Hitting/timing drill with pace line

We've been working more on timing our hits, and I like this one a lot because it sounds easy but it's actually pretty hard to do well.

So you start with a pace line, going at a moderate pace in the middle of the track:

Yes, my paint skills are so good.

The last two people peel off the pace line and skate to the front. One goes on the inside of the pace line, one goes on the outside. The skater the inside is the "blocker" and the skater on the outside is the "jammer".

When they reach the front of the pace line, the blocker is to hit the jammer out.

This is much harder than it sounds; the jammer is flooring it (usually) and even though they're on the inside, the blocker has to actually skate pretty quick to catch up, but not too quickly that they overshoot the front of the pace line and leave a big hole behind them for the jammer to go through, or getting too much speed so the blocker goes out with the jammer.

Then when they're done, they form the front of the pace line and the next two go.

Variation: once you've done the basic version, you can also do a more advanced version where the blocker can hit the jammer out in between other skaters in the pace line. Timing is crucial here, since otherwise the blocker will hit other skaters, or fuck up the pace line.

 

(And that's embarassing because it screws up the drill so you don't want to do that.)