first week of practice

so, umm....i currently can't move. let me take the following few paragraphs to explain why:

monday was our very first "official" newbie practice. it was great!! romo and some of the other girls came and brought us cupcakes and dressed up in tutus and capes to welcome us. that was a very sweet gesture :) the practice was good and we worked hard, and it was like an extension of the stuff we worked on at bootycamps. something new i worked on was cross-steps. this particular exercise is very helpful for me because i've noticed that during my crossovers my back foot gets kinda lazy and doesnt help propel me like it should, and since the back leg is really the only thing moving you forward during cross-steps, it really helped to isolate the skill i need to work on. but we continues doing falls and stops and jumps. for the first time, i jumped over a 6" cone!! before we were only jumping over the little "disc" style cones. since jumping was one of the things i was most scared of, it's really exciting to see myself making progress in that area.

artemischief

well, since monday nights always leave me pretty tired/sore, i felt kind of insane going to a league practice the VERY next day. but, as a member of the league we are required to attend at least 7 practices a month, which means i can't just rely on my monday newB practices. so i went, and the first 45 minutes were an off-skates workout, which was led by one of the league's top skaters (in my opinion), artemischief. teel had warned me in the past that she was insane, but i didnt realize how insane until last night. her workouts are TOTALLY BRUTAL. i was seriously about to vomit and had to quit halfway through; i still had another 2 hrs of skating ahead of me!

so i caught my breath and got my skates and gear on, and then julia ghoulia took over for regular practice. that was also tough. much tougher than newbie practice! its obvious the veterans have been doing this for a while and as a result, are much more agile, faster, and in WAY better shape than i am. i was huffin' and puffin' all over the rink, but i did my best to keep up. then a little later the newbies went off to the side and worked on jumping, weaving, lateral movement, and hip whips while the vets worked on contact-based drills. there were 8 out of 15 newbies there, so it was nice having some company. a few of the vets even came over to check on us from time to time to give feedback and some instruction. i really love the support and appreciate that they are looking out for us, the future of ARRG (as romo always puts it).

so i woke up this morning, after two straight nights of practice, and i felt like absolute hell. it took a serious amount of motivation to even get my body out of bed, thats how sore i was! but no matter how much it hurts, its a good kind of hurt, cause i know it's from working hard. still trying to decide whether or not i'm crazy enough to attend thursday practice as well. guess we'll see how i feel tomorrow!