A view from the pack

A While ago i mentioned that I was going to write a blog post about Focus, Eventually here it is.

Last year I bought Sports Psychology for Dummies   book. One of the first exercises in the book is to ask your team mates to evaluate some aspects of your performance.   This was quite a scary thing for me to do, I'm not the sort of person who has ever put herself into positions that open me up to public feedback such as a politician,musician actor or artist so wasn't sure what people would say or how I would cope if there was a lot of negative feedback.
The feedback I received was generally positive but something that did crop up  in the comments was that I tend to lose focus on the tasks i am given when playing. This most often occurs when I'm assigned to play offensive blocker to help our jammer through the pack. It all goes well until I see the opposing jammer and i'm "Oooh shiny Jammer" and take it upon myself to divert my attention from our jammer and start blocking and hitting the other jammer.

So fortunately the book has a really good chapter on Focus, the different types of Focus, things that affect our Focus and how it can be improved.

There are a few things that I have found that have started to improve my focus.

An exercise in the book is to pick an object, a candle, or point on the wall and concentrate on it for thirty seconds without being distracted by things happening around you or stray thoughts entering your head. Do this a few times a week and then work on increaseing the length of time.

The Sports Psychology for Dummies    also talks about Centreing and breathing but doesn't really explain what it is.  Kamikaze Kitten of LRG taught me a good exercise for this.
 Take a Deep breadth slowly, breathing in for a count of 6 seconds, hold it for 1 second then breathe out for 6 seconds.

These two exercises can be done at the same time and really complement each other well.  Find somewhere quiet and away from the noise and  hustle of modern life, make sure you are comfortable and not rushed.

Prior to our last bout I wrote down on paper the 3 things i wanted to concentrate on during the bout and pinned it above my desk about a week before.  Its still there now as the 3 things are still really relevant and help to remind me of what to do.

At Scrimmage I have volunteered to be the offensive blocker and made sure the pack knew that is what I would be concentrating on. Tell the jammer at the start that's what I'll be doing and at the end asking the jammer if I did a good job.

Being a bit of a geek, I have actually written an Android App, to help with the 1st two exercises, it available from the Google play site on your phone.  it means you can concentrate on the exercises without having to worry about the counting and getting distracted by that.




 

Do you remember when you first started Derby and you started to learn crossovers,I do
I had spent all my life knowing that if I wanted to propel myself forward I would put one foot in front of another repeatedly. Now here I am learning to skate and these crazy women are telling me to put my right foot over my left and drag it back again,WHILE WEARING ROLLER SKATES!! After a few weeks I started to convince my head that it would be ok,after a few months I could do them pretty well and now I can not only do them skating clockwise but backwards as well
Not long after I remember reading the minimum skills sheet and finding out I would have to jump a 3inch high object.It might as well have said Jump Everest. So skating outside 1 evening I found a piece of pipe probably no bigger than the track rope. It took several attempts to even step over it,there was a lot of skating up to it,bottling it at the last second and then skating around it.Eventually the skating round turned into stepping over,then hopping over and into 2 foot jumps.
Around 18 months after that we went to a bootcamp run by Re-animater,we did some jumping over cones agility drills,no big deal jumping's easy right,then she sprung a surprise,now do it backwards.What backwards that's CRAZY. I didn't master backwards jumping there or then but slowly its something I've kept practising and now I'm not bad at it.
Currently I'm trying to practise jumps with a side surf landing so I can do a straight line Apex jump. Its still pretty rough and more of a big step into a side surf but I know it will come eventually and I'll be 'ah those straight apex jumps are easy ' .I'm sure there will be other things to attempt,fail repeatedly at and slowly master but it's important to remember just because something seems insanely scary now that doesn't mean it will always be like that

Sometime last year,can't exactly remember when but probably around a year ago I decided to give up drinking alcohol. It wasn't a spur of the moment thing that was rushed in to. There were two events that made me think that this would be a good idea.
The first was late 2010. we had been invited to train with the Harlots as some of LRG were coming up to run a training session. Don't know what had happened the night before maybe it was a bout afterparty or just some other night out. But after getting in late,getting some sleep i managed to drag myself out of bed,drive down to Nottingham and have a good training session.

The second was very similar. After our January 2011 bout Tara Armov of L.A Derby Dolls was running a training session with the Harlots and again we had been invited to attend. Once more I got up the next day feeling very rough,so after a little breakfast,paracetamol and plenty of water I drove down to Nottingham on a freezing cold day. Some Coaches are very quiet and touchy-feely. Tara isn't she is very loud and shouty and proper awesome. It was completely worth going to and one of my highlights of 2011.
So what was remarkable about these 2 training sessions, well on both occasions even though multiple members of our team had been invited I was the only one to attend simply because they were great opportunities that I didn't want to miss and even though i was feeling well rough each time i dragged myself to each one and each one was totally worth it.

While writing this its also struck me that I can remember the training sessions but have no recollection of the previous nights out,wonder if this is significant.

So if i managed to get to each session what was the problem (Here comes the puking) Well to put it simple when I drink more than a few glasses of wine or beer or whatever I tend to puke, not once but repeatedly and regularly usually once an hour or more frequently for several hours. Its not a pretty site. I've tried different pre and post drinking 'cures' and different drinks.
Its been the same ever since I was old enough to drink, when I was at Uni and drinking quite a lot it happened, and it has happened even when drinking fairly infrequently. It wasn't getting any better so I decided that enough was enough.

So after those two training sessions I started thinking what happens if next time there is a chance to attend a great training session or something equally awesome I'm too ill to attend and have to miss out. That thought and the realisation that If I don't drink it will contribute to my overall training and fitness and it seemed silly to spend loads of time training and getting fit just to have it undone by having to spend a day recovering and working off those empty calories. Why spend time getting back to where I was when I could spend it improving and working to the next level.

So I don't want anyone to think that i'm some sort of prude looking disapprovingly at you all and that everyone should completely give up alcohol immediately. I'm just saying that this is a personal thing that feels right for me now. I'm also not saying that i'll never drink again.

Its hard to say how much its contributed to my performance. I know that if I don't train or am ill my performance quickly drops of a cliff. and I have to work hard just to get back to the level I was previously at. I've also worked hard to have a good diet, not have loads of late nights out, which is easy when not drinking. Make sure i get to all practices and do plenty of other fitness training so I think its all woven together and am fitter now, than I have been for a long time and still wanting to get even fitter.

So thats the upside but recently i've been noticing a down side. I've been feeling that there is no release,no feelings of Euphoria getting up to crazy antics with my team mates and friends,laughing at the daftest things while stumbling out of a club trying to get into a cab and hold onto a kebab. Having this blog is good for getting things out of my system in a slow trickle but sometimes its good to put a marker on things,empty my head of thoughts, close one chapter and move onto the next. Thats what I'm not getting and its what i'm missing the most.

I think its also one of the reasons that i'm craving more of the buzz i get just from playing Roller Derby, the adrenaline of the game and it might not be a very British thing to say but I want to win,I want to win bouts,tournaments,ranking points. Whatever there is I want to play my hardest,put the work in,be prepared to make sacrifices and maybe just maybe get something in return for it. So for the moment going to carry on and see what happens.

There is probably a rule somewhere that if you write a Roller Derby blog you have to write one about your equipment so here is mine. But rather than just tell you what I use now thought I would start at the beginning.

After my very first week at Roller Derby using loan kit I was instantly bitten by the bug so rushed home to order the starter pack from everglides . After deciding not to splash out the extra £30 for Torques, that the R3's were absolutely fine and that spending more than about £100 for skates was ridiculous I ordered those, the Anarchy knee and elbow pads and SFR wrist guards and the red helmet,red because every one else in the team had black so i though it would be a bit different.

After a month or two when I could stand upright and propel myself forwards without damaging my shoulder I wanted to be able to go round corners much faster. Decent Cross overs were still a little way off but I discovered a wonderful resource Rollersport.tv (Sadly no longer online) which had videos of a lot of American Bouts including some of the 2008 Regionals . Watching these I discovered that the top skaters would scissor their legs around the apex of the corners so quickly learnt how to do these and to bend my knees to get low which helped.

As my cross overs slowly improved and my Caymens got more and more bald it was finally time to upgrade so the order was placed with www.sincityskates.com/ for a set of Blue Radar Tuners and the cheapest outdoor wheels they had. For the next 6 months I did nothing but skate. Where I was working at the time had plenty of available tarmac around so most evenings would put the outdoor wheels on and then the tuners on for team practise. Looking back now, the cheap outdoor wheel probably helped my skating as much as the Tuners simply because they allowed me to skate more. With all this skating I was beginning to notice something, my left foot really hurt when i was skating. I stopped wearing a sock on my left foot and using a shoe horn to stretch the boot a bit but it was no good, time for new skates.

Thanks to Trish ,Ivanna and every one at sincityskates  I ordered the most beautiful pair of custom Riedell Wickeds in the world, they still are in my eyes. Very soon after buying my skates I was avidly reading Skatelog forum and there was some negative posts about SinCity and the advice they were giving. So stopped reading Skatelog forum.

I ordered the Wickeds with Atom D-Rods but decided to keep with my tuners as I was already used to them. It was then I upgraded my Knee pads to 187's Oh my - like falling on clouds loved 'em

Around this time I heard that one of our local leagues were being encouraged to skate without toe stops on so thought I'd give that a go, well why not. It was interesting I did learn about how weight distribution affects skating and it didn't have a negative effect on my skating but not sure it was positive either. After spending around 6 months toe stopperless and bouting at least once like that they went back on for the boot camp when Texas Hustlers came to play London Brawling. Now you would have to prize my toe stops from my cold dead hands.

At some point I decided to take off the Radar Tuners and try out the D-Rods I'd bought with my skates and WOW what a difference they made,overnight I went from one of the slowest on our team to one of the fastest, not THE fastest but certainly up there.

So going to harder wheels made me faster so maybe having even harder would make me would be even better. By now it was a lot easier to find stockists of wheel in the U.K easier so ordered 4 G-Rods and 4 Atom Strokers from billys and a new Bell Faction helmet from so other company I can't remember which.

Still mainly playing blocker I was able to use the hard wheels to develop a controlled slide to cross the track laterally fast for both big hits and positional blocking.


2011 was a year of big changes. My original plates that came with my skates were starting to get a bit knackered. Mainly because i didn't change the pivot cups when they were worn out and the Holes started to enlarge and despite my best attempts to squirt Silicone sealant into them I decided it was time for an upgrade. I bought a set of Roll Line Mariner Cup plates , these cost me more than my Original Riedell R3s, ridiculous i know. I read up a bit on short forward plates, decided to buy ones a size down from the actual recommended size.Mounted them myself by matching up the front holes from my old plates and then drilling holes in the back where they needed to be, simple really.


After a bit of tweaking I was able to tell the difference, they allowed me to skate laterally in one direction then immediately to cut back without that 'bogging down' feeling I was getting. These plates can be ordered with the Roll Line Hockey Toe stops which are HUGE and Amazing. i love them. Not only would you have to prize these out of my cold dead hands you'd have to kill me first.

The only reservation I have with these plates is the 'click action' system which is their advantage over the Variant - M. I don't think its worth it. my advice would be to go for either the Variant - M or spend more on a higher model.

During 2011 we changed our practise venues. One of these is now our bouting venue. The floor here can be interesting sometimes it can be absolutely lovely other times like an ice rink. Rollerbones of Bones Reds Bearing fame launched some new wheels, they did make a really grippy set but I decided to plump for the Kois at 92A from amazingskates I like them so much I've hardly taken them off simply because they are suitable at our other venues as well and mostly ok at our bout venue.

As I've played for longer my skating has changed, the game has changed and developed. One thing that I decided early on is to play Jammer as much as possible. Although primarily a blocker jamming has pushed me to up my fitness and agility and try to understand what is going through the jammers minds so i can try and anticipate what they are likely to do and if possible get the jammers to do what I want them to do.

So with this change in the game, my change of skating and the random element to our floor I recently decided to buy a set of poison slims. At the moment they remind me of my Radar Tuners. They are making me work my legs a lot more, they are forcing me to drive through my hits more and at the moment my top speed has come down. I'm hoping with time the extra effort required will develop into an explosive Punch to hit jammers with and to accelerate away from the pack when jamming.

I'm now onto my second set of 187 knee pads, my Original Anarchy elbow pads have been retired and replaced with 187 elbow pads both from amazing skates, needed a mouth guard in a rush so bought a protec-Dent from Kitty Fangtastic just before a practise and discovered I have the smallest mouth in Roller Derby.
Other wheels have been bought or borrowed tried and discarded, skated on several different bearings but can't really tell the difference.

So what have i learnt in the 3 Years of playing roller derby about equipment. It doesn't matter what kit you have it won't make you a better skater, skating will. Different equipment suits different people, don't make judgments about people because of the kit they use, they may be able to kick your ass with whatever skates they wear. just like Roller Derby the kit we use is a journey, go with it and enjoy it.

Last friday I decided to go for a run, it was freezing cold there was still snow on the ground and I hadn't run for quite a while. I thought it was going to be awful but it wasn't. It was actually quite amazing.
The last time I ran I did my normal route and added an extra lap to it. the 1st lap had had been ok as normal, the 2nd lap felt tough and the 3rd lap was the killer. So when I decided to do the same I was thinking it would be equally as hard but actually it wasn't. I seemed to have picked up some fitness from somewhere, not sure where but was really glad of it.

While I was running I realised that for the last month or so i had been coasting along with my training. people were complementing me and I was happy to take the complements. I had somehow wtapped myself up into a coccoon of happyness and needed to escape from it. I've been working on all the other things that I need to do to make my grand life plans happen and had not taken a moment to stand back think about my Roller Derby and the reasons that i'm making all those plans in the 1st place.

So at the Weekend I played two bouts. A mixed team bout Goth Vs Glam on team Glam and an Intraleague bout. Both bouts I played Jammer much more than I normally do. By the 2nd half of the intraleague bout was starting to feel the fatigue set in and struggle and had to go to pack play. Near the end picked up 3 majors for out of play blocking. Easily avoided but brain was starting to fade and as we were losing I simply wasn't going to give in until I was absolutely forced to.

This week has been good and hard in equal amounts. Have been asked some difficult questions, not metaphorical ones but real ones with question marks and everything. Those questions brought thoughts to the fore which had probably been brewing for a while but not wanted to admit them. Had to share with one of my team mates so thank you for listening to me.

So with all this stuff going on in my head it decided to step up my off skates training. I work in a large office building. one of the blocks has 12 floors the ladies showers are on tenth floor so have been running up stairs to showers when i cycle to work.

Monday morning decided to get on bike and set off to work half an hour early. Good ride to work and then ran up the full 12 floors 3 times. Did that Monday,Tuesday and Wednesday. Did sit ups, plank and press ups when I arrived home after work each evening.


That was a good start now I know I need to keep that up and make it an habit.

Derby training on Wednesday felt a little odd and left me a bit mixed up. Couldn't really put my finger on it. My initial thoughts were that I completely sucked but that wasn't really true, think i'm just being harsh on my self and magnifying my weaknesses but not my strengths. So I guess I probably need to balance things out a bit. Accept complements where they are justified, seek constructive criticism that will help me improve but not beat myself up too hard when things don't go to plan.

Tomorrow will be the first Sheffield Steel rollergirls Interleague bout of 2012. We are playing Big bucks High rollers at Ponds forge. Its been bit of a crappy week so it will be good to get back on the track. Expect it to be a tough one but we have been practising hard so should be a good bout.

Today I helped El Vicious, Hula Gunn and Dot slash teach Jammer and Jammer Killing at the Hellfire Harlots.

Tomorrow will be learning Strategy from Stef Mainey and Kamikaze Kitten.

Being able to learn new skills and pass them on is one of the coolest things about Roller Derby. It doesn't matter how good you are there is always someone that can teach you new skills and techniques.

Sometimes that learning can come from the unlikeliest of places. Its possible that the newest skater on you league will teach you something as important as the best coach can.
Be open to learning at every opportunity it doesn't always happen on the track,during drills. It can be a throwaway comment from a team mate that will make you think differently about your game. It can be a structured conversation that will provoke you into pushing yourself harder or trying something new.

When you have the opportunity to learn take in as much of it as possible, you never know when what you learn will make a big difference

I'm laying in bed having just eaten and showered after playing our final bout of 2011, against London Rollergirls Brawl Saints. Closed bout etiquette prevents me from posting the scoreline but after shaky first half we switched our tactics and played strongly in the 2nd half.

So lets have a quick re-cap of 2011 and put down a few thoughts for 2012.

After beating Middlesborough Milk Rollers in January we faced up against Leeds Roller Dolls. Leeds beat us heavily in our 1st bout so we were really keen to get one over them. it wasn't to be but was a lot closer than last time. they took a strong lead early on but we rallied held the point deficit down.

An away victory over Lincolnshire bombers then brought us up for another rematch against Royal Windsor Rollergirls. in 2010 we beat Windsor on the last jam. This time it was a similar story to the Leeds Bout. Shaky 1st half closing in on the 2nd half but not quite able to win.

September so us travel to Newcastle,Newcastle were much improved since we last played them but we played well to take the win, personally this was notable as it was the 1st bout that I fouled out of for 7 major penalties. And finally October another rematch against Central City Rollergirls. The first time we played them it went very badly and we lost heavily,leaving the whole team feeling very down. This time it went a lot better, we still didn't take the win but was probably our best team performance of the year.

This was mixed in with various scrimmages, trips to Middlesbrough and Scotland for Mixed team bouts,day and weekend boot camps. and various other Roller Derby activities

So thats the team stuff what about me,time for a bit of reflection.

Still working on Jamming, as I'm still convinced its a really good way to improve blocking skills both mentally and physically. A few weeks ago in scrimmage I identified a weakness in my jamming which I'm working on improving.

I was elected to be captain of one of our closed Intraleague teams. Team Orange. Was quite nerve racking at first as have never been a team captain before,but now really enjoying it. It also really helping me with my people skills and being able to organise, co-ordinate and manage a large group which can be tough at times. Think I've found an ace Line Up manager in Oblivion Westwood, which has started to help a lot. Intraleague has also helped with being able to try out new strategy and tactics that can be taken to the travel team.

Fitness has continued to improve. The Sessions run by The inhuman League have helped with that and making the effort to cycle to work regularly also good.

Still need to work on my pack work, improving wall building and switching from offense to defence faster.

Apart from the Newcastle bout think my game is less penalty heavy than it used to be, I did make an effort to change my hitting style after that bout which helped and also think it improved my hits. Still rubbish at Apex jumping which is leading to penalties when jamming but have started doing some reverse blocking and have been able to get that into game without incurring many penalties.

So plans for 2012.

Improve Diet, think I need to cut down on Carbs and increase protein. Heard a lot about the Paleo diet. might have a look at it but not convinced by it really.

Work on mental game. Started Reading 'sports psychology for dummies', so hoping to learn from that.

So thats all I can think of at the moment. Currently need a good relaxing week, a good rest and some junk food and DVDS so I can chill out. 1st bout of next year is in January already the planning has begun for that so it won't be long before preparation for 2012 is in full swing. If we can crack playing well in 1st half we should be a seriously strong team.

So we all breathe every day, probably lots of times every day without thinking about it much. Most of the time when I play Roller Derby I breathe without thinking about it too much. When I've been jamming or a particularly demanding drill I will be out of breath but recover without any problems.

A few months ago after we had done our 5 mins of skating drill I was out of Breath but unusually I didn't have any soreness in my legs, that wasn't a worry I just thought I must be getting fitter. The track was crowded so hadn't been able to go at my top speed and spent lots of the time juking around other skaters so couldn't push too hard. I didn't do a particularly good number of laps but not particularly bad either.

A bit later on in the Session when we were scrimmaging I started having problems with my ear, it kept feeling as though I was underwater, just one ear and the feeling kept coming and going. I made it through the session without any incident except for feeling annoyed by how distracting my ear had been.

That night I realised that I was still suffering the affects of a cold from earlier in the week. The reason my legs weren't sore is that I wasn't able to get the oxygen into my lungs to push hard not because my legs were getting stronger.

So I boiled a kettle, cut a Karvol capsule and dripped some olbas oil into a bowl, added the boiling water and breathed deeply, to clear out all the nastiness from my chest and head.

The next training session my legs were sore from the effort and the horrible feeling in my ear had gone and was able to do a decent number of laps

So what I've learnt from this is that I now know the effects of having a cold has on my body even after I think I am over it.

Its not just specifically colds, this past week I strained a muscle in my leg. I could feel it tightening up over a few days but still insisted on cycling to work, doing a off skates work out and then finally it went Ouch while helping at a session for our newer skaters.

I try to listen to my body better to go easy when I'm sore, to rest, eat and hydrate when needed. I still get these wrong, hurt muscles, feel like puking or fainting when i'm tired cold or hungry but I do now try to get it right and don't make the mistakes as badly now, and as I was reminded this week its something that you can't take for granted.