On Skates practicing

Good day fellow marmots! Oh, marmots always make me smile and feel good. You can't but love them really! We were so close to seeing one really near when visiting the Swiss alps but we only had a quick glimpse of it. Look at them!

Okay, so now that I have softened you up with some baby animals we can go to the subject, wohoo! You might have noticed that I'm a bit confusing today. Just tired after a lousy sleep, so no jeering at my spelling mistakes or bad word order or absolutely anything! Naah, whatta heck, go ahead and jeer, I can take it!

On Skate training

Our team P-Town Brawlers has decided to have a record of our practice attendance. That enables us to calculate the percentage of attendance and there will be a limit you have to be above to participate in scrimmages. Mine isn't doing that well at the moment, I missed quite a few when we were 5 weeks on our honeymoon. I'm not sure of the numbers at the moment but something like 68%. I will update it as I get to know the new one which will be hopefully well over 70%. My objective is at least 90% and I'll try climbing up there during this autumn. There will be a freshmeat training period so I can get my numbers up by participating on those practices as well. 

We have three on skates practice times per week now in autumn 2012 and at least two per week in spring 2013. That amount should guarantee that I will be more confident on skates. I am already quite comfortable on skates but I still need to focus more on agility and skating technique. I want to be almost an circus animal doing impressive tricks on skates. That will come in handy when playing. Here are my objectives once again but from On Skates point of view.

1.Agility & explosive power

Skipping, leaping, jumping, turning in speed, jumping in speed, running toe stops, rolling with one skate, rolling with fore/back wheels, zigzag trough the track, being active! How to improve these skills on track? I'm not planning the practices but that does not mean I cant do agility training as well. There's always short timeouts and sometimes part of the practice is dedicated for players to improve their own weaknesses. 

Explosive power can be trained when scrimmaging too. That is supposed to be the most active drill there is! You should be really tired and worn out after scrimmage, you should give it all.

2. Skating stance

We have many fabulous drills for improving the stance. What we need more is feedback. If the coaches or your partner does not give you individual feedback, you need to ask for it. Ask ask ask. That way they also notice that you're really interested too and want to improve. So you have passed your minimum skills? That does most certainly not mean you're in the perfect stance all the time. I went trough minimum skills skating test only a week before the team USA boot camp. They had lots of great hints and practically twisted me in the position by hand. It also takes time to feel comfortable in the stance.

3. Courage

Every once in a while there should be a chance to try out the craziest tricks. I don't need to learn them on the first time or the second but I need to try. Also many drills are easier and more useful if you do it in a good momentum. There's no standing around in roller derby. I might be afraid of falling or making a fool of myself by not getting it straight away but refusing to try properly is not worth it. Besides those girls are my team mates, they should know my weaknesses. And I love laughing with them, it doesn't matter what the reason.

4. Endurance

I can skate the track quite easily 27,5 rounds in five minutes. That is the result I got in minimum skills. Of course I was tired after all the testing and had a five week break on me. But there are girls that skated 30 in our team and some in Helsinki skate 33. If I want to be a competent player I need to be fast too. Skating techniques in for example cross overs are to come handy in this. I also need item 3 considering skating. I need courage to skate fast. It needs to be natural for me. For I am primarily training to be a great blocker but jammer skills are still needed.

Tonight I'll try out my attitude in on skates practices and hopefully I have great news and mood tomorrow! I'll get back at you then. After that I'll take a little time to look at my off skates training as well.