Not everybody in derby can be a star player. I think we all know that when we start. After we watch some derby, after we get involved in the community, we know that not all of us can be Suzy Hotrod. Not all of us can even be the best player on our team.
The truth is, though, that a lot of us feel like there is such a very large gap between us and people who are derby stars that we can never make it up. I know I can't be the best player on the team, but I've always told myself that I could at least be good at doing me. The problem is, I don't really know what I'm good at when I'm doing that.
I'm intensely frustrated right now. I spend a lot of time thinking about, reading about, watching derby. Absorbing strategy. Researching the teams we're playing. I devote time to off-skates practices; hell, I run off-skates practices, when a year ago, you wouldn't have caught me dead making a consistent commitment to go to them. In other words, I'm working my ass off. I'm trying to understand my strengths so that I can play to them, and understand my weaknesses so that I can correct them.
I think the problem is in not being able to find the strengths. If you asked me what I was good at, I'd tell you this: I'm pretty decent at positional blocking. I can take a hit like a boss, and most of the time, it doesn't move me. I'm aware of the jammers most of the time. If I can line up a hit and time it right, I hit hard, and I can do it effectively. I try to listen well in the pack and stick with my team. I try to communicate effectively. This season, I have worked harder than ever before at being a good offense player, the person who can help dig my jammer out of sticky situations.
But then there's the doubt. Sometimes, it seems like all those positives are just in my head. I've gotten complimented during practice recently for helping jammers when they're stuck - so maybe I can check that one off the list. But in spite of the fact that I know that I hit well, I'm never considered one of the team's hardest hitters, never one of the best blockers. And I want to be, oh gods, I do. But how do I get from point A to B? I positional block and set up set & spikes well, too. But I feel like the only thing that is valued is the spike, not necessarily the fact that I'm holding them back to set up a partner to take that hit. I feel like I'm considered slow - and I am slow, compared to our jammers.
I've started to wonder about a lot of things. How hard do I need to hit before I've done a good job? How fast do I need to skate before I have enough endurance?
I don't know whether it's necessarily that I don't understand what the coaches want out of me, or whether I am too critical of myself. I don't feel like I get enough feedback. Some people tell me I do a great job - like the captain of the Southern Misfits, who told me after the bout that I was a phenomenal blocker. NO ONE has EVER told me that before. But the truth is, just the way I am, I'm inclined not to believe it. Not to listen. To always find a reason why she might have been saying it just to be nice.
It breaks my heart that this is the one thing in derby that I can't get over. In the four years since I've started this sport, I've become tougher, stronger, smarter, more assertive. I am healthier. I am faster. I hit harder. And still, none of it gives me the results that I want. None of it makes me feel like I know where I stand, or even that I know what to work on. What I haven't been able to do is to get my inner doubter to shut up and let me become that blocker that does me.
At the beginning of this season, I made a list of goals. Some of those have really been worked on, while others have fallen by the wayside. I feel like it's difficult to set goals when you're not sure what your team needs of you. If you're tempted to think that your team doesn't need you, then it's hard to want to set goals. And I don't feel like that all the time, but there's certainly days where it's easy to give in to the temptation - well, I'm not one of their stronger players, so what the hell do they need me for? I'm just a warm body out there.
Self-talk like that hurts. It hurts when you believe in yourself so little. It hurts when you know that the fact that you don't believe in yourself makes your teammates more likely to see that lack of confidence, and when you know that your lack of confidence affects your ability to make plays.
I think maybe what makes it the hardest is that I don't know where to start working on the problem. Is it something that I need to talk out with my coaches? Is it something that I need to work on myself?
It's so easy to feel lost sometimes in a sport like this. When you're not the hitter that everyone dreads seeing in the pack, when you're not the jammer who can squeeze through the tiniest hole... where do you really stand?
I don't know. And I think a lot of us don't. So what is the solution? How do we keep reminding ourselves that it's okay to "do you" when "doing you" doesn't really give you what you want? If "doing you" isn't enough, are YOU wrong for wanting to "do" someone else? Or are you setting unrealistic goals? Or are you just unsure how to get from point A to point B?
I still don't know. I wish I did. I wish I had a magic button I could use to tell myself to shut the hell up because it's not like I'm just NOT WORKING ON IT. Life doesn't have many magic buttons, though.
One thing I do know... it's a puzzle that has some kind of solution. And if I look hard enough, I do believe that I'll find it. It's just that the looking is sometimes a really uncomfortable thing. I hope that, somehow, I can differentiate between my own ridiculous expectations and what my coaches want out of me. I hope I can begin to differentiate between my own negative self-talk, and interpreting every time they don't say anything as an affirmation of my uselessness.
It's really strange, sometimes, the way that derby can magnify problems that you're experiencing in your own life. In this case, the worst of derby brings my anxiety disorder to the forefront, writes it large on a screen, and forces me to confront it. Derby has that tendency: to make us face things that we don't like about ourselves. Things that are actually preventing us from getting where we want to go. Physical, mental, emotional, all of it.
There are really only two options: bitch about it, or change it. We all need to bitch sometimes, and this is my moment to do so. Bitching about it is recognition, and recognition can turn into a plan for change.
If there's one thing that I do think is positive about myself as a blocker, that I know no one, not even me, can take away, it's this: I'm always evolving. I'm always getting up after a fall. I'm always refusing to let the last game be the best ever, because then there's nothing else to live up to. The trick is in turning that into a sword to first take down this beast of negativity that is blocking the path to becoming a better Helley. Then, the real work starts.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
4:32
Today: doomsday for lap times. WFTDA testing started at our morning practice this week, and I seriously thought I was going to barf when we lined up to do our timed laps. But once I got into the rhythm, I didn't even think about the time, just about counting down laps until I was done. 4:32. Exactly where I wanted to be when I set my goal of getting in under 4:30.
Now, I can set goals for when I skate with the other 25 in 5'ers, or when I go to help my derby wife get her lap times down on Tuesday. No pressure, just me and my time, and getting better. That, I can deal with.
The first half of the WFTDA test went well today too. Although some of my skills felt a little spastic (grapevines? Really? When have I ever used that in a game?), for the most part, I felt like I was on target. Ready to start a new season. We have left pacing, hitting, pack interactions. Those are the sorts of things that many new girls get worried about, and I hope our fresh meat aren't freaking out. The newer skaters that we had at practice today did exceptionally on the stuff we tested.
All in all, it's impossible not to have a huge sense of pride in our team right now. Things haven't been moonlight and roses down here in Burn City, but after struggling to get the new business license off the ground and then struggling to make sure everyone held on through the hard part, the light at the end of the tunnel is finally becoming brighter. People are working hard. Our new skaters are amazing-really nice women who have infused a major breath of life into the team. I really haven't felt more assured that we will make it, and not just make it, but succeed than I do now.
Derby does a lot of strange things for you. I realize now just how different I was as a skater even just last season. I do not remember the person I was last season, the blocker who was scared to block for fear of making the wrong decision. I am excited about bout season, ready to get back into the game and see what I can make of a whole new set of opponents and damn near a whole new team.
Without this, I don't know if I'd have any consistent model of persistence and change in my life. Derby is one of those sports where if you want it bad enough and you work hard enough for it, it's yours. I know not everything in life is that easy - but then again, derby is not that easy. To say the phrase above oversimplifies a lot. Wanting it bad enough means coming home crying when you can't perform as well as you want. It means not understanding why your team lost or fell apart at halftime. It means believing that there is absolutely nothing you can do to improve yourself because you are unimproveable. But working hard for it means telling your brain to shut the hell up, because only whiners fall down and don't recover within three seconds. It means turning off your brain when your muscles are burning from strain and pushing harder. It means FINDING those extra few strides when you are about to finish a time trial, and FINDING that extra block at the end of the scrimmage to hold the other jammer.
Derby can cause you to lose a lot, believe me. I've lost a whole team. I've lost friends. I've seen other people lose relationships, even marriages, whether directly or indirectly related to roller derby. It can be a consuming monster. But somewhere, after we're consumed, that's where the magic happens. Somehow, we become obsessed with this sport and being better at it, and somehow, we're made more whole than we were before. More confident, more apt to believe that we are strong and decisive and fabulous women. If I can do what I do on a derby track, if every second of every drill can mold me into a better player AND a better person, then what happens if I apply those lessons to my life outside of derby?
And they say sports teach you nothing.
Now, I can set goals for when I skate with the other 25 in 5'ers, or when I go to help my derby wife get her lap times down on Tuesday. No pressure, just me and my time, and getting better. That, I can deal with.
The first half of the WFTDA test went well today too. Although some of my skills felt a little spastic (grapevines? Really? When have I ever used that in a game?), for the most part, I felt like I was on target. Ready to start a new season. We have left pacing, hitting, pack interactions. Those are the sorts of things that many new girls get worried about, and I hope our fresh meat aren't freaking out. The newer skaters that we had at practice today did exceptionally on the stuff we tested.
All in all, it's impossible not to have a huge sense of pride in our team right now. Things haven't been moonlight and roses down here in Burn City, but after struggling to get the new business license off the ground and then struggling to make sure everyone held on through the hard part, the light at the end of the tunnel is finally becoming brighter. People are working hard. Our new skaters are amazing-really nice women who have infused a major breath of life into the team. I really haven't felt more assured that we will make it, and not just make it, but succeed than I do now.
Derby does a lot of strange things for you. I realize now just how different I was as a skater even just last season. I do not remember the person I was last season, the blocker who was scared to block for fear of making the wrong decision. I am excited about bout season, ready to get back into the game and see what I can make of a whole new set of opponents and damn near a whole new team.
Without this, I don't know if I'd have any consistent model of persistence and change in my life. Derby is one of those sports where if you want it bad enough and you work hard enough for it, it's yours. I know not everything in life is that easy - but then again, derby is not that easy. To say the phrase above oversimplifies a lot. Wanting it bad enough means coming home crying when you can't perform as well as you want. It means not understanding why your team lost or fell apart at halftime. It means believing that there is absolutely nothing you can do to improve yourself because you are unimproveable. But working hard for it means telling your brain to shut the hell up, because only whiners fall down and don't recover within three seconds. It means turning off your brain when your muscles are burning from strain and pushing harder. It means FINDING those extra few strides when you are about to finish a time trial, and FINDING that extra block at the end of the scrimmage to hold the other jammer.
Derby can cause you to lose a lot, believe me. I've lost a whole team. I've lost friends. I've seen other people lose relationships, even marriages, whether directly or indirectly related to roller derby. It can be a consuming monster. But somewhere, after we're consumed, that's where the magic happens. Somehow, we become obsessed with this sport and being better at it, and somehow, we're made more whole than we were before. More confident, more apt to believe that we are strong and decisive and fabulous women. If I can do what I do on a derby track, if every second of every drill can mold me into a better player AND a better person, then what happens if I apply those lessons to my life outside of derby?
And they say sports teach you nothing.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Starting Fresh
It's almost a new season. I have to confess, I don't really know what to expect (and I'm the Interleague Coordinator).
What I do know is that things have been hard in BCR land since about September-October. Most of it is not worth rehashing; it's one of those situations where the more you rehash, the more you wonder if you should have made a different choice, the more you lose sleep over trying to find that one miraculous solution that would have made every single person happy. I'm an idealist and a compromiser - I like to believe that solution exists, but the truth is, it doesn't in every instance. Sometimes, we just have to take what we can get and make the best of it.
So here we are. A lot of familiar faces from the very beginnings of BCR aren't around anymore. It's pretty surreal to look around and realize that Amyn, myself, and Bruise are the only ones who were there for the founding of the team. According to some people, that makes me an OG.
Thing is, though, I've been here forever, around roller derby, that is. I'll be involved for my fourth season this year, skating for my third. In a sense, I feel like I should be a better skater than I am - but who doesn't feel like that? In a lot of ways, I'm disappointed in myself, but in a lot of ways, I'm not.
I look back two seasons ago, to the Mary Helley that ended up becoming the captain of Belles 'n' Bombshells and eventually the President of the league. Comparatively, I am light years past that girl. I understand more about strategy and teamwork, and I am not so unsure of myself that I let opportunities pass me by on the track. Well - okay, I lie. PART of that unsure girl is still there. But I like to think that she's fading the longer I skate.
This team has really been through hell backwards in the past six months. Maybe the past year. I could let it get to me, but the truth is, nobody else can ruin derby for you. You're the only one who can choose to put out your fire.
I've taken the past week and a half off from skating to get my shit together for the new semester (and to have a nice birthday dinner). The guess, though, I really needed the time to re-evaluate derby too. Drama is exhausting, especially when you are involved in a leadership position and you're trying to work through it, reassuring the team that the league is stable and healthy, while at the same time having to pretend you yourself aren't terrified that it's not. The December break was nice. I probably shouldn't have given myself more time off the past week and a half, but I guess I just wasn't done thinking about it.
Ahead of us this season are twelve bouts. Twelve all new bouts with no prior bullshit, no prior expectations. Clean slate. Whatever I screwed up last year doesn't matter anymore.
Bout season gets closer every practice. As I've learned from my time in this sport, it helps to have goals, and that's part of the reason I wanted to write this post today: to set some. To set them down in front of everyone who reads my blog, to release them to the derby goddesses (who I imagine to be sort of Valkyries on skates), and to begin getting down to work.
I think it's the most reasonable to set short-term and long-term goals-things for me to work on now, and things for me to accomplish by the end of the season. I hope to update my blog here and there with updates on how I'm doing with them.
Short Term:
1. Lose 20 pounds by June. When summer kicks in and our season starts its more stringent timeline, I'd like to be slimmer and fitter. Keep the muscle, ditch the fat.
2. Attend every skating practice through the end of March unless I am out of town visiting family. Of course, it's necessary to attend every practice you can regardless, but I set my particular date for the end of March because a) that's when our bout season officially starts, and b) I need the off-season training to get back into shape for Hub City.
3. Improve 25 in 5 time to under 4:30. When I was with BnB, one of my greatest challenges was making the 25 in 5. My endurance was terrible, and I could barely handle it. Making the time is not my problem now. I've always wanted to be faster - at one point last season, I got down to a personal best of 4:27. Right now, I'm running about 4:40, and I'm not happy with it. Ten seconds isn't much to shave off, and it's doable within the next few weeks. A few seconds every time we do it at practice is my goal. I would love to have it down to 4:30 by the time we take our WFTDA test in early Feb, but I don't know if I'll quite make it. My goal, therefore, is to have my time between 4:30 and 4:35 for the test.
Long-Term:
1. Play aggressively. If there's anything I've figured out, it's that I'm actually a pretty hard hitter, and a pretty aggressive blocker. When I play aggressively. That's the key term. When I am nervous about whether or not I am making the wrong play I don't take any chances at all, nevermind making the wrong play. When I play more aggressively, yes, I screw up sometimes. But it's better to screw up and adjust my playstyle to be more effective than to be so scared to screw up that I try nothing at all. One of the games where we got our asses handed to us, vs. Nashville's B-team ,I felt like I played my best. I didn't know where that skater came from. But what I knew after that bout was that she was in there somewhere - aggressive, did what she needed to do without over-thinking it. Yeah, she got sent to the box sometimes, but she also made some pretty good plays. And then I spent the rest of the season chasing her, trying to bring her back. This season, I will not chase her; I will be her. I will learn to leave it all on the track, because I only get one shot at every bout - and I need to make it count.
2. Make a lifestyle change. I'll admit it, before derby, I was like a lot of other people: Lazy with a capital L. Never played team sports, never really liked exercising. But, as I learned pretty quickly, derby is about a lot more than just looking cute and smashing into people on skate. The sheer strength and agility and physical fitness needed to play this sport has been both a shock and a stumbling block at times. Whether or not I knew it would take this much, though, I know it now. And if I want to be the best Helley I can be, then I have to make a choice: I can keep treating my body like crap, and keep making excuses for why I don't want to exercise (even though I know I feel MUCH better after I do), or I can eat better, train harder, and make a commitment to tune myself up not just for my team, but also for me.
3. Jam successfully. At least once. I've known since I started that I would never really be a jammer, but I will admit: I am terrified of it. I don't want to be a star jammer; I'm not built like that, and I love pack play a LOT. But what I DO want to do this season is to learn how to jam. I want to take opportunities to take the jammer panty at practice, and make myself do it, even if I don't want to. There's absolutely no reason at all for me to be scared of jamming, and I WILL learn how to do it successfully this season, even if it's only during scrimmages, and even if it's only to make me understand jamming better so I can be a better blocker. I don't really have any goals to do it during a game - I just want to get over my fear of it, and learn how to use knowledge of what a jammer has to do to my advantage when I'm in the pack.
As I look at my list of goals, some of them seem awfully big, but I think that's okay. If we don't dream big about ourselves, we're short-cutting ourselves. Who else will do it for us? If I don't believe that I can be that effective, hard-hitting blocker that takes care of business in the pack, why will my teammates believe it? Why will my jammers think I can protect them?
I think it's important for every player to self-evaluate. We may know that we're not experts at derby, but we can always get better. There's always something. These are my somethings. What are your somethings?
P.S. - Welcome to the new season, Burn City! <3
What I do know is that things have been hard in BCR land since about September-October. Most of it is not worth rehashing; it's one of those situations where the more you rehash, the more you wonder if you should have made a different choice, the more you lose sleep over trying to find that one miraculous solution that would have made every single person happy. I'm an idealist and a compromiser - I like to believe that solution exists, but the truth is, it doesn't in every instance. Sometimes, we just have to take what we can get and make the best of it.
So here we are. A lot of familiar faces from the very beginnings of BCR aren't around anymore. It's pretty surreal to look around and realize that Amyn, myself, and Bruise are the only ones who were there for the founding of the team. According to some people, that makes me an OG.
Thing is, though, I've been here forever, around roller derby, that is. I'll be involved for my fourth season this year, skating for my third. In a sense, I feel like I should be a better skater than I am - but who doesn't feel like that? In a lot of ways, I'm disappointed in myself, but in a lot of ways, I'm not.
I look back two seasons ago, to the Mary Helley that ended up becoming the captain of Belles 'n' Bombshells and eventually the President of the league. Comparatively, I am light years past that girl. I understand more about strategy and teamwork, and I am not so unsure of myself that I let opportunities pass me by on the track. Well - okay, I lie. PART of that unsure girl is still there. But I like to think that she's fading the longer I skate.
This team has really been through hell backwards in the past six months. Maybe the past year. I could let it get to me, but the truth is, nobody else can ruin derby for you. You're the only one who can choose to put out your fire.
I've taken the past week and a half off from skating to get my shit together for the new semester (and to have a nice birthday dinner). The guess, though, I really needed the time to re-evaluate derby too. Drama is exhausting, especially when you are involved in a leadership position and you're trying to work through it, reassuring the team that the league is stable and healthy, while at the same time having to pretend you yourself aren't terrified that it's not. The December break was nice. I probably shouldn't have given myself more time off the past week and a half, but I guess I just wasn't done thinking about it.
Ahead of us this season are twelve bouts. Twelve all new bouts with no prior bullshit, no prior expectations. Clean slate. Whatever I screwed up last year doesn't matter anymore.
Bout season gets closer every practice. As I've learned from my time in this sport, it helps to have goals, and that's part of the reason I wanted to write this post today: to set some. To set them down in front of everyone who reads my blog, to release them to the derby goddesses (who I imagine to be sort of Valkyries on skates), and to begin getting down to work.
I think it's the most reasonable to set short-term and long-term goals-things for me to work on now, and things for me to accomplish by the end of the season. I hope to update my blog here and there with updates on how I'm doing with them.
Short Term:
1. Lose 20 pounds by June. When summer kicks in and our season starts its more stringent timeline, I'd like to be slimmer and fitter. Keep the muscle, ditch the fat.
2. Attend every skating practice through the end of March unless I am out of town visiting family. Of course, it's necessary to attend every practice you can regardless, but I set my particular date for the end of March because a) that's when our bout season officially starts, and b) I need the off-season training to get back into shape for Hub City.
3. Improve 25 in 5 time to under 4:30. When I was with BnB, one of my greatest challenges was making the 25 in 5. My endurance was terrible, and I could barely handle it. Making the time is not my problem now. I've always wanted to be faster - at one point last season, I got down to a personal best of 4:27. Right now, I'm running about 4:40, and I'm not happy with it. Ten seconds isn't much to shave off, and it's doable within the next few weeks. A few seconds every time we do it at practice is my goal. I would love to have it down to 4:30 by the time we take our WFTDA test in early Feb, but I don't know if I'll quite make it. My goal, therefore, is to have my time between 4:30 and 4:35 for the test.
Long-Term:
1. Play aggressively. If there's anything I've figured out, it's that I'm actually a pretty hard hitter, and a pretty aggressive blocker. When I play aggressively. That's the key term. When I am nervous about whether or not I am making the wrong play I don't take any chances at all, nevermind making the wrong play. When I play more aggressively, yes, I screw up sometimes. But it's better to screw up and adjust my playstyle to be more effective than to be so scared to screw up that I try nothing at all. One of the games where we got our asses handed to us, vs. Nashville's B-team ,I felt like I played my best. I didn't know where that skater came from. But what I knew after that bout was that she was in there somewhere - aggressive, did what she needed to do without over-thinking it. Yeah, she got sent to the box sometimes, but she also made some pretty good plays. And then I spent the rest of the season chasing her, trying to bring her back. This season, I will not chase her; I will be her. I will learn to leave it all on the track, because I only get one shot at every bout - and I need to make it count.
2. Make a lifestyle change. I'll admit it, before derby, I was like a lot of other people: Lazy with a capital L. Never played team sports, never really liked exercising. But, as I learned pretty quickly, derby is about a lot more than just looking cute and smashing into people on skate. The sheer strength and agility and physical fitness needed to play this sport has been both a shock and a stumbling block at times. Whether or not I knew it would take this much, though, I know it now. And if I want to be the best Helley I can be, then I have to make a choice: I can keep treating my body like crap, and keep making excuses for why I don't want to exercise (even though I know I feel MUCH better after I do), or I can eat better, train harder, and make a commitment to tune myself up not just for my team, but also for me.
3. Jam successfully. At least once. I've known since I started that I would never really be a jammer, but I will admit: I am terrified of it. I don't want to be a star jammer; I'm not built like that, and I love pack play a LOT. But what I DO want to do this season is to learn how to jam. I want to take opportunities to take the jammer panty at practice, and make myself do it, even if I don't want to. There's absolutely no reason at all for me to be scared of jamming, and I WILL learn how to do it successfully this season, even if it's only during scrimmages, and even if it's only to make me understand jamming better so I can be a better blocker. I don't really have any goals to do it during a game - I just want to get over my fear of it, and learn how to use knowledge of what a jammer has to do to my advantage when I'm in the pack.
As I look at my list of goals, some of them seem awfully big, but I think that's okay. If we don't dream big about ourselves, we're short-cutting ourselves. Who else will do it for us? If I don't believe that I can be that effective, hard-hitting blocker that takes care of business in the pack, why will my teammates believe it? Why will my jammers think I can protect them?
I think it's important for every player to self-evaluate. We may know that we're not experts at derby, but we can always get better. There's always something. These are my somethings. What are your somethings?
P.S. - Welcome to the new season, Burn City! <3
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