Last Sunday I hurt myself AGAIN at practice.  I have not been able to skate since – I’ve mostly been laying in bed with an ice pack on my lower back when not at work.  I’m not even sure what I did to injure myself.  I was doing a hitting drill, got tangled up with my partner and fell.  Got up just fine, did the drill probably two more times and the coach blew the whistle to talk about some things we were doing wrong.  I had a question about something I was doing incorrectly, and while asking her, my lower back/glutes started to cramp if I moved just right.  I thought maybe if I stretched it out, it would be ok.  I sat and stretched and it would feel fine until I moved just right.  Then I would have pain intense enough to almost floor me.  I sat out the rest of the practice (again) trying to stretch/massage the pain away.

I drove home and the almost hour drive was semi painful and gave me a lot of time to think.  What am I doing to myself?  I’ve decided to take up a full contact sport in my 30’s, after not really having done much working out in the last 3 years or so.  I’m constantly hurting myself since joining BAD.  Maybe this isn’t what I should be doing – maybe I’m starting off too old, without my body in good enough condition to handle it.

I was seriously thinking about not going back.  I thought of all the things I could do with my free time.  I have 24 weeks of school left.  I’ll be done.  I’d have time to hang out with friends, my husband, take more trips to see loved ones in So Cal.  Clean up my back yard.  Walk the dog more.  My time is completely full of work, school, and derby at the moment.  It pretty much has been for the last year and a half.  I thought about the money I’d be saving.  No dues, no uniforms, no more skate gear or trips.  I contemplated how I could possibly still be involved by NSOing or even reffing.  How I could still go and watch games.  Maybe I’m more cut out to just be a fan of derby.

Then I realized how much everything I was thinking was about me.  Part of the reason I got into derby was to experience working as a team by choice (as opposed to work, where it’s kind of forced on you).   It’s not so much that there are people counting on me at this point, I’m too new, but that they do need more skaters.  They need people to stick with it through the painful parts.  They need people that can grow to be someone they’re counting on.  They need to see that they can count on you prior to giving you that responsibility.

I thought about how I also got into derby to have a real learning experience.  To not have something that I could just *do* like so many other things.  I don’t study much for school, working has never really been difficult for me, there’s not much out there that I’ve found that truly challenges me.  I learn quickly and easily.  I’m smart, I’m resourceful.  This sport takes more than that, though.  They are incredibly useful traits to have, but it takes practice and dedication.  It takes not giving up when it sucks.  It takes going and sitting on the bench and watching even when you can’t skate.

I realized my choices at this point are to heal and make myself stronger, or basically give up.  If I don’t have the willingness to get stronger, I’m going to keep hurting myself.  If I can strengthen my legs and my core – well, I could still keep getting hurt, but the chances are less likely that I’ll do it while doing some drill.  I could keep going on the way I have been, but that’s not going to get me to where I want to be.

So, I’m not giving up.  I’m really sad and angry about not working harder to make myself stronger before skating.  I’m embarrassed that I keep getting hurt.  I feel as though it makes me look weak and like I have no idea what I’m doing.  I’m embarrassed that I’m not as strong of a skater as these other women are.  This doesn’t mean that this is the truth, it’s simply how I feel.  I do not believe that feelings are always truth.  They are what they are – sometimes they have good reason, sometimes they don’t.  These are the feelings driving me to quit, and they are not the ones I want running my life.

Someone once told me that for every 100 no’s you get 1 yes.  I think this is a completely made up statistic, but I like the idea behind it.  You fail, but if you keep trying, eventually you’ll figure it out.  I remember when I started scrimmaging – not much was expected of me.  I didn’t expect much of myself.  I had a little mental checklist of things that I kept while scrimmaging that were what I should be doing.  It wasn’t a list of everything I should be doing – just the basics.  Skate low, watch behind me, hold the inside line (we always start new people off as the 2).  As I started naturally doing these things, they would fall of the list and I’d be able to add new things – try and hit the jammer, don’t let that person just push me off the inside line, etc.  I’ve allowed this list to become so long it’s overwhelming at this point.

It’s time to scale it back, find the top three most basic items I need to work on, and keep working on them until I naturally do them and make room for new items.  I can’t do it all at once.

My top 3 scrimmaging items will be: staying low, staying with a buddy, and recycling to the front.

My top 3 off skates items will be: strengthen my legs, strengthen my core, and improve my endurance

My top 3 on skates items will be: agility, balance, and toe stop work.

I will set goals that make me feel as though I’ve adequately achieved those things, and when I’ve achieved them I can replace them with new items.

If I fail – well, I don’t feel like these are things I can outright fail at.  I may not be able to improve them as fast as I’d like – but failing at them would require me to do absolutely nothing.

Feelings, for all my life I’ll feel it.