Goodbye 2011

Being back at my parents for Christmas was brilliant. I had a fantastic collection of presents, that suited me to a T, but it was whilst washing decades of dirt off the old Lego on Christmas Day, I thought I'd look back and reflect on my 2011.

If you had asked for my opinion on 2011 six months ago, I would have told you that it was my worst year ever. At the bottom of a big pit of doom and gloom I didnt think my year would get any better, and thought that nothing else worse would have any effect on me. I'd become used to having a rubbish time, what difference would another ounce of crap have on me.

Ask me now what 2011 means to me, and I'll confidently tell you that it was the year that I found out who I really was, and it's probably the best year I've ever had. That sounds quite morbid, but I mean that its been the best year for making decisions and learning lessons. Its been difficult but extremely valuable.

May 2011 saw the messy end of a 7 year relationship. I made the difficult decision to hand in my notice and begin the process of moving up to Sheffield.

June 2011 saw me packing those 7 years into the back of a transit van. Saying goodbye to my job, my friends, the family I had been accepted into, and my cat; I cant say anything was worse than that. Driving away from my life I had created was punishment that I didnt deserve. But being typically British, and with my Land Girl spirit, I kept calm and carried on.

July 2011 saw me getting a new job and making new friends. Unfortunately my old life continued to return to haunt me, prolonging the grieving process.

August through to October was really just a blur, all sorts of nonsense bouncing around, trying to settle into a new way of life, trying to get to grips with reality and make sense of everything. On the flip side, I was taken under the wing of so many wonderful people, and made to feel extremely welcome and appreciated, and accepted for being myself. I started to feel a sense of purpose, and finally I had the chance to be me again.

October 2011 I found a lifeline. Something to keep me busy, to give me focus, and that has opened doors to a whole new chapter in my life . . . Roller Derby. Sunday 9th October 2011 was the the final home bout of the year for Sheffield Steel Rollergirls and it was the turning point in my life when I decided I needed make a difference. It was at that point I made the executive decision to stop trying to fill the 'relationship' gap, and do something productive instead.

Despite being told there weren't any spaces available to join SSRG, the following week I took my skates to the local skate rink and, as they say, the rest is history. No, seriously, you can read all about it in my previous blogs :-) The past 3 months have gone by in a whirl of wheels, disco lights, pasta,  Chesterfield Twisted Roller Vixens, progression, and making new friends every week. With the help of my family, friends and new team mates, the end of 2011 has taken a sweet turn, and has provided me a taster for what 2012 has to offer.

Today is the final day of 2011, and I have decided that 2012 is going to be MY year. I, like so many others, have dreams and ambitions . . . the difference is that I intend on making mine reality. Despite wanting to do and learn other things, my one main aim for 2012 is to pass my Minimum Skills for roller derby, anything beyond that I will see as a bonus. This year I have learnt just how important it is to be in control of your own life and happiness. If I hadn't been brave and made the life changing decisions I made this year, I would definitely not be in a happy place right now.

So now I'm going to sad tata 2011, what a rollercoaster! Oh and 2012, you'd better watch out, because the real Becky Kirby is back in the game. Time to enjoy the balls off the next 365 days!

Work hard, Hit harder

Tonights CTRV practice was a very quiet and intimate session, with only 6 attendees. Holly was coaching, Tom sat out with a cold, that left me and Claire, regular attendees, and our two guest skaters, Nina (Nina's Flytrap) and Paul (Bollock Obama). 

After a quick skate round and stretch for warm up, we looked into practicing proper derby stance. Man I need to practice my squats, they sting! 

Speed Skating stance

We practiced this, with crossovers for a while, then moved onto 'lateral turns'. Im not even going to try explain this, but in basic terms, pretend you're holding a tea tray, turn your torso to 'serve some customers' and your feet will follow. It's an important skill to learn as it allows you to cut across the track, cut across another players path, and essentially push them off the track. I think its called lateral blocking, but dont quote me, although I have heard another name for it. For those with tender ears and eyes I'll call it 'the C-word-Block'. Ultimately the best block to learn as it totally disables the other players actions.

After learning the lateral turns, through cones, and any direction around the hall, we then had the short discussion of to contact or not to contact. By unanimous decision we voted CONTACT!!! I wasnt expecting to have it thrust upon me until after christmas, so this was an early christmas present. Holly paired me with Claire, and Nina with Paul. At first, and in fact the whole way through the drill we looked like this . . . except with smaller boobs, haha! 

Claire's aim was to 'lean' into me, in effort to push me off the track. My job was to resist, so I did. And I did an effing grand job of it. Such a good job in fact, we only stopped once we got to the corner and spun out, with the most spectacular of falls I have achieved so far, ending up with us both looking like this . . . 

Yes, and we even had the smiles on our faces!

After we played with shoulder checking, we then moved onto some light shoulder hits. Paul, being big, was our hittee, and Claire, Nina and I were the hitters, biaaaatch! Catching up with Paul I did fear for my life, he's like 7ft tall with his skates on. But, lucky for me, he saw me coming, crouched down to my height and sat back and took my tiny nudge. Hmm, piece of cake, not as scary as I thought it'd be, so the next time I went in harder. We did about 4 rounds of hits, and I put more force behind each one, and by my last one I even managed to make Paul say 'ow'. WOOOP! I like to think we would have looked something like this (imagine I'm the lady in red- no, not Chris de Burghs one, that one in the picture) 

After our little battering sesh, we then moved onto one footed glides. Paul, Claire and Nina worked on slaloming, while Holly talked me through some techniques to stop my left foot veering inwards. I told her I was quite the professh on my right foot but when it came to being on the left, I did struggle. After a little tinkering with my balanced stance, we managed to get me going in a straight (ish) controlled line on my left foot. Once I get that foot mastered I'll be away. 

So, at tomorrows play night I'll be practicing left footed glides, lateral turns and stance.

Music to give you goosbumps

I was woken this morning, as like every other morning, by my radio turning itself on. Depending on how good a night sleep I've had dictates how fast i wake up and turn the volume down (the longer I leave it the louder it gets!). 

Its set to radio 1, and usually I'm woken by some shitty boyband, or Adele talking about some 'rumour', at that point I usually jump up and switch the f*cker off. But this morning was different.

I'd had a great night sleep, but as and the song started to play louder and louder, I got a tingle up the back of my neck and left it playing. I couldnt work out why, until I realised it was the song that was playing the first time I skated fast, with immaculate crossovers. It brought back some great feelings, of success, of achievement, that 'yessss' feeling. 

And funnily enough the song is actually called 'Good Feeling'

It was a lovely start to my day :oD

Congratulations to me

Tonight was my 2 month anniversary since starting roller skating. 4 weeks ago I started up with the new Chesterfield team, so I'm now skating twice a week. It's all going incredibly well; I have my skater name on my team tshirt and I finally managed to get off at the right stop by myself this week.

In 8 shorts weeks I have managed to learn lots of important skills which is vital if I want to play roller derby. So, lets take a look at what I can do . . . 

Staying upright :-)

Cornering (always a bonus) :-)

Stance & Stride :-)

Bending the knees :-)

Crossovers :-)

One Knee Slides :-)

One Knee 180 Slides :-)

2 Knee Slides :-)

4 Point Slides :-)

NOT using my hands to get back up after falling :-)

Bending the knees :-)

Sticky Skates :-)

T-Stops :-)

Did I mention bending the knees? It is quite important! :-)

Skating in a pace line :-)

Weaving :-)

Weaving in a paceline :-D

Recognising my gumguard was shit and replacing it with a better fitting one :-)

1 footed balancing on the straightaways (only the right foot- the left foot needs more work and the left trucks needs realigning) :-)

1 footed balancing (right again) round the turns :-)

Cannonballs (aka, shoot-the-duck) :-D 

Synchro Cannonballs with Bridget Von Jammersmack (we'll be the first RD synchro pairing, you watch this space!) :-D

Knowing that pasta is the dish of the day on skate days! :-)

Accepting that it doesnt do anyone any harm to walk rather than catch the bus, its the perfect warm-up :-)

I'm pretty sure there will be more thing's I've learnt that I've forgotten about here, but you can get the general idea that I've picked up loads in the small amount of time I've been skating.

So I may be boring people to death with talking about skating 24/7, but I'm actually glad I have something that I can pour my heart and soul into, something I can focus on. Not only am I keeping fit again (I've not been in such good shape since I was at school), but I have made new friends and am getting out at least twice a week rather than sitting and loafing in my room. I'm starting to get a social life again and I'm happy, pretty much all the time.

Last week's skate session will be cherished forever. Laura was inspiring, and she pushed me and encouraged me to go outside my comfort zone. Having someone push you, and shout words of compliment at you at the same time is a great feeling, and it's an even better feeling when the effort pays off. At the beginning of the session I was asked about a certain trick (cannonballs) and how cool it was. I remember saying 'ooh,they look amazing, but i can't do that just yet, it looks well hard'. Well, after a little push from Miss Jammersmack, and a few bums scuffed on the floor, we both had it nailed. And the best feeling was finding out that not even some of the hardened players can do it. Some people thought it might be beginners luck, but after we tried it again tonight, I think it's safe to say that I've got this one in the bag. I can confidently say that skating makes me feel like this . . . . . . 

Next week I'll be trying out something new . . . not yet decided what, but I'm thinking along the lines of transitions and toe stops?

If Carlsberg did Sundays . . .

In fact, if Carlsberg did Weeks, then they'd probably be something like the one I've just had.

It all started last Saturday, so 9 days ago. My sister was away at a wedding for the day, and I had two major tasks, to make malteaser tray bake and haul ass to the SSRG (unadvertised) bout in the afternoon. I got to the leisure centre after hitching a lift with a friend, and sat upstairs in the cold, not knowing anyone. Skip forwards two hours, a very fast paced first half, and tougher second, the bout was over. I headed over to the team for some post match sugar fixes. The malteser tray bake went down a treat, with some coming back for seconds, thirds and more. Bonus of the day was being told I could come to every bout from now on, as long as I brought tray bake! YESSSSS!

Sunday wasnt much to shout about, except for the fact that I SIGNED UP TO A ROLLER DERBY TEAM! All in the very early stages at the moment, but I'm now a member of the Chesterfield Twisted Roller Vixens. It all came about after talking to the captain of SSRG (Sheffield Steel Roller Girls) and saying about wanting to sign up with them. She said there were no places at the moment, but to get in with CTRV and train with them. So, I got in touch with the lady who was starting it all, and she told me to come along to practice on Wednesday 16th. I already had the standard kit, I just needed a gumshield.

Monday was gumshield shopping day, and after a loooong (watching paint dry slow kinda day) day at work, I got home, coaxed big sis into taking me Decathlon in return for a foreign 'reminds me of skiing holidays' chocolate bar. Well, I have never been to Decathlon before, and I am IN LOVE! Its a supermarket for sports, and it is amazing! I could have quite easily spent a lot of money in there. I will definitely go there when I have a lottery win :-) I got my gumshield, and spotted some Santa requests too. We paid up, and went home.

Tuesday wasnt anything special. I ate mini scotch eggs, and Mojo sweeties, given to me by a lady at work.

Wednesday was the big day. Skate day. First ever team practice! I started work early, and finished even earlier. I have to get my timing absolutely spot on, or else I wouldnt get to training. I made sandwiches in the hope that I'd eat them on the bus, which didnt happen. They turned into the 'apple in the bag to be healthy' type of food. they stayed in there until I got home, and emerged all squashed. Anyway, skate practice was interesting, and much fun! We all gathered outside the school, in the cold, and in our cool rollergirl outfits, cool both in the fashionable sense and the temperature sense, it was freezing! There were ex derby players, hoping to get back into playing, there were skaters that were just new to the sheffield team, coming along for the practice, there were a few hardened derby players, and there was my regular thursday night folks. So a good little group of us really. We all had a stretch, and a skate for warm up. Then we all sat in a group and introduced ourselves. It was like a little therapy group. 'Hi, my name's Becky, I'm here because I have an addiction to roller derby, cool outfits and quirky helmet designs'. We all said our bit, then carried on skating, learning one and two knee slides, and then an all fours slide. Best to learn how to fall before we learn anything too complicated!

Practice was over way too fast, but lucky for me I managed to borrow a new pair of derby skates, so that I could use them on thursday to 'get the feel'. I also managed to get a ride home, which was definitely a massive bonus, saved tons of time on travelling on buses and trains etc. I had some compliments on my helmet design on the way home, which was nice too. I got home earlier than expected, tucked into my squashed sandwich, and chilled out :-)

Thursday I managed to blag myself a later start at work, I was tired! I got to work, and made the day go as fast as possible, so that 4pm would turn up sooner. And it did. I made for a fast walk home, grabbed my kit bag (and new skates), filled up my juice bottle and headed to the bus stop. I caught the bus just after 5oclock, and got to skating at around 530. I bumped into my new friends in the boot room, and we all headed out to the rink together. The new skates were awesome, a little fatter than what I was used to, but they were amazing. I had on my cool rollergirl outfit on again, it definitely helps! There were loads of us, maybe 8 or so. We all skated around in our big padding, avoiding the tiny kids in tutu's! I learned a couple of new moves, which were definitely made easier in the new skates, way more flexible.

I got home from skating, feeling quite hungry, so had a champions dinner of pasta, cheese, skinny meat and bbq sauce :oD

Friday was a sleepy day, but my friend Nina came to visit. On the saturday we went an did a whirlwind tour of Sheffield. We did the museum, the galleries, the peace gardens and the winter gardens, and the fountains at the train station. We didnt fit in everything we wanted to but, at least we'll have a few more things to do when she comes to visit next time.

On Sunday Nina left very early, but I spent the morning swatting up, as on Sunday afternoon I was about to become an 'Outside Whiteboard Operator' for half of the SSRG vs London RollerGirls bout.

VS

Dressed in grey I went to the leisure centre and met up with my new group of friends. We were handed our NSO (non skating officials) tshirts, and what we needed to do. I got to watch the first half of the bout from the seats, with more people than the previous weekend. The second half I was on my feet, trackside, making sure I didnt get run over by ref's and skaters, either falling or making their way to the penalty seats. Needless to say I didnt cock up, and I got to watch pretty much the whole bout.

Afterwards, I dished out the malteser bake, much to the delight of the team. Every piece went, and I am proud to say that I've had lots of compliments since on how amazing it is! YAY!

I hitched a lift with one of the girls to the nearest tram stop, and made my way into town to meet Big Sis and our friend, and we headed to the cinema to see the new Twilight film. I'm not going to give the game away, but its pretty good.

After getting home from the cinema, the goodness kept coming. I had a text from one of my girlies to say she was engaged, and then I had an email to say that I could keep the skates that I had borrowed, no strings attached!

And that was pretty much the end to my truly awesome week.

I went to sleep with a huge smile on my face :o)

Don't like it? Then customise it!

There are many things in life that we dont like, but sometimes we don't do anything about it, because it's probably just a little bit too much hassle. Some things cant be changed, but the smaller things can.

Thats why I quite often deny myself those precious hours of sleepytime.

As with any standard cleptomaniac, I have lots of 'things'. And when I want new 'things' I don't bother to get rid of the old ones. Instead, I give them a new lease of life.

For example . . . A once white hoodie

Tarnished with a beautiful glass of red (yuk) wine. There aint no vanish that could get rid of the stain, so, I dyed it orange! It now looks even better than it did when brand new.

Example number 2 . . . Jeans

If you're feeling brave, and you want jeans in a darker colour, stick 'em in the washing machine and put in some dylon. My sister bought some super skinny blue black jeans from Gap for a stupid price, they looked awesome. I couldnt afford some at the time, but I already had a pair of skinnies, so bought some dye, and now I have my own pair, on the cheapidy cheap.

Example 3 . . . Mac laptop

After having a hefty bashing a few christmasses ago, I never thought it would open its little blinky eyes again. Two years later and I'm still typing away on it. I can't say that its customisation is the reason for its extended life, I think that's just trusty old Apple. But, I can claim that the new paint job I gave it DID cover up the number of dints to the lid. 

My finest, and most recent, example is my old snowboard helmet. 8 years ago when I first learnt to snowboard, camouflage was THE pattern to have. I kept it tame with just a jacket and helmet though. For one reason or another, I slowly stopped using my helmet, so has been left defunct in a dingy corner of my room for quite some time. Realising last week that I might need to start using my helmet again, I unearthed it, to find the camo was peeling off, revealing plain grey underneath. 

So I set to work with my trusty metal ruler, and sat for two or three nights, scraping all the pattern off. I ended up with an achey hand and some blisters but was quite satisfied anyway. There were some extra scrapes and scratches (quite possibly put there by accident) so I bought some wet & dry paper, and smoothed it all over.

Now my helmet made me look normal, and not like a little boy anymore (yays!). But still, it looked pretty boring. For about a week I've pondered over how to make it look better. For totally different reasons, I was googling tattoos at the weekend. One popped up that took my fancy, not for my skin (mum, relax!), but for my helmet.

I love the Cheshire cat, and I love smiling (it's my favourite), so I thought this was very apt, and it fit quite well into the helmet 'dynamics'.

Helmets have 'breathy holes', as I like to call them, and I always think they look like extra eyes. So, armed with my HB pencil, marker pens, my rubber, and Boots No.7 nail varnishes I got cracking. I drew on the design, and fine lined it all with the marker. Then I did my very best at staying inside the lines, and coloured it all in. Once finished, I was pretty god damned chuffed.

Nobody else has one like it, and that's why I like to customise!

I heart Thursdays

They say things come in threes, they also claim 'third time lucky', and I believe in both.

This Thursday was my third time at skating. And it was definitely lucky. I may have had to wait for a non existent bus for half an hour, but I got there earlier than last week, which meant an extra half an hour playtime. And I was glad for those extra 30 minutes.

Whizzing round in the same manner as the two previous weeks, and avoiding any collisions with kids along the way, I pondered on what to force myself to learn. So, I tried a few t-stops. Number one wasnt interested in playing ball, number two had a stutter, number three I tried with my right foot, and that was a big mistake. Somehow my brain said 'move foot' but my foot said 'whatever brain', ending up in an arms forward slam into the side stop. Let's stick with left footed stops for now. I kept trying them, and each one got a little better. I cant claim I'm any good at them yet, but I am getting more comfortable doing them. 

After about 20 minutes, the professionals turned up. Not the ones from that old tv show, they'd surely be on zimmer skates, or maybe even coffin skates by now?! They scooted past, making it all look VERY easy. Then some more folks turned up, and started going BACKWARDS! Time to make conversation - 'you make that look way too easy' I yelled. And that was the beginning of the rest of the evening. The guy I yelled at had come with his two friends, one of which plays derby, and her friend is just learning to skate. It was fun to finally have people to skate around with, and if anything it made it easier. I forgot all about the skating, and I ended up doing crossovers without even having to think. The surprise on their faces when they found out I'd only been roller skating for three weeks. I somehow managed to fool the friend into thinking I played roller derby. 'oh nooooo' i said 'I WANT to play, but I need a lot more practice'. She claims that I looked pretty confident and comfortable, and that my crossovers were very tidy. 

After much discussions of joining, and practising, they all advised to get myself kitted out with pads and wrist guards. I've been told that elbow and wrist guards dont need to be the most expensive, so to get cheaper ones, and the money saved on them should be put towards getting decent knee pads. I was then told 'i can guarantee that as soon as you get your knee pads on and start skating around, you'll want to do this . . . ' and she proceeded to get one knee down on the ground, slide along a little then get back up. Yes, I think I will definitely have to give that a try.

My new comrades introduced me to the two folks i'd seen on my first week. We all skated round as a group for a little while, with some folks pushing through and nipping past at times. That was when I realised I definitely want to play. We talked about training sessions, and how the girls practises are full but the blokes only have 12 people at theirs. A passing comment was made about me wearing a moustache and gatecrashing the boys practises. I guess it wont harm to ask. 

Anyway, the evening drew to a close, time DOES fly when you're having fun. We piled back into the boot room, and I had fun poked at my retro-esque skates. I was told I would need a new pair for derby, these ones just wouldnt work. I also managed to get a lift home, that saved waiting in the rain for the imaginary bus again.

I got home, and started the online hunt for pads. A recommendation on wrist guards had already been made, and they were only £9, either that or broken wrists? It took two nights of deliberating but finally all my bits and pieces are on order, and will hopefully arrive before next Thursday. 

 

Looks like I may have to make some hats and mitts, and cats to sell before I can afford to buy some skates, but thats what winter nights are for arent they? Staying in and plonking yourself infront of the sewing machine for a few hours, or infront of the fire/tv with a crochet needle and thick wool. Especially if each thing made gets you £15.

I may just have to put up a little bloggeroo about my handiworks, spread the word and earn some cashlings :-)