A bunch of goodbyes

Derby tourism can be hard. You go visit a league, and the people there are awesome and wonderful and you feel cruddy when you have to leave them.

The last time I laced up my skates for training was about two weeks ago. On that Sunday, I went to BAD training. It was really good, Hammer and Lucas put us through a bunch of drills: monkey bars, weaving with partners, and this awesome fun partner blocking drill. Basically, you have two blockers and a jammer, and 3/4 of the track to stop the jammer getting through. For some reason, the drill had 4-5 people jam continually, and everyone else rotated as blockers. I got to jam for like an hour. It was pretty fun, I tried to jump the apex but I think my legs keep crashing into the person I'm passing, and then Hammer threw another skater at me to get all in my way. Haha. But anyway, at the end of training I mentioned to a few people that I would be leaving soon, but that next week would be my last one. However, Hammy wasn't going to be training us next Sunday, so when we were leaving BAD HQ I told her I was going and thanked her for all the stuff that she had taught me, and then she gave me a big hug. I'm enough of a fangirl to be like "Eee! Hammer sweat!" but yeah, she's an awesome person and a great teacher.

Then, on Monday I went to SCRD. Now, I really have a soft spot for SCRD. They're still growing as a league, and because they're much smaller a league, their community feels a lot more tightknit. It was a hard training session (although no scrimmage, boo) and at the end I said that this was my last one. There were hugs all around.They also gave me a SCRD shirt. There's one particular skater who's still a newbie, but I've been informally mentoring her (read: giving advice on wheels, skates, bandaging ankles, not to give up because training is hard, and whatever) and it has been really good to see her develop as a skater. I'm keeping in touch with her because I'm excited to follow her progress; her enthusiasm for derby is really contagious and she's really thrown her heart into the sport.

Anyway, then it turned out that I couldn't go back to BAD the following week because of the stupid I-have-a-giant-blister-and-can't-walk incident. That sucked big time, because I didn't get to see everyone and skate with them one last time. In particular, I wanted to thank Mindi and Lucas for the awesome work they put in every week to get our skills up, and say goodbye to the badass ladies I've been training with the last couple of months.

It is kind of shitty to have to say goodbye. I've never been good at them, and I never seem to get to say it to everyone that I should. But they're only temporary. The thing with derby families is that you can go anywhere and meet amazing and wonderful people and be part of their fold. You learn so much from them, and you become more than just people skating together--you become actual friends. And it sucks to leave your friends. But derby families are also tightknit, and when you go back it will be like no time has passed (although, of course, everyone's skate skills will have improved presumably). You'll skate together and hit each other and then go and have beers in the parking lot or at a nearby dive or whatever. And things will be all good. I guess the upside of the goodbyes is that there is also a corresponding "hello and welcome back" when that time comes, whenever that time will be.