I apologize in advance for my lack of blogging skills. This is my first and thought it might be an entertaining subject. That said...
Starting things off I should explain that I hadn't seen roller derby on TV as a kid (Anchorage listings didn't seem to include it) and I was relatively unaware of its growing popularity in Portland until I went to a women's bout (Go High Rollers!) and was hooked. Fast forward a few months and a friend asked if I wanted to come to the men's practices for a team trying to form up. I hadn't been skating since I was 18-19, and that was on 'aggressive' in-lines, which it turns out is similar and mildly useful. I figured I needed to get some sort of physical activity going again and team sports are usually fun so why not.
So I bought gear. Gear is not cheap. Skates, pads (knee, elbow, wrist), helmet, mouth guard, and toe covers were around $300 after the discount for buying derby stuff. One hip-bruising fall later and crash/butt pads were added to the list to the tune of another $50. But assuming everything survives, no new purchases... except spare bearings and outdoor wheels for training (another $65). Now yes, some of the items I bought could have been cheaper, the majority of the stuff I got was middle of the road since I find you get what you pay for, but it seems that $400ish is more or less the buy-in price.
Once I had the initial stuff I got out on the floor and started puttering around. Turns out my legs remembered how to skate to a degree and I was managing chunky cross-overs by the end of the first day. Unfortunately, in-lines left me with some bad habits.
1. I wanted to only use the inside set of wheels too much. No big deal, just have to force myself to skate 'flat'.
2. in-lines feel MUCH more stable and go behind your heel a touch, quads do not. Makes you feel unstable upright, which I need to not be skating anyways...
I managed to get a couple open skates in before my first team practice. They helped... sort of. Practice was only an hour, but since my endurance just isn't there yet I could tell it was going to be rough. It was. Falls, squats, laps, some light pack skating, god awful pigeon walks and skate walks. I was sore the next day, and happy. Mostly sore.
No where to go but up...
