No Pain - No Gain!

My second week of practise after a month off and yesterday we got beasted! Lots of speed skating and press ups, sits ups, stops, falls all which drain you especially after spending several hours skating the day before at the Gloucester Skate Disco!

But having said that, I do understand that we need to get our stamina up and the only way of doing that is to push ourselves or get pushed by the mighty whip lashing Cupid Stunt! (OK she didn’t actually have a whip, but at one point she was waving a rope around in a menacing manner which made me think of her as Miss Whiplash, but maybe that’s just my perverted mind!)

We had a couple of new faces today, although one of the skaters Jess had been to practise a couple of weeks ago, when I couldn’t make it, she seemed to have picked up the skating skills nicely and won’t be long before she is up to full speed as she seemed pretty confident on her skates. Another new face was a good friend of mine, Hannah who ventured onto skates for the first time in years and did really well for her first time, so we hope both Hannah and Jess come back for more. Although Hannah was cussing fairish at the amount of press-ups etc we had to do..... (she loved it reallyl!!!)

A lot of us still struggle with our stops, especially the dreaded T Stops, but we were asked to slow right down and try them and a lot of us started to get the hang of them, we just need to keep doing this and slowly build up our speeds. Snow plough stops also required some work, most of us don’t bend our knees enough and for all skating manoeuvres bending the knees is vital, so that's something we have to work on still.

One new technique we tried was practising crossovers holding onto a rope that was held by Cupid Stunt or Helen Fury, the idea being that you had some resistance to pull against for balance while we practised lifting our leg-overs for the crossover moves. Crossovers are hard to get to grips with, especially if you are not entirely comfortable with lifting one foot up for a period of time. My affliction of the “rooted” left foot has returned and although my speed and skating has generally improved slightly and my speed has increased, I need to start using my left foot more.

I have been advised to get some arch support insoles as we think I have a slight problem with my right foot tilting, so I have ordered some arch supports so will see what I am like next week.

Sulu Warrior and Lightning Bolts had been busy little beavers and had got some SRT badges made for us to buy, they were awesome so I am now the proud owner of 3 SRT badges and I love them! So thank you Sulu and Lightning!!!

The highlight of the practise had to be seeing our injured soldier coming to watch us, it was hard not to spot her with a bright pink cast, but Marianna (Dolly Diablo) was back to keep an eye on us and lend us her support and take some snap shots, which I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing yet! But it was lovely to see her smiling face and for everyone to give her their support as its frustrating not being able to skate but she was very chipper and we can’t wait to see her return to action in a few months time.

Ram Paige had been spending the fortnight with Dolly but it was now time for Ram Paige to go to another skater this week and that pleasure went to......... ME! So now I have the pleasure of Ram Paige and she will be writing up her exploits shortly on her blog: http://ram-paige.blogspot.com/

Adios Mon Amigos!

Honor xx