Today marked our first outdoors practice of the season. Last year the girls practiced at an outdoors rink in Westbrook, near the Dana Warp Mill, and decided to do so again this summer. With my allergies, fair skin, and sensitivity to sunlight, I wasn't looking forward to it.
Early this morning, 9:30 am, about half the league met for drills and endurance training. Trouble & Strife was responsible for running the practice and came prepared with a broom to sweep up broken beer bottles. The rink apparently wasn't as bad as last year, but did have glass chunks sprinkled all over - making it a little dangerous for falling drills - and a rather large rocket-penis along with some classy little messages spray-painted on the right end of the rink.
Geez. I'm glad I brought my kid along. The last thing I wanted to do is answer "what is that, mum?" that would inevitably follow after viewing this "art" work. Good thing she never noticed it. We did, however, use it to our advantage: the rocket-penis became a point of reference during hopping drills. "Okay, one more jump over the penis and then we're done," T&S yelled on our last lap.
Training was quite effective given our limitations. T&S had us working a wall drill, where two girls skate next to each other and one calls out "one inside" or "two outside" and both girls simultaneously hop once to the left or twice to the right, staying as close as possible. I was working with Olive Spankins and we figured out just how to work this to our advantage in a jam. If we were creating a wall in front of the pack and the jammer was behind us on the inside, we could easily hop outside to fake out an opening for the jammer and then hop right back inside to close the gap. I can't wait to try it with the Mom Bomb, my blocking wall partner - our wall is near inpentratable.
We also worked on whipping. I realized to maximize strength in a whip, I can widen my stance as the jammer grabs onto my arm. I must use my core strength, rather than arm strength, to pull her forward. As I pull her forward, I pull in my legs from the wide stance to keep from touching skates with the jammer. Pulling in to a tight stance also helps use my full body to pull her through. (Picture a baseball player batting, except instead of hitting a ball, she is pulling someone forward.) What's important to remember is that once I'm in that tight stance after giving a whip, I need to stay low and be ready to take a hit, as I can't look behind me and give a whip at the same time. Any other blocker could use this to her advantage.
So, all was not lost on me in the first outdoors practice. I suppose I'll have to stop crying about sun exposure if I want to learn anything! Although, I'm still not looking forward to tomorrow night's outdoor practice.