons why they would miss me. 

That almost got to me. At first it was mostly just fun things that make you smile and nod like, 'you're a ray of sunshine', 'you're always so cheery', and my personal favorite, 'you're not leaving, you just haven't accepted it yet'. But then it took a turn for the serious when Stache dropped a small speech about how I remind her of 'The OG', or The Original Group(or was it Old Girls?). How they had a genuine family feel that tethered everyone together. I almost cried.. But I didn't. Just tucked my chin into my neck and tried not to let my eyes leak.

I am going to miss all of these fabulous humans very very much.

I'm going to miss the way I cough at the end of practice after stretching down because of the dust in my lungs.

I'll miss the smell of sweat, oddly enough, because it's the smell of determination.

I'll miss hearing wind blow past my ear and helmet as I do warm up laps.

I'll miss hands in, and trying to think of something awesome to say, but only coming up with something crazy like 'Booty Sweat'.

I will miss seeing my brother and twin sister every week.

I will miss pestering my coworkers to clean things with strange notes left all over the store.

I will NOT miss entitled bratty customers who don't want to pay for the extra extra caramel in their drink who don't understand why I wont let them pay with someone ELSES credit card. Won't miss that even a little bit. Nope.

But everything ELSE? Definitely.

This past year has been full of challenges for me, both good and bad. I genuinely wish I had more initiative to sit down and write more, as it is a very good outlet for me.

It was really rough for me in the beginning, trying to adjust to a new place with new friends, new coworkers, new pet, new hobbies, and new activity level. I have learned so much about who I am as a person, and what I am capable of. Some of which has surprised me, and some of it was exactly as I expected. But I couldn't have done all of it if I didn't have family, friends, and an incredible league cheering me on. Yeah, there were some people who openly told me they didn't want me to continue, and there were those who were needlessly worried about me. My favorite were the one's who scoffed at me. But here I am. I am one hundred times more confident, not only in my individuality, but also in my femininity, in how I carry myself, and in my approach with people.

And I'm only gonna keep going. So I'll let you all keep wondering. ;)

Best! Practice! EVER!

During practice tonight, 4Closer had talked to us about a strategy that had been keeping her up at night while she tried to figure it out. She presented it to us and we practiced it hard for about forty minutes before she started implementing it during our scrimmage practice time. By the time we were scrimmaging, we were all pretty tired, and probably ready to go home and take nice long Epsom salt baths.

I was put on team Blue and our acting captain was Neill 'N' Weep. Team Red's captain was Daddy's Girl, or DG. We only scrimmaged for about a half an hour, and 4Closer was watching us on the sidelines with a specific rule for only herself and captain's to communicate with the teams from the benches. Every jam, I felt like I wasn't succeeding at being a effective blocker as I kept losing my buddy and letting the jammer slide right past me. Every time I looked over at 4, she seemed frustrated that we weren't creating strong enough walls to keep the Red team back, and that frustrated me knowing that I wasn't doing my job right. I kept getting great advice from my team about better ways to stick together and hold the jammer back. I tried to store the information in my head without letting it get to me, because I know that if I get inside my own head, I will only get worse. My own demons just continue to whisper to me about how terrible I am, and, sadly, I listen. So every time I sat down, I focused on the game, and I reminded myself, "It's just a game. Have a little fun. Stay with your buddy. Be the effective blocker I know you can be."

The last jam of the night, I went out with Neill 'N' Weep, YB Normal, and Black Venom. Of the four of us, I know that Neill is the strongest. She's on the A Team for crying out loud. So I knew that even if I lost my own buddy, if I stuck near her, I would be at least somewhat effective. Our jammer was Skirt Vonna Gut, a transfer from Silicon Valley. I remembered hearing her tell me, "Help me through their walls," and I kept thinking about what 4 had told me, "Communicate with your pack," and I kept reminding myself, "Stick with Neill."

The opposing team was comprised of A team players and B team players, and that alone was enough to make me at least a little clammy. The whistles blew, and I started 'playing' with the opposing blockers, getting distracted and losing track of Daddy's Girl, who was Red's jammer. I watched as she just cruised right by me. I watched her speed around turn one and saw 4Closer on the sideline shaking her head. There was that tiny demon again, "YOU SUCK!"

"Where's Skirty?" I thought.

I looked over my shoulder and realized that Skirty was still in the pack with me, and I tried to make a hole for her. I helped her get out, only to be lapped again by DG. But at least my jammer was out and able to make points the next time I saw her. I quickly skated back up to my buddy, YB. The pack started really moving, and I tried to continue to break up the red teams walls. I realized I was surrounded by only red jerseys, and then I heard Mazel ToughCocktail holler to Virgenocide, both on team Red, "GET CHERYL! GET CHERYL!"

I'm certain my eyes probably bugged out of my head at this point, because there was no way I was going to be a standing point without fighting to keep it from them. And I made sure that they knew this by shouting as loudly and as angrily as I could, "NO!"

It actually shocked me how throaty it sounded, and I blazed right past Virgy as I suddenly got tunnel vision on Neill and tried to get to her as fast as I could. We flew through turn 3 and 4 as DG came at us quickly into turn 1. I'm not certain if I actually shouted it or if it was all in my head, but the only thing that came to my mind was WALL! WALL! WALL! I watched as DG tried to skate past Neill as I slide up beside her and hit her. I didn't just hit her like I usually hit people.. I am still pretty green, and I have a terrible time getting enough power to actually hit effectively, but I actually HIT Daddy's Girl OUT!! I could hear my team cheering for me on the bench as I slowly started to realize what just happened. But without thinking about it anymore, I slid to fill another hole in our wall and spread my feet as wide as I dared without toppling over, as I always do, trying to implement a stop method that Skirty and Dirty8 Special had told me about earlier in practice. It was at this moment that Daddy's Girl, one of the most intimidating jammers to me, that I love skating against purely because I love to learn and hate skating against because she's SO INTIMIDATING, threw up her hands at her jam ref in frustration. I'm certain it was just because she was tired, and it was the end of a really long night, and I have a sneaky suspicion that some of the A skaters have been holding back around me(which bugs me), but it made my whole week a thousand times more awesome. It was the pinnacle of my derby career thus far, and it was absolutely amazing! When I got back to the bench, I had my butt rubbed and my helmet slapped! People cheered my name, which I have never had happen before, having never played an organized sport before, and at hands in, they said, "We heart you, Clobber!" I almost cried. And afterward we went out for drinks, and they bought me a beer!

BEST! PRACTICE! EVER!!

SACRED POR VIDA!

Jayne Clobber, #704

I'm finally in the 'big girl' league, and after being there only a few weeks, I feel like I'm really improving.

Of course, trying to attend every practice every day of the week, even if it's not my own practice time, has probably helped that a lot..

I finally decided on my derby name, even submitted it to be registered with my very own derby number. 

Jayne Clobber, #704.

I originally wanted it to be 7/4, but the number 74 is a number that's already been registered to the league by a recently retired skater, so I can't register it.. It's my mom's birthday. :) I think she would have been my biggest fan, and she would have been really proud of me for having gotten this far by pushing myself, so I should honor her in some way. Plus, she was awesome, duh, and her birthday was Independence Day, so how could I not go with it? A little patriotism is always a good idea. ;)

Can't wait to repaint my helmet this weekend!