You’ve Been Framed

The last Practise (Feb 1st 2009) was an interesting practise, not only because we had a very low turnout of skaters but also because our regular trainer Helen Fury was away skating in Stuttgart for the Birmingham Blitz Dames, so Cupid Stunk aka The Skatrix and Sulu Warrior took over and between them did a fantastic job. Because I had my right eye lasered in the week (by choice I hasten to add, I wasn’t playing a James Bond hero or villain and got zapped by a random laser beam!) I have been told I cant skate for at least a month, so am banned to the sidelines for now.

However being on the sidelines, or in face the middle as it turned out, was extremely interesting as it gave me a chance to study everyones skating techniques and listen to Cupid Stunt on the strengths and weaknesses of the skaters and their potentials within the team etc and it was a real eye opener.

The rules test was hard this week as I certainly hadn’t done my homework and a couple of newbies probably hadn’t been able to access the rules to read up on, but Sulu Warrior certainly knew her stuff and tried very admirably to help her team mates! ;-)

Sulu Warrior was a hard task master this week, she concentrated on endurance and stamina so had the skaters doing endurance laps starting at 7 laps as fast as you can, then in the centre for 10 press ups, 6 laps as fast as you can, 10 press ups, 5 laps as fast as you can, 10 press ups, and so on. So there were a lot of red faces by the end of this, and I did too.... just from the sheer heat they were generating.

Some time was then taken on falls as we all know how important it is to learn how to fall as I’m afraid there were a couple of painful falls this week, some full impact straight on the bum falls and some painful side hip falls that had us all wincing. Alot of this comes down to a) balance and skating in the right position and also confidence in falling on your pads. But after a few practise falls, we started to see some major improvements.

I still find the stripper fall or prostitute fall or whatever its called incredibly funny to watch, more so when you are not doing it yourself! Cupid Stunt showed everyone admirably how to do it properly, and is caught on film......... (errr I mean on the practise videos I took...... )

Backwards skating is still an unmastered art for me, but everyone did really really well last week, the previous week was a disaster (especially for me – I needed special help.... and I mean SPECIAL!!) but everyone seemed to do really well with their reverse skull crushes and I was impressed.

After practise we had time for a quick circle of pain and I joined in for this (as I’ll take one for the team) and then a few stretches and then the most important bit of the while practise... off to the pub! Cheesy Chips and a pint...... bliss!!!

Videos from last weeks practise:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzP61GnVKi4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoWmyHUK5Kg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKKwWoZ9p7E


As long as the snow holds off this weekend, I’ll be filming again at this weeks practise and blogging so please come back for a gander!

Adios Mon Amigos!

Honor Ass