The Pursuit of Derbyness: The Path of Most Resistance

There is a little girl who lives inside my head. Every day is her birthday and she is never wrong. She has the annoying habit of believing that her opinions are actually facts. She and I have been having a little trouble lately. The truth of the matter is this: I don't like to be told what to do. I prefer to discover how to do things for myself, even though this is likely to be more difficult and painful in the long run. As a fresh meat skater I know that "doing it my way" is probably a stupid idea. I haven’t been skating long enough to have a way. However, it’s apparent that I have been skating long enough for the little girl in my head to dust herself off and grow an ego.

Lately, we've been skating a lot with Jet City's BSL. I'm not exactly sure what BSL stands for. Basic Skater.... "L". It’s a group instruction drop in setting that is meant to feed into their farm team and then their league. A basic skating coach and several Jet City Skaters run the practices.

This week we were working on crossovers in tight circles. We have done this before and I was as uncomfortable with it then as I am now. I get dizzy and unbalanced and I'm not all that fast at it (or in the very least I'd like to be faster). After a couple of revolutions my arms start flailing and my crossovers become increasingly unsteady.

Then I hear our instructor, "Keep your arms in! Speed it up!"

To which I reply, "It's one or the other, Man!" BOOM, I hit the deck. Turns out you can't really backtalk and skate at the same time. So, I sit there and stew a little, while listening to the spiel about how to do it better and why. When I don't really think anyone is looking I try again. It does feel more stable with my arms in. Shocker.

Next up are "drunken sailor" crossovers. Cross right around the cone, cross left around the cone, repeat, all in a straight line without putting the opposite skate down in between. I've done this before so I know that I'm fine so long as I go VERY SLOWLY. Round one: Fail. Round two: Better. Round three: I successfully maneuver through all the cones, and I feel pretty good about it, right up until the instructor says, "You need to be doing this faster, it will be easier."

The voice inside my head replies, "I'm not comfortable enough to do this faster. I usually learn things at slow speeds first." I try again, exactly the same way. No comment, but this time our instructor slides behind me in line and follows closely while telling me to speed up. I find this very annoying. It's also exactly the kind of thing I do to people when I’m teaching non-skating related things.

She says to me, "I don't usually have trouble with these but even I have a hard time doing them at that speed. You need to try it faster." I put on my resigned face.

"Fine, you go, I'll follow." We try again.

"I can't do this. I'm gonna eat it. I knocked over that cone. Oh, OH OH! Damn, that is easier!"

It's true; saying that I'm a little bit stubborn is like saying water is a little bit wet, and the thing that most prevents me from moving forward in a practice setting is myself. If it’s been a good day I take off my skates and my body feels glorious and tired and relaxed. If not, I feel the tension build while I think of all the things that could have been better and that little girl winds herself up for a bit of a temper tantrum. She would like to believe that if my left leg weren’t so tired or if I had grown up skating, or if they would just let me do it MY WAY that this wouldn’t be so hard. This is the point at which I’m about to open my mouth and start to bitch about… well, anything. Instead I hear my mother’s voice in the back of my head saying, “Rein it in, Megan.” Oh yeah. My skates aren't going anywhere. There's always tomorrow.