New kid on the... river

I just got back from doing my first training session with the NRV rollergirls. It was pretty fun, and I'll talk about some of the drills and stuff we did below. But first, let me just get something out. OH GOD THE HUMIDTY HERE IS KILLING ME. IT IS FUCKING HORRIBLE.

This is how I would do the weather report if I were a weather reporter.

Training was at 10am today and already when I woke up I was all clammy. Then walking the 20-or-so steps to my car and getting in the car made me sweaty. (I guess this is also because the inside of the car was pretty warm.) Anyway, then we skated (indoors, thankfully, and it was somewhat air conditioned) and I was all sweaty and sticking to things like the floor, other people, the pads we hit in the hitting drill, etc. And then when it was done I had to go outside and it was so humid my sunglasses fogged up and it was just like walking into a wall of wet heat. The drive home was pretty bad; it's only 10 minutes in the car but I stuck to EVERYTHING in the car. I wanted to punch a million babies. Seriously, the training isn't super hard, but the acclimatization might take much longer than I thought.

Also, the heat made me drink three bottles of water (so, about 2-2.5L) during training. Then when I got home I had to pee like a racehorse.

The thing on the left with the stars is the DJ booth.
Also there were like 7 mirrorballs on the ceiling.

Anyway, so, NRV training. Firstly, I picked a really good/bad weekend to go since it's Labor Day weekend (tomorrow is a public holiday) so a lot of people weren't there. It's held at a place called Adventure World, which seriously reminds me of when I went rollerskating as a kid at a rink in the 80s. (Warning: their website also looks like it was made about that time and is loud and obnoxious.) They even have carpet with rockets on it. I met Seam, who's the president, and Pumpkin (secretary) and Blighty (who was the person I had been corresponding with and she's British and pretty nice and an awesome skater) and a couple of newbies and some of the refs. The refs also skate with us and do the same training, which is cool. BAD and SCRD weren't like that. But again, because it was Labor Day weekend, it was a relatively low turnout, maybe about 10 people in total. (Which is fine for me since I'm kind of socially awkward.)

On Sundays, NRV also does a thing where they spend the first hour and a half focusing on newbie skills. Basically, newbies have a thing called the "Fresh Meat Sheet" which breaks down basic derby skills into 10 different levels. Level one is really basic stuff like being able to stand on skates in derby stance, and level 10 is stuff like being able to take full-force hits. Level 6 is learning how to do hits, and once a skater can do that then they can do blocking/hitting drills with the big kids, but not scrimmage yet. Also, after they finish the fresh meat sheet then they qualify for taking the WFTDA minimum skills test. I guess they really are covering all their bases. Anyway, so the focus for Newbie Training is to have the fresh meat go through different things on their sheet and get them checked off, but everyone takes part in the drills.

What pages 1 and 3 look like of the Fresh Meat Sheet.
They printed double sided so I can't get 2 and 4 in the
same picture.

Not to be confused with the Crazy 88s.

We started with something called Crazy 8s for a warmup, where basically you sticky skate around the floor. Blighty would call out things like "slalom" or "scissors" and that's what your feet would be doing while you were skating. Then occasionally we'd change direction too. We did this for about 5-10 minutes.

That was to get everyone warmed up for the 25/5, which was the Fresh Meat skill they were working on today. They get to do it in 6, or for the level 4 freshie they do 12 laps in 2:30. I hadn't skated for about two months so when I got into the endurance thing my legs were like "YO BITCH WTF ARE YOU DOING" and I was tired by lap 10 already. Ugh. But I managed to do 25 in 4:37, which I guess isn't too bad. I need to stop coasting on corners when I'm tired because I am a lazy fuck. I would still like to be able to do 25/4 but we'll see.

After that, we had a bit of a water break and while that was happening, Blighty set up a bit of a course around the track. It looked something like this:

And we did things like this:
1. You had to step sideways through the cones, kind of like doing side hop things.
2. As you came into the first turn, one of the refs was there with a pad and you had to do either a hip, shoulder or full body check on him.
3. Slalom inside and outside around the turn
4. Do grapevines through the cones (alternating legs)
5. Here was another ref on the outside line that you hit (also Seam would yell out what kind of hit to do on him)
6. More slaloms and then you were done.

After that, we did something called the "Two and Thirty". Basically that meant we skated around and did 2 minutes of a drill, then, 30 second recovery, and then repeat. We practiced stops (I STILL HATE T-STOPS) and falls and tomahawks, only here tomahawks are called "backwards double toe stops" or something. It was weird. I've heard them be called about four different things now.

Completing the FMS means you can do
WFTDA min skills testing and scrim. Yay.

After that, we paired off to do some positional blocking drills, just basic 2-on-1 stuff. It was pretty good. I was paired with one of the newbies who had just finished her level 6 stuff and could do a lot of the blocking but didn't hit or scrim. Since we were only positional blocking, that wasn't going to be too bad, right? Well, then I threw her into the jammer a bit hard, oops. But it was effective. Then I got busted for low blocking the jammer because I clipped her wheels and she fell over. Blargh.

Finally, suicides. Now, these are not like any suicides I've ever come across. They're a cross between suicides and pyramids. So you had to lie on your stomach and on the whistle, get up and do two laps up and back down the rink, and then do 20 crunches. Then lie on your stomach, get up, do three laps, then do 10 burpees. Then the same but four laps and 10 pushups (and everyone else did girly pushups so I am awesome). Then the same with five laps and a 30 second plank. Then back to four laps, and a 30 second squat, and so on. I did okay in the drills and except for being really crap at tomahawking and turning around quickly. I also got jelly legs towards the end and tried to tomahawk on my off-leg and ended up falling on my face. Ugh. Good thing I can get up quickly. :P

Anyway, so that was all of training. It was fun, and the people are nice. I don't have to do the fresh meat stuff and I'll be going in as a transfer skater, so hopefully at the midweek trainings this time I can meet the coaching team and also see if I can do my WFTDA skills tests (AGAIN). I think I might be good enough to at least get drafted to their pool, if not their B team. Whee.

Update: It's apparently 92 degrees (almost 33 in Celsius) and about 80% humidity outside. KILL ME NOW.

Update 2: I just drank a fuckload of sweet tea. I am in the south after all. (I also ate half of this loaf of challah, but that is another story.)

FOOD OF DERBY GIRLS EVERYWHERE.