Hot like dance biscuits

It’s been a busy past few days for Triple D. Zaster. Hitzy Blonde approached me last week and asked myself and Shelby Flyin to work with the fresh meat (i.e. neophytes) during Sunday’s practice. Being flattered and keen to encourage the Old Capitol City Roller Girls’ greenest skaters, I accepted and set to work over the weekend of coming up with various drills and core exercises.

This ended up being a lot trickier than I anticipated since the practice space was smaller (we ended up back at the Armory instead of our usual haunt, the Marriott) and there was not enough room for a separate fresh meat track. I was a little nervous about meeting expectations but when Sunday’s practice rolled around it went without a hitch. I started I had the fresh meat work on endurance by skating around the outer perimeter of the track single file –I felt like a mama duck leading her ducklings!— for a good half an hour and then drilled them intense core and weight training exercises. Plenty of pushups, crunches, planks, bicycle kicks, leg lifts, etc. which made good on my promise to the fresh meat at the beginning of the practice: That I would push them hard but I would never ask them to do anything they weren’t capable of, and so long as they gave me 100% I would be more than satisfied.

Shelby Flyin took over for the second half of practice and I went back to skating with the vets. Coaching was fun though a bit intimidating, so I do have even more respect for Bat R Up and Hitzy Blonde.

Wednesday’s practice was much more intense; the team hadn’t scrimmaged since our bout on the 3rd against the Des Moines Derby Dames so we were all getting a little antsy. But we did end up scrimmaging for a whole hour which was just what I needed after bad day at work and school. I jammed a little bit but had the most fun blocking, particularly being a pain in the ass for the other team’s jammer. I gave some really hard hits and it felt pretty good knocking some girls on their rears – I didn’t even mind when I fell hard on one of Chemical Spill’s wheels, which resulted in a giant, rotund contusion on the back of my left thigh (I’m sure it will be all sorts of pretty colors in the coming days).

In other news, on Friday, May 7 OCCRG will be meeting at the Iowa City Public Library at 6 PM for a showing of our own Left 4 Deadwards' untitled movie following the exploits of the team on and off the track. There will be a meet and greet with your favorite roller girls, snacks, a reception... I'm very much agog to see it; check out the trailer for yourself!