Skating Sundae

I’ve been skating for a year and nine months now.  In that whole time I’ve only cried three times at training.  Two of those times have been in the last fortnight.

I’ve been in Babydoll Limbo for a little while now, sort of hovering between newbie level and the advanced, and for a long time I’ve been the only one here, quietly working on my skills every week, doing drills with the advanced team and then stepping out to NSO and ref when they scrim.

I’ve watched newbies join the team after me, already able to skate, and overtaken me to join the advanced team.  I’ve NSOed since the day I joined (I’m now the HNSO for our team) and I’ve reffed this whole time as a way to make myself useful to our wonderful but small Zebra crew and get extra time on skates.  And I’ve wondered what I’ll do if I never passed my Mins.  I’ve known people quit, or settle at the level they’re at and not take it any further.  I was thinking about it for a while.

In the end what I decided was this: Never mind about ‘passing’ or succeeding’ or being ‘good enough’ (a weakness of mine) - if a thing is worth doing for it’s own sake, you should keep doing it.  If I never passed my mins skills and was a newbie forever, I decided I would still skate because I enjoy it.  Of course there are bad days but overall I like how derby training makes me feel about myself, I like how it challenges me, I like the weekly progress and tiny successes, and I like my team mates.  If it’s good to throw yourself into every drill, you should do it even if you’re terrible at it.  If it’s good to fight, you should fight hard even if you never break through the wall.  If it’s good to help the officials by reffing, you should ref when you can.  If it’s good to try hard, you should try all the time.

To that end, I snuck in extra practice time during sessions.  When the coach was explaining a drill I’d be quietly popping up and down on my toe stops and stepping about on them to get used to the balance.  When we were called in to start a new drill, I’d deliberately do a derby stop on my bad side (which is now neater than my good side!).  When I reffed, which was twice a week at our team scrims, I’d use the jam intervals to do a skill.  I’d do transition shuttle runs on the straights for 30 seconds, jump the lines of the basketball court, skate laps to work on my crossovers and laterals, and try side-surfing round the drinks stacked in the centre track.  I was aware of getting better at things over time, but only in a vague and distant sort of way, since no one was checking up on me… until a few weeks ago.

It came at kind of a funny time.  I’d had four or five weeks in a row where I’d been frustrated with my own lack of ability to do certain things as well as the other Dollies, almost to the point of tears on some days.  I’d realised suddenly how much better I was getting, and that I must be close to passing my Advanced Mins and getting my book.  I also realised suddenly that I really wanted that book.  We’re looking at toughness at the moment, both physical and mental, and part of that for me was keeping my feelings under control during drills; turning my frustration into determination (or at least stubborn pig-headedness), continuing to push though being upset, because I’m sure that’ll happen in a game someday too.  But I was still feeling that way, easily frustrated, when I was called over out of the blue to do my Advanced Mins.

I did everything on the list… except for one .  The Six Second Cone Weave.  I was making 7 secs consistently, and 6.48 secs on the fastest run, which was faster and more fluidly than I’d ever done it, but still not fast enough.  When I knew I wasn’t going to make it on that day, it really got to me.  To be so close and still fail felt far worse than being miles off.  I took myself off into a corner to have a little cry – only the second time I’ve done that since starting roller derby – and then came back to ref the scrim as usual.

Then I went home, measured out the distance between the cones with some string, and brought it to the next practice.  During the scrim I set up the cones beside the track and weaved through them during every jam interval.  After a few runs I got into it and could start tinkering with things; getting lower, finessing the turns, leaning into them more.  I did it over and over.  I could hear our referee King Typical timing me somewhere in the background but tried to ignore it. 

During a break he called everyone together and announced that I’d done it – more than once!  I’d been hitting 7 seconds again for a while, and then begun shaving off the time, a tenth of a second on each run.  The last few times I’d broken the six second mark!

I’d passed!

Except I hadn’t. 

We’d accidentally left out one thing, which was to take consistent, sustained hits from my team mates.  Basically you have to skate in a pack of about half a dozen, and take whatever they dish out to you with some level of control and stability.  So we did that one at the next practice and it really wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, although Candy in particular gave me a good run for my money… but I couldn’t quite be passed.  Since the pack was so close and hits could come from any angle, I’d been brushing people with the backs of my fingers as I got knocked about to keep a sense of where everyone was.  I wasn’t supporting myself on them, but if I got knocked forwards into someone the guys watching me couldn’t be sure I wasn’t using my arms to keep myself upright, so technically they couldn’t pass me.  I understood the reasoning and tried to be gracious about it, but privately I was really annoyed.  Not with anyone in particular, except maybe myself.  Most pre-advanced skaters suffer from what we call Babydoll Arms, where you’re a bit forearmsy as you try to fend people off and fine-tune your balance.  Nervous, I’d slipped back into it.  Normally I try and keep that kind of annoyance in my own head and not let it spoil anyone else’s mood but this time I did a really bad job of that.  I was the sulkiest ref.

At the end of the scrim, I got asked to go on track with Taz and “tussle”.  I don’t know why I didn’t see what was going on, but I was tired and irritated and my response was a very ungracious What Now?  It was exactly what I didn’t want, particularly as Taz is notorious for hitting like a freight train and I was quite scared of taking her on one-to-one.  We battered each other about for a bit with Taz (who is a very good drill sergeant} yelling “Hit me!  Come on, hit me!” and me wanting to yell back “I’m f***ing trying!” but just very fed up with everything, feeling everyone watching, and wanting it to stop.  I just couldn’t get into the swing of it, and she kept prodding me on.  Suddenly I got very angry, properly belted her on the next hit, and to my surprise she ended up on the floor!  She was thrilled, one of the captains cheered, and we finished the lap with a high five.  I felt a little better for having completed it, but still drained and fed up.  No one spoke to me as I de-kitted and stretched.  I got ready to go home having failed again.

Our Babydoll Rep, Libby, came over to talk to me about I don’t now what and then, maybe seeing the miserable look on my face, added “You’ve passed, by the way.”  She’d been busy with something else and not got round to telling me yet!  They’d put me with Taz just to check I could handle myself with no one else to lean on for support, and I’d held my own, so they’d passed me.

I stared at her for a few seconds, and then burst into tears.  

I’m advanced.

I’m an Advanced skater!

They let me cry it out, pleased that I was upset over something nice after the previous week!  Libby even said that she’d never seen anyone work so hard on their Mins Skills outside of sessions.  There were hugs and congratulations, and a Facebook announcement when I got home.

On the drive back from practise a while ago, my housemate and I were convincing each other that we didn’t need a McFlurry or a sundae, and she jokingly told me we could get one when I passed my Mins.

I worked a year and a half for that sundae.

It was delicious.