Back to school blues.....

In very un-like me fashion, for some reason I thought yesterday was the day to register for my classes...turns out it was the first day of the class I need to take...Long story short...I practiced from 7-8...7:18 is actually when I got on the floor....My new friend at work is going to give derby a whirl...so we met before practice and left where we were about 10 til....It took me until 7:18 to get on the floor, as I said, and that was partly due to introducing my friend to another rookie, (don't care for that term), player...and, as usual, I messed up putting on my gear...I always forget to put on one or more knee guards before my skates... :)....Also, unlike my "normal" self, I went to change at the end of work and found I forgot my pants..or spanks...or stretchy pants..whatever they are called now, at home..so I rushed to buy a pair on the way to meet my friend and cool...got a pair and though they are terribly long and had to be pushed up my thighs to make the wrinkles of them go away, here's to them shrinking...

[Funnny..and clever...
Velma Revolver is my 3rd favorite roller girl]

Practice was led tonight by Sheedbomb. We began with giant 8's, I was late for stretching and pre-skating so I just skated up real quick and fast a couple times and then went to the big 8's with the others...Next we did the dreadfully painful squatting on command trick...but I do enjoy getting the really painful parts over with quick... Next we did a spread the track as quick as a lick drill..where we are attempting to get from one side of the track to the other asap.

We moved on into the chop-chop start and land on one knee in the middle and the end. The more times we did that, the more it was a challenge to get up without touching the floor. I'll get better at that.

Then it was (yeah, I know we did a lot in my short time there tonight!), two knees fall in the middle, and a baseball slide out...or rather, a full-body slide out...fuck baseball ;)... We then did some actual stopping on the line drills and for some reason my plow stop was not in as top a form as last time...

Into the pack formation we went and we did the lovely snake weave...(so sexy)...

Finally we whipped each other from behind and through the pack...criss-crossing usually...I see now that some ladies grab hands and not my forearm...we talked about that at the last practice and felt we should expect a grab on the arm and not fingers...some people maybe forgot or weren't here for that lesson...

Ok..some do..I'm not quite there yet... :)

Anywhoozle...it's 12:15 am on the 19th and if I had stayed for the whole practice like I wanted to, it would be 1:15 am now...so I have that going for me...it's like winning an hour of sleep!

xox

-Sweet Alyce

Sweet Alyce Techster....

Today was a general meeting day since we missed it earlier in the month. As soon as I arrived just before 3, Coach asked for some assistance with her new computer. That was fun! Got her all spruced up, and changed the printer software she installed from Spanish to English and all her updates are up-to-date and all that jazz...The meeting went a bit long which was good so I could finish up her pc and not be late to the floor...(well a couple minutes late actually)...

I have to stop waiting one day before I blog about the drills we did..I'll have to think backwards here...So we ended with a opposite-wise slow skate to cool down...then we jammed fur on four during the last half an hour...That was awesme! Gerle Haggard, even though she felt like shit had a kick-ass jam! That was cool! I jammed twice...I lost my balance and fell as I came out lead jammer around the first turn...That sucked...Still got through but not firstly...Later on I jammed again and again that "thing" clicked in my head like it used to when I would speed too fast down the 101 freeway...In and out and like I can see the path open up a split-uncountable second before it opens...It's like jamming from the immediate future..hard to explain..Anyway...got through first on that one and just barely ahead of the other jammer but was able to call it off and THAT ALWAYS RULES!!

(get this sticker at http://www.wickedskatewear.com)

Falling in front of each other was another drill...That is good to see just how small I can fall...Kind of odd getting used to thinking while falling...Like an emergency plan is always in my mind and I just hope I remember it when I'm in an actual emergency situation...

Hmm...now the first drills still aren't coming to mind....*tap tap tap*...what were they? I'll start writing them down so I don't forget..guess I'll end this here...

Tuuuuuuuuuesay Afternoooooooon.....

What a fun surprise on my way to relax before practice - out the door of the establishment comes Nikki Spitts! Inside was Gerle Haggard and Pinkie Lee and how fun we got to hang out for an hour or so before practice...Good, quality derby-gabbing fun! I fully admit that I suggested we blow it off and luckily my team mates talked me down from being a total fuckoff....

Coach Q wasn't in this evening so Sheedabomb directed the practice and I was personally happy we didn't do a hardcore endurance session...Sheeda gave me some good stretching lessons, as I seem to not get the concept...(I always get screwed up on which way to turn to stretch when one leg is over the other...)

Throughout the practice we did the following:

We all partnered up, and Trixxy and I did the drill...which oddly I cannot remember the details of now...(I really have to force myself to write these posts as soon as I get home...I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of things I wanted to write about now)...

Another was three in front and one behind, with the point being for the the three to stay as a wall while knowing where the behind skater was and communicating that information between the three...I learned a lot about blocking doing that one.

We lined up at a far end and took off with a duckwalk and then with toe-starts, went down on one knee in the middle, got up and restarted, down on one knee at the other end and back up and same thing back to the start. Getting up again was not as easy as ususal...My B & C vitamins must have worn off... :)

Thankfully, Rachel Trouble had a bandaid in her purse for my ailing pinky toe... (Thanks Rach!)

Groovily we did the snake weaving drill which I love and that was awesome...I wonder why that one is so fun for me? Trixxy said she liked that one too...Maybe it's the zen-like flow of the line...it's almost like one of those desktop things with the balls that clank together in cadence....

Some of us hung out in front afterwards and then Nikki, Gerle and Shawna and I went to have a beer @ Steves. I hadn't been there before but it's the closest place to the arena. It was closed if you can believe that...So we went to the 'downtown' area (silly..check out that vid!)...The ladies didn't care for that vibe so we went across the street to the bowling alley...Another place I drive by and never have been inside of...Lo and behold when we went in, the WATCH program adults were there and I saw a whole bunch of people I know from work...patrons of the library...That was really cool to see them out having fun, they were doing Karaoke of all things! Very sweet. I purchased my beer and we went from the bar there to the alleys and sat at a table...Those always hungry twins snagged the guy working there and he was so nice he made us some popcorn and gave us some chips...(those taco chips! I love those!)....

I forgot to tip the guy because I thought we were going back in after we went out so I'm going to go by there later today and give him a tip...

And before I forget I wanted to say WELCOME BACK to MERMAD...! She had been back last practice but I wasn't so it's been a while since I've seen her...Got to Love the Mermad...

Quickie...

Well...truth be told I was home early from work today and so getting motivated was JUST about to be a no-go situation...But then...out of the corner of my interneteyeballs was another Whip It! trailer and hey...you cannot watch a derby movie trailer and not want to RUN to practice...I showered and took off and got there by 8....I thought for a sec. that Coach saw me bring P's basil sauce and bread into the locker room..but luckily I had a towel over it...

One of the first sounds I heard and I knew that there was a derby stampede happening...man the sound of everyone's wheels slamming onto the floor is so fucking hot! Then I heard the wall slamming at the other end...*sizzling*

I was able to get in about three drills ...once I got out there...Coach told me all about her trip to Peoria, which we will not blog about...Then at the digiclockgoddess clicked to 8:45, the Happy Birthday song started...Coach wanted to do one more drill and even though I would have been ok with that..and bucked up...When I hear quitting time, I'm all over it..So we went off and had a groovy time eating, the other thing, and being merry....Talking about how much we love 7 layer dip and all that juicy stuff...Then Pollyanna Pitchfork announced she'd written a poem for Coach's birthday...(It feels weird to have a coach all sudden in my life..tho at least she isn't a "life coach" then I'd really be a douche)...Anyway...Polly read her poem which was written with the assistance of her poet kids and it ruled...If I can get the poem I will post it...

We cleaned up, went outside for a little ritual and came home...for some reason I got a little self conscious about my eyebrows...maybe I should have a look at them tomorrow and see if they seem weird to me in light of the new information I gathered tonight...

Tomorrow we're meeting to go to a comedy show at the redone Lake Tulloch Resort...

Sheedabomb's practice.....14 Skaters...TONS OF FUN!

Great new drills to try this time! I enjoyed Ammo's practice too so this is not a comparison here...different doesn't mean better or worse, it simply means different...I heard that somewhere when I was a kid...Anyway we did this cool thing first with one skater pushing another with one hand, the front person lifts one leg behind them at a time and balances around the corners...

We did another solo one where we lifted one leg behind us and bent forward down the straightaways with our hands down towards the ground...but looking up forward...which is something I constantly have to remind myself to do...

While we were doing this one where we duck walk off the line and then go down on one knee at the middle line then a 180 on a knee at the far end, then back, Gerle Haggard went down too hard on her knees and ouch for her...I hope she feels ok soon.

We did a 14 skater weaving snake line and we did it a few times in a row - I fucking love that drill...not sure why..nice flow to it maybe and it feels so cool when we're going fast and are in synch so well...Major YAYS for Rachel for participating in a buncha stuff she was hesitant to try and she kicked butt and did great! Way to go Rachel!!


Roller Zillas by ~antigone1736


Finally the ass-kicker came along...and I didn't eat all damn day today for some reason so I was a bit worried. We skated three or for at a time on the track for 5 minutes...We'd done this once before but stopped at 20 laps, at that time, I had 50 seconds left of the 5 minutes. This time though we just skated for the whole five minutes. Natcho Hunny and I were in a group and think maybe our counters gots messed up somewhere possibly...she had 28 laps and I had 26 and yet we both agree that neither of us passed each other and should have had the same number..so I'm going to split the diff. and make it a 27 for myself...which is way better than I thought I would do with these "well-loved" lungs of mine...

Red Hot Ta Molli provided the extremely excellent, wompin' rowdy fun practice music this afternoon so thanks to her, and thanks to Sheedabomb for the killer killer practice!

Oh, and before I finish...with there being two people with my same first name on the team, (myself and Pollyanna Pitchfork) let's just get used to calling me Alyce...that name works for me..I can't answer to my real name anymore at practice...gotta get all Pavlovian with Alyce...


Marie Smashtoinette by ~Magzdilla

Concluded the evening with a smoke out in the burning sun with Trixy and Nicki Spitts...who by the way should be thanked for emptying the trash and cleaning up after those nasty hockey boys and teens from the weekend...

Special Smoochy thank you to my wonderful husbot "P" for hanging out during practice being all gentlemanly and not staring at us while we skated so as not to make anyone uncomfortable...what a nice guy... :)

Cool pic I stumbled on this afternoon...

Ammo's practice....and Unintentional Derby Meat (YUK!)

Once I get there and get rolling - I wake up - I have fun - and I practice....

It turns out that not going to the last two practices did not in any way make me feel better...Judging from my house, I can't even tell if I gt anything extra done with my extra time, except to sleep more...you know..so I can wake up and go work my ass off at my actual work...But I miss practice when I'm not there... Also, may I suggest being "about to go off" on someone as a precursor to a GREAT practice...? Tonight I was a wee stirred up from some "gnat" online, (whose Delta Tau Chi name is now "Derby Meat"... ) making it that much more fun to practice tonight. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/quotes]

Ammo had us do a hitting drill twice that was very helpful to my passive nature...(as were the simmering thoughts of carving up the Derby Meat...)

We did the relay again too, that was cool...This time I learned to slow down a bit near the end and we were told to slide out...which was better than trying to stay upright and stop on stoppers that do not stop well on this type of floor we skate on....

Crap! I see it's 11:11 already... I was supposed to call Nicki Spitts and meet her at Ed's....oh well...Maybe we can go out this weekend...drat...I wanted to get out of here tonight...

Husbot left a gift for me when I got home tonight...he must have bought it on ebay...It's a poster for a bout between the The Bay Bombers and the NY Chiefs from 1963 @ Shea Stadium....very nice...what a sweetie he is.... He grew up watching the LA Thunderbirds while I, growning up norther in CA than he, watched the Bay Bombers on tv...

I feel like I pulled something on the back of one leg...we'll know for sure in the morning..as usual...

Fun-ass-fun practice and looking forward to Sheeda's on Sunday....!

Saving Private Wonderland

houston roller derby 108 by ~HangNail1

After speaking with a team mate or two about the Sweet Alyce blog...I realize that I do enjoy keeping track of what we do at our practices, recording my growth and all that, on this blog. I was going to discontinue with all the details as I was becoming increasingly self-conscious about having my exact progress recorded this way..but you know what, after more thought and all I think it is a-ok to post details and damn the consequences. Yes it's true, I don't like to hurt anyone or be hurt...that's my darkest "secret" I guess...So there it is...all out there like a smoking gun...I might be too passive for derby...I wouldn't mind being injured in a fair game...but I would mind injuring someone in a fair game...(?) And let's face it...not everyone plays by the agreed upon rules...another something to get used to...

derby tights. by *starryday

Unfortunately I will have to miss todays practice....and if I take all the right vitamins, I won't be wiped out for Tue and Thu practices this week...I like to do at least two practices a week and sometimes all three if I can....With the cut backs and new extreme work at the library, it's like when I first started working there, I've been having to sleep as soon as I get home for about an hour to recover from the day....so to have more strong practices I will have to get used to this feeling and do more to strengthen up...

Before I have to leave this afternoon to the valley I will be laying under the air conditioner with my wheels on and doing some radical stretching...Nothing feels better on the gut area than leg lifts with skates on...I've noticed that derby doesn't do much in the way of gut-repair...mostly legs... (der)...Also I need to do some work on our website before I go or it won't get done this week...

Sheedabomb will be conducting practice today with the absence of Coach Quad Queen...and I hope her run-over fingers are better....(Sheeda is our first team mate to bleed from an injury...)

Here's a bit of fun for your Sunday and will see sie meine sehr verehrten damen on Tuesday

MIA PSYCHO'S ROLLER DERBY GIRL'S GUIDE TO BOYS

Oh and one more bit o news...Chisel Bit and Stihl Queen and Kilaron (all cousins! who knew!? not me) have returned to the Mountain Derby Girls...I wish Vintage Barbie would too..I miss my friend who I joined this gig with...COME BACK VINTAGE BARBIE! ♥

Meeting day..and after 62

possible practices since I joined roller derby, I'm changing the way I do this blog....

right

now.

Watch the movie Hell on Wheels for free...

[h/t Derby News Network, and FiveOnFive Magazine]

It's Always Fair Weather (1955)