Day 13 Holy smokes, for reals ref practice!

Tonight we did the real deal ref practice. ie we were on the floor moving and not chatting penalties.

So it's official, I am the absolute suckiest skater in the league and of all the refs. No bones about it. But that's ok. I think if anyone reads this and can't skate they should pay attention to this post.

When you are a new person you need a positive tongue and a firm hand. Every word out your mouth is "I can do it, it's just going to take time." Though it might be in the form of "kick some ass!".

Because unless you really are physically incapable of doing a maneuver, and you would not likely be in roller derby if you were, you can do it. Maybe not today, or next week, but in a month, 3 months, even 6 months, you'll get it. If you are patient and keep trying, you'll get it. Remember, it's skating, not world class gymnastics or rocket science. Maybe you won't be the best, but you'll do fine.

That's the soft tongue. Keep out any language that is in anyway negative. The firm hand is even more important.

Beginners need to practice basics. The majority of the time, they need to do basic skating, balancing on one leg, blah blah. But they also need to be pushed and challenged to try move advanced moves.

There should never be a question of whether or not you should be trying something. Try it, practice with the group. If you can't do it, if you fall, if you do it completed screwed up, who cares? That's part of learning new stuff and that's a big part of the fun.

Do crazy leg moves, try weaving, try turning. The more unstable motions you do, the more you get comfortable with it and the better you learn to recover. Don't worry about pushing too hard, just give it a try. The worst thing that can happen is you have one new fall under your belt.

I tried a bunch of stuff I can't really do. I sucked, but I tried it. Remember the lateral moves. It's better to suck at many things than to only suck at few and not be able to do more.

Oh and by the way, by the end of practice I was worse than when I started. My legs were sooo tired, that I could barely skate.

Homework for me, for the next month probably. Skating on one leg. Lots of skating on one leg.

Thank you to today's ref team members Lehanna, C-man, T-Rex and Brian. You're breaking me into skating and I'm loving every minute of it.