Sunday, April 1, 2012

Let it go

So I had my second skating lesson yesterday.  We learned how to safely drop to our knees, two at a time and one at a time.  Easy.  Then we went on to pivoting backwards and jumping on our toes to stop quickly.  Not so easy.  With lots of falling I learned the pivot/ toe stop.  We had a former figure skater in our class who was actually more help than the instructor.  Then we were supposed to learn how to turn backwards and keep skating.  NOT EASY AT ALL.   I spent the better part of an hour falling repeatedly on my ass. And hips.  And face.  Basically all of me was involved in a painful landing at least twice.  But finally, I worked out one very shaky turn, skated backwards for about 4 seconds, then collided with a wall.  All while rolling at about a mile per hour.  Normally for Derby, this happens at full speed but you don't hit a wall.  You intentionally knock another chick to the ground.  Like this:


I left my lesson feeling pissed off at myself for not doing better.  Frustrated at my slow progress and angry for letting myself get so overweight.  As one classmate pointed out, I'm basically trying to skate with weights strapped to me.  I was so cranky with myself that I didn't stop and think about what I'd done right.  In my second lesson (my fifth time on skates as a grown ass woman) I worked out a really cool looking backwards stop.  I can skate comfortably going forwards.  I can do crossovers pretty smoothly.  I can skate backwards (slowly.)  I taught myself a regular toe stop and can do it with either foot.

I let myself get so focused and frustrated about the one thing that I haven't really gotten yet and that's not fair.  Not to myself and not to my poor husband who listened to me whine.  Yes, learning to skate is hard work.  What did I expect.  OF COURSE IT'S HARD!  That's what makes it worth it.  I burned 1600 calories in my 2.5 hours of skating.  That's more than I normally eat in a day!  That's amazing!  I still have a lot of weight to lose but doing this twice a week really gets me ahead.  I already lost a pound this week and I'm not weighing in until Thursday. 

It's easy to zero in on the bad things.  Maybe you had a crappy day.  Maybe you cheated on your diet and had a bunch of cheetos.  But maybe you also had yogurt and fruit for breakfast.  Maybe you took the stairs instead of the elevator.  Maybe you didn't.  The important thing is you still can.  This week try something new to challenge yourself.  If it's harder to do it's probably more worthwhile. 

Stay Strong!

Raewyn

1 comment:

  1. You are doing great at skating! The important thing to remember is that it doesn't matter how big you are in derby. Strength and endurance are key, so keep up the workouts and the skills will come. The stronger you get, the easier it will be. Great job today.

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