The "oh god I'm going to die" drill

Okay, I have to admit that right now I'm slightly tipsy after having gone out for drinks with some of the peeps from derby. Beer here comes in giant 20 oz glasses; that's like one of those really big two feet tall glasses things. I didn't take a photo this time but I will next time. And I had two of them. Before my turkey burger and fries arrived. And I hadn't eaten since about 4 hours before training. Wheeee.

Anyway, we did this awesome hitting/blocking drill tonight. Basically you have half the people in a pace line skating close to the inside line, and the other half were skating around the outside, or the middle of the track. The ones skating on the inside line are supposed to hold the inside line, while the outside line basically come in and take potshots at them. Like, they skate alongside you and then just come in to hit you. Then they do it from further out so they have to swoop you as well. And you had to take the hit but not hit back. Ow.

I was on the inside line and every second skater would come by and hit the shit out of me. And they hit hard. My right side is all crunchy now, and at one point I got laid on my ass. But we also practiced leaning into the hits and preempting them (i.e. leaning into the hit), and that worked better. It was a crazy drill, and I was so nervous and anxious throughout it waiting for the next hit, but it was good to get some smashy in. Yay.

But then we went out for beers and everything was okay. Yay. I'm drunk on a weeknight after a hard day of teaching. Whooooooooo.