Week One... Basic stops, stickies and epic knee slides!!
Yesterday was our first official training session.. and they worked us hard!!
When we got there I found out that I wasn't the only one to miss the second induction last week which was reassuring, I had no idea if I could remember what we learnt 2 weeks ago.. so much has happened since then, and as my hubby would say "I'd slept since then so I don't remember!".
As I expected I was like Bambie on ice, but luckily I wasn't alone!
They didn't give us an easy start either, it was a case of get your skates on and join in the warm up.. with the advanced skaters!!!! We were asked to do things that we hadn't even been taught to do, but being thrown in the deep end seemed to work, for some of us at least.
Once we had warmed up (apparently it was an easy warm up too!!!) we were then paired up with an advances skater to learn how to stop properly. I got the T-Stops down pretty quickly, but the plough stop totally fazes me! Which makes no sense as I've skied and its basically the same skill.
We then split from the advanced skaters and started training on our minimum skills. Stickies were next, and I love them!! Keeping the skates flat to the floor was so much more comfortable and I managed to get up quite a bit of speed too. One of the newbies noted everyone's "Fart faces" which turned out to be one of those things that once you have seen it the first time it's all you can see! If your not sure what I'm talking about just keep an eye of everyone's faces when they are attempting stickies and tell me that it does't look like they are trying to hold in a sneeky fart!
When we had perfected our fart faces we moved on to some epic knee slides. These are my favourite!!! I remember when I was little I spent a vast amount of my PE classes sliding around on my knees perfecting my air guitar slides, who'd have thought they would come in handy now. Me and one of the others were keen to get going so we did it at the same time, complete with air guitar actions.. much to the enjoyment of some of the advanced skaters who were watching!
The only downfall was the pain in my back last night. We were warned about the knee slides hurting us if we landed too hard on our knees, I think I did the opposite and leant too far back instead. Bad times, be warned!!!
Anywho, this is turning into a bit of a novel (or so the hubby says, he keeps leaning over my shoudler) so I shall bring it to an end.
All in all, I had an amazing time, and although I ache and am sure tomorrow will ache even more, I am becoming addicted. So much so I'm finally going to sit down and watch Whip It tonight, and at least 50% of my thoughts have been derby related today.
