Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Book reports

So recently we've reorganized our ref group and divided up duties. One of the duties I've taken over is rules training.

I'm not the smartest, most experienced, or most knowledgeable ref we have. And I don't have to be. Creating a curriculum, teaching and organizing is really not about being the best, it's about gathering information to provide to others.

That being said I actually have done a lot of training over the years. I worked in emergency veterinary and did a majority of the training of the front office staff.

The information we needed to understand utilize was for the triage of emergency cases, internal medicine, oncology, radiology and surgery. This involved having a basic knowledge of all of these disciplines and how to ask the right questions and relay the right information.

This is actually fairly complicated as an animal's life is on the line. I learned how to do this confidently and accurately and then taught it to the rest of my staff all the while under stress and chaos of a busy work environment.

So training on rules should be a piece of cake. Well a lot of it is. A lot of it is not particularly complicated. But, like in any discipline, there are the caveats, the tricks, the weird situations and the obscure writing of the WORD rule set.

The rules are pretty well laid out. They are in plain English. But they can be kind of a bitch sometimes to understand.

This is where the experts come in. I don't have to be the best, I just have to bring in the resources of the best. Understand them and see the places where I don't understand.

Last night we had our first rules training with the league. Able and myself presented the basic differences between WORD and WFTDA. We did fairly well only coming up with a few scenarios where we weren't sure the answers. Fortunately I was able to text my local Enforcer and get most of them.

The hard part was not the information. It was being up in front of group, giving my "book report" like a kid back in high school. I'm trying to understand and teach a subject that I am just learning. I'm not going to get anything perfect. And that's ok.

But I couldn't help feeling like I was the unpopular kid at the front with the cool kids laughing and thinking I'm some idiot who shouldn't be up there.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

New levels

I've been pretty hit or miss with the blogging of late. Our ref group has been going through some restructuring, which has been a bit stressful. But we've finally got things sorted and are making significant progress.

My skating has been taking a back seat to the hubbub and so has reffing. My endurance has tanked and track time minimal, but things are turning around.

The past couple weeks I've been getting on my wheels at least 2 times a week and usually 3-4. I'm lazy, I'll fully admit that, and often the hour before practice is filled with "I don't want to go!". But I'm working out again, staying with the diet, and rolling consistently.

Today I really felt it pay off. I don't know that my speed is in anyway improved, but my skating otherwise sure has. All of sudden I got that lean, the angle you get when gracefully gliding and not pounding through. Yeah graceful, that is exactly how it felt today. I have no idea how it looked, but that's how it felt.

So there is this whole thing when you skate on a rink where you are going in a slow oblong circle. What I was not getting before was how my body needed to be angled. I had finally gotten to the point where I lean a little in, but I did not realize I need to lean, ever so slightly, forward too.

Also I feel more stable and it's because I'm finally thinking about using my leg muscles during cross overs. Instead of them sliding around and my feet catching up, I'm tensing my legs to control it. It feels fucking fantastic!

Oh and I can skate both ways. Now that I have the lean thing down, I can crossover the other direction smoothly and comfortably. Drunken sailor's are kind of my favorite thing!