Roller derby: Falling over

I realised today that the reason I get so nervous before skating is because I’m terrified I’m going to hurt myself. There are people at level one who have broken bones and now I’m doing more contact stuff I’m worried that I’m really going to injure myself.

Today was particularly scary because I knew we’d be doing jumps.

We were eased in with the usual warm up and then some pack work, which I love. We then moved leaning, which is harder than it looks. This involves leaning against a partner and skating along. Ideally, you’ll be able to pick up the foot closest to your partner because they’ll be taking some of your weight.

I feel over a couple of times but managed to land on my leg/right butt cheek. No pain, I got up and continued.

Next were the jumps. We tried in one spot for a while and it wasn’t that scary, I could jump and land with a fair amount of control.

Then we had to try it skating along. I had my go and I was alright at it. I’m jumping my whole body in the air, though, rather than just tucking my legs up. Something else to practice…

Then someone fell over. Ice packs were brought over and we all got the chance to fear the jumps even more. Once we’d established that all was well, we went back to leaning and pushing. I fell over, got right back up and continued.

Once we were warm again, we went back to jumps. This time with the sign-off-level bar to jump over.

This is where THE FEAR gets me. I can easily clear that height – apparently, I haven’t seen the videos of my jumps yet – but my brain won’t let me. By the end of the session I’d successfully jumped over a shoe. (I also fell over trying that but got a round of applause, got up and continued on my way.)

Next time, I think I’ll be able to attempt that jump. You know what, next time, I’ll nail that jump!

This session was great and falling over so many times without any pain really has made me realise that a fall doesn’t have to be painful or scary, it’s just part of the learning process.

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