Okay, I mostly wanted you to start your long weekend with that video, with a hat tip to Sagiterrorist (my former teammate and doppelgänger).

I maintain that it’s better to get my derby emotions out here in front of the internet than on the track – I focus on my skating and push everything else aside until after the game is over.  That means occasional car-crying and bitching over drinks.

If someone reads this blog and identifies, all the better. What up, person who googled “roller derby didn’t make the travel team”? Let’s be friends! Also, the person who googled “bike helmet and bangs” – we should talk.

It was a weird dynamic to be on the AoA bench (getting creamed by Wheels, naturally) after the AoA skaters had just had the experience of winning games in Texas. I’m trying to work on leadership on the track and bench, but no one was interested in what I had to say in this case. They treated me like an annoyance, to be honest. That’s fine. I try not to take it personally.

It’s also strange to be there knowing that there have been spots on the team open for weeks, and there was an active choice by the travel team leadership not to fill them. Here I am, an able-bodied skater who’s punctual and friendly tries real hard, but I’m clearly not wanted. Got it! It’s fine! I’m over it! But geez, I showed up and I’m doing my best, so just be cool!

I held my own.  I jammed once against White Flight. She got out first, I caught up, and she tried to knock me down to buy some time, but no dice. For better or worse, one of my blockers was in the box so she called it off. 0-0! That’s a success in my book!

All of this makes me stronger for Championships.

Relax. Take some deep breaths, throughout the day and throughout the tryout. You got this.

Visualize. See yourself performing the skills correctly and how that’s going to make you feel: You’re doing the 50 lap warmup, your tailbone is pulled down toward the ground, your crossovers are smooth and powerful.

Focus. On the Betties, we say every jam is a new jam. What you did before doesn’t matter: what comes next is not your problem yet. Do the task in front of you to the best of your ability, and then move on.

That’s it! Go kill it out there!

My feedback – I’m often the last line of defense, so when I’m there, I need to be able to slow that jammer down faster. You know what I mean – create more room to work with, and buy time for my blocker friends to come up to help.

Photo by Sharkey

Hey, Sharkey, this illustrates the point nicely, thank you. I’m gonna have to let that jammer go in about one hot second, even though my blockers are doing a beautiful job of stringing out the pack definition for me.

The second part of my feedback was that, as a veteran, I need to be even more vocal on the track, especially in regard to strategy.  I don’t always feel comfortable with being “in charge” of knowing what to do with newer strategies, but I’ll make a concerted effort right now to get over that. I *am* a veteran! I *do* know what to do! Yeah me! 

The beautiful thing about this conversation is that Cadillac was talking about my weaknesses but she framed them in terms of my strengths. That woman is very smart about sports and leadership, and I’m grateful to have her captaining us for the last few months of the season.

My concerns? Just that I knew I was low on the roster, and that I want to play in Championships. I was told that if I worked on the above, that would make a positive influence on my playing time.

I can go practice being bossy at Fresh Meat scrimmage. And getting in front of someone and slowing down? Easier with my new/old wheels, but I’ll work extra hard on it. And on being patient enough to go slowly.

Done and done!

As far as my own performance is concerned, I feel like I did my best, and my best was more than acceptable. Beyond what I accomplished or didn’t accomplish on the track, however, it was a pretty difficult bout for the Betties who aren’t at the top of the roster. Out of the 16 people rostered, I think 12 skated.

I wasn’t written into the lineups at all.

It’s hard to tell whether to be discouraged because I wasn’t on them, or to be encouraged because once I was subbed in, they kept putting me out until I had three minors. I was in four jams: that’s four more than four of my teammates.

But I feel like, really, I did well when I was out there. Too far out ahead sometimes (always), but staying low, keeping my feet, being basically where I needed to be. Jammer forceout. Caught another blocker to slow the pack during a power jam. Basically doing things right. At no point did I screw the pooch.

There was one jam where two of our blockers and our jammer were in the penalty box, and Eagle got 20 points – but those points aren’t on me. Your goal in this situation is to curb the bleeding, and not to compound the damage by doing something stupid and going to the box yourself. Mission accomplished. For the rest, all you can really do is try to slow that girl down. Being on the wrong side of a power jam with a blocker disadvantage against a world-class jammer is kind of like being a goalie in a penalty kick situation - You try to work your angles and percentages and hope for the best.

Okay.

Now we have Championships in a month, and this business is serious. If I want to have any kind of role in that game, I need to be ready to do everything I can to help win it. The Betties have won every odd year in Rose City Rollers history, and we’re ready to end that trend this year. First time to repeat. But if I barely got to play in semis, apparently I’ll have to do a lot to prove that I’m worth playing in the most important game of the year.

More skating. More training. Just a little more. Just one more month.

I really want to play.

That’s stupid. My captains want to win games, and the Betties are good at winning. They’re not going to roster and play me if I suck.

Also, I play for a home team on the Rose City Rollers. It’s not the travel team, but it’s a lot more competitive most smaller leagues in existence.  Maybe I was among the slower people in the “fast” group at endurance practice – the faster people just happened to be Eagle, Acid, and Sully.  You can’t grade yourself on the curve with that kind of competition.

So, I’m trying to start a positive feedback loop to drown out the negative one that’s been droning for months.

No more: you fell down again/you should have known better (i.e., you’re stupid)/you’re trapped and you screwed up the power jam for everyone/you let her by/you screwed up/you screwed up.

Yes more: you held the line/you worked well with your partner/good hit/smart move/being aggressive/you look good in those shorts/you did something good/something went well.

But it’s always: we’re gonna win. Even when I don’t have faith in myself, I have faith in my teammates.

Maybe I’ll focus on not more miles, but more quality miles. Getting faster. I’m very slow, which is not bad by itself, but being able to run faster for a longer period of time is probably better for my derby career, i.e., 1-2 minute bursts of activity.

We’re also training for that at StrengthFIT. They’re setting up these gnarly circuits that we do as hard and fast as possible, with a full rest between rounds. For example, our Monday workout: 5 deadlifts, 7 box jumps, 9 situps, and a shuttle sprint. Rest three minutes. Repeat seven times. Pretty good conditioning.

I don’t know, friends. Maybe I just hate running? I’ve been biking a little.

Someone kick me and tell me to stop being lazy.

• Beer-drinkin’
• 2 trips to the hardware store, 1 trip to the Urban Farm Store, 1 trip to Home Depot
• Sunburn
• Playing catch at the park
• Coffee on the deck
• Pancakes
• Outdoor skating with teammates
• Family
• Impromptu plays with botched lines by a three-year-old
• Chips, salsa, more beer

These warm Portland spring days are perfect if you can just remember to pinch yourself every few hours. It’s not summer yet. We have two more months of rain. At least. But my ice cream maker is in the freezer now, at the ready. My deck is planted. I’m captaining our bike commute challenge group at work. It’s a hopeful season.

Until the drizzle sets back in.

We’re going to see Jeff Magnum tonight, you guys.  I’m not much of a concert crier, but there may be tears.

The only time I really remember crying at a concert was during Masters of War when we saw Bob Dylan in Columbus, Ohio. That would have been…maybe 2006 or so. (Yep, 2006. Thanks, internet!) Definitely during the G.W. Bush administration. It was an unexpected emotional reaction.

That was the night that Eric Clapton came out as a surprise during an opening act. Apparently his in-laws live in Columbus? He sounded very, very good. I can’t forsee ever listening to any of his recordings on purpose, but I did gain respect for him as a musician that night.

This has been a little anecdote.