Saturday, June 1, 2013

Week 9: Lanes of the Track, Packing It Up, Pace Lines, Pack Awareness

Okay, today's recap. Confession! I totally came to today's practice wanting to make you all hate me by 11am. Did it work? 

We had White Dynomite start off the first 20 minutes with some boot camp core work. After he was done, I scolded ya'll for 7 minutes as you slowly geared up. Haha! Thennnn we got on the track, did a dynamic warm up stretch, and launched into a 60/100/squat intervals for 6 minutes. We got water, and then I really got mean. I made you do a relay suicide to practice your sprinting and stops/falls. You thought it was easy, so I made you ALL line up and do it at once....5x in a row! That shut you up good and proper. T wanted to punch me ;)
You got water, then we worked on backwards skating and crossovers, then front crossovers. We will keep reviewing these skills, as they take a while to get the hang of. I can tell some of you are getting out during the week to practice. Yay! 

Water break, then new skill: wheel locks. We buddied up and practiced locking wheels with each other on both sides. Once we figured it out, no one fell! Then we packed it up into an enormous pack, able to touch 2 people at all times. We played one of my favorite games: "Pack Molestation!" When I called out a body part, you had to reach over or behind you and touch someone else's knee/toe/butt/elbow etc. I also occasionally called out "switch," and everyone had to move to a different position in the pack. We had to skate small, sticky skating, no big strides or kicking out behind us, in order to keep from tripping our teammates. 


We learned about "lanes" on the track; Lane 1: inside track boundary. Lane 2: inside middle. Lane 3: outside middle. Lane 4: outside track boundary. I called out each lane and you had to shuffle to that spot, lateral movement. It got tricky when we got tight in a pack again and did it as a group, but you all figured it out! The key is to move as one giant organism, or "amoeba." You will hear me use that term again.


We got in two tight packs across from each other on the track and worked at staying close and tight, matching the pace of the other group. Occasionally I would tell one group to speed up or slow down. There was a lot of communication out there, which was fantastic!!


The last drill of the day was two pace lines opposite each other in the track, and instead of the last person in line sprinting to the front, they wove through all of the girls in the pace line. You had to keep moving your feet as you skated around each girl, no coasting, getting low! It is super important to develop fast footwork in derby so that you can hop around the track like a bunny in game play. 


Speaking of bunnies, Alice Pooper joined us for our stretch as we wrapped up the practice! Today was super fun, girls. I think I failed to make you all hate me, but there's always next week ;)

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