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Sunday 5 June 2011

Skate Skate Sliiiiiiide

Once again long time no speak! I've had the wonder that is half term here so have been amusing the small people and that kinda eats my time - but hey thats not what you're here to read about.

So what have I been up to? There's been a road trip, a training session or two, an outdoor skate and some news. Lets start at the top shall we. Road trip! Blood and Thunder boot camp were holding a double header bout to let the ladies show off the skills they'd learned and it seemed like a good opportunity to go watch and learn (and support the ladies I knew!) It was the usual suspects that travel together on Mondays for training. |Much jabbering on the way there, much watching of skaters and seeing how much derby knowledge I was actually retaining and a chance to grab some back issues of B&T mag made for an interesting day. There were a few faces I recognised from Central City Roller Girls, Tiger Bay Brawlers, Bristol Harbor Harlots and Swansea Slayers (probably left a few teams out but I've a memory like a seive!) We also got to see a ref (mentioning no names) playing with his nuts - the ones that hold his wheels on smut monger! lol and I got to finally meet the fabulous Minx Pie and Red N Roll, excited about both as one is organizing the boot camp I'm attending and the other is my Derbalife coach :D If you want to see some footage of the day you can find my YouTube channel - Just look for Emilie Mortem!

This week also saw me getting to go train with Severn Roller Torrent - this time travelling with Chant Hell, Block Booty, Rhayfen and Poll E Blockit. Once again hilarity ensued as we got a little lost and ended up asking in a primary school for directions but we got there! The SRT girls were both welcoming and encouraging, I loved the warm up drills and getting to know some of the other girls. The session was aimed at smashing walls so some practice on plough stops was done (except by me, having switched to the yellow cushions I was still struggling, although it was pointed out that my trucks were still waaaay too loose so that was sorted) and after a bit of practice doing 'can openers' at a slower speed and stepping through blockers we did a bit of scrimmaging. Again I liked the way it was run, non contact then contact, changing with each bib change over. I opted for the non contact scrims as I'm still a little bambi-esque and was quite pleased with how I managed keeping up (albeit not where I should have been but that will come) plus I got some fab feedback and advice from the ladies on my 'team' - I also now know what a back block major feels like when you get floored lol. I left the session feeling very positive :)

After only managing 17.25 laps in 5 at recent sessions (its more than I'd previously done but I still gotta up it!) I decided it was time to start outdoor skating whenever I can, starting yesterday with the wife. She's skated the local bypass route before and scoped out the terrain so I was looking forward to it and in all fairness it was a nice surface to skate on. Then she threw in the 'ooh yeah, there'll be a few uppy/downy hill bits but nothing too scary', ok I thought - what was I thinking?? this was the mentalist that went exploring on her skates! So yeah, the first downy hill bit wasn't too bad (there was a gate at the bottom to stop me lol) and I tried to skate the uphill bit but I couldn't! However it gave me an awesome chance to practice walking on my toe stops - bonus! So we carried on along the straight, putting the world to rights and enjoying the sunshine then came the second downhill bit - just stick a plough on was the advice and believe me I did try! I was continuing to try as I whizzed past Rhayfen still picking up speed and in the end decided the safest option was a knee fall. We now know my automatic fall of choice is a baseball slide, however on tarmac it does kinda smart! Rhayfen couldn't help chuckling and as she pointed out at least she now knows I can execute a good fall in a panic situation. After getting over the shakes and realizing there was more downhill I decided to do the rest of it on my knees until we were off the path. From there, there was only a road and some steps separating us from our destination, but all still on a downhill. I tried walking on my toe stops, lateral skating between the bushes and the kerb and eventually I just went sod it (bearing in mind at the bottom of this road is a roundabout for cars coming off the bypass) and with a semi worried Rhay skating infront of me I managed to plough stop at the bottom. We reached the pub beer garden and assessed the damage over pop and crisps lol






















As we were coming back along the main road I decided it may be best to walk so all in all, just over 1 mile skated and about 3 miles walked in total all day - not too shabby :) Has this put me off out door skating? Has it hell!

Last off, the news? As you know I'm following the Derbalife program (and am now a wellness coach with them) and I've lost 2" off my waist since starting :D well chuffed am I! The other bit of news is that I'm going to be taking part in my first intraleague bout against Bridgend Bombshells, admittedly I was a bit 'omg' at first but now I'm really looking forward to it :D

Until next time, derby love

Emilie
xx

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