Roller derby: I hate plow stops

Today’s session was amazing but that doesn’t mean I’m not in tears. I hate myself for crying over this but damn, it means so much.

Firstly, I passed the balances and crossovers. Yay!

Secondly, I failed plow stops.

There’s a big, frustrating story behind this that explains the tears. I knew I was being held back by my skates. They’re not derby skates and they’re made of quite hard plastic that goes up over my ankle.

So, I bought some Ridell R3s from the derby recyclables page on Facebook. They’re basic fresh meat skates but at least they’re proper derby skates. They arrived Saturday and I eagerly took them to the rink. I changed my wheels then went around the track.

Something was so incredibly wrong. Sat down, fiddled with the tightness of the wheels. Tried again, nope. Fiddled with the trucks, nope. This went on and on, I couldn’t work out what was wrong.

Once I yes home I realised (with a bit of help) that the back wheels on the right skate weren’t straight. I adjusted them and now the skate starts to go straight/inwards rather than out. But, no chance to use them before tonight’s sign offs.

I spent a lot of time rolling skates down my conservatory yesterday…

Honestly,the session was amazing. Very relaxed and lovely. I stopped a few times on the plow section of the session. But my feedback was ‘not stopping’. And that’s fair enough, there were a few times I just had to sail through all the stopped people on track.

Hopefully, maybe, I’ll get another chance to sign this off on Monday because I don’t really want to do another seven week rotation going over these same skills. Sure, I’ll get better and I want to get better but I need something else (level 2) to keep my interest.

Writing this right after the session probably wasn’t a good idea. Still feeling on the verge of tears and I know full well I won’t sleep tonight.

Edit: It’s the morning after and I’ve spoken to various members of the derby family and I’m feeling more positive. More skating today with Bunn the Baker, lots of advice from coaches and reassurances that a lot of the amazing skaters I know had to go through an extra rotation of level one because they failed one of the stops. If I do get that extra chance to pass next week and don’t, I probably need another rotation. I can’t blame the skates!

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