I joined a roller derby group this year at the age of 44.  To clarify, I have attended weekly practices since early January and will have to pass assessments to make the team.  On the application, under “level of skill,” I checked, “I haven’t skated since I was a kid.”  I figured if I could be that honest about my level of skill (or lack thereof) and if they were willing to let me in at that level, at least we both knew what to expect.

In my youth, I had quite the excellent reputation in my neighborhood as a speed skater.  I remember going down the steep hill in my neighborhood with knees bent to increase my speed.  (Turns out roller derby position is quite similar to what I was doing 30+ years ago.  I knew I should have patented my moves.)  I remember holding onto the back of my friends’ bikes and letting them pull me around the street after we saw Marty McFly do it on his skateboard in Back to the Future.  I remember that the Roll-a-Round was a happening place to be.  Sadly, today, roller skating rinks are about as scarce as film cameras.  I drive 40 minutes one way to the rink where we practice.

I remember a lot of things, but there are decades between today’s reality and those memories.  If my mom were still around to discuss this new adventure with me, she would remind me that she injured her finger badly enough to require medical attention the last time she tried to skate with us kids.  Most people reacted to me pursuing roller derby along the lines of, “You know this is violent, right?  That this is dangerous?  They will assault you on the track.  They will try to hurt you.”

I had some idea.  I knew it was a contact sport and that I was required to wear a helmet, wrist guards, knee pads, elbow pads, and a mouth guard.  The amount of gear indicated the amount of danger.

I never played organized sports growing up, and my job is quite sedentary.  As happens with most of us, the years go up and the metabolism slows down.  I look in the mirror and see lots of jiggles and bulges I don’t like.  Maybe this is a midlife crisis, or maybe I will succeed.  Maybe both.

On the first roller derby practice, they taught us how to fall.  I had been quite proud of my ability to stay upright on the skates.  I was gliding around the rink, wondering if the derby vets noticed what I believed to be a semi-fluid flow and were making notes: “Red helmet has not fallen.  Red helmet is a possibility for making the team.”  And now they wanted me to FALL ON PURPOSE?!  I could not make myself do it.  It was counter-intuitive to my self-protection to fall.  An instructor yelled, “Fall!” and I remained upright…more than once.  So, one of the derby vets came over, literally took me by the hand, and helped me fall.  Her support is what I needed to let go, to trust, to finally give in and fall down.  I still don’t do it as gracefully as the more experienced skaters, and I got a bruised knee and a skinned elbow despite the pads, but I can fall on demand now.  Getting up without using my hands is another story…

I have also learned to stop, although I still prefer to just skate into something or slow down gradually, and when we took those assessments last week, I even jumped – for the first time ever at roller derby school – over the tiny cones they put on the ground.  I am really terrified of jumping over actual objects.  I’ll do hops on my skates and jump over lines.  I’ll lift one foot at a time if something is in the way.  And I saw a girl at a roller derby match on YouTube who appeared to leap frog an actual person to get out of a jam, so I understand why they want us to jump.  But there is a mental block called FEAR every time I approach an object on the ground, and I freeze.  I think I had something like 6 opportunities to jump at assessments, and I jumped once.  I was elated and the assessors appeared unimpressed.  Of course, they warned us beforehand that they would appear unimpressed about everything, which I appreciate.  It’s a good way to stay neutral and try to keep us who were being assessed from over-analyzing their every reaction.

Overall, I think I did well at assessments.  I will definitely have to redo some things (I skated a 13-second lap in 14 seconds; I had worse balance on my right foot than a drunk person taking a field sobriety test; I was very generous with my rotations and also forgot that 180º does not mean making a circle – which reminds me why I hate organized exercise and dance classes; and, see above regarding the jumps).  But if you had shown Week 1 in January Me Last Week in February Me, she would have been pretty damn happy.  And, I was.

I am also sore.  I fell last weekend trying to practice jumping over a 2” tall shoe (we’re supposed to jump over something 6″ high) – although, I did get over the shoe a few times, thanks to another kind derby vet who took time out of her weekend to skate with some of us derby hopefuls and help us improve.  Much to Pete’s frustration, I refused to go to the doctor since I could move enough to rule out a broken arm (but maybe not a fracture), and it has healed pretty well over the last week.  Early days included not being able to touch my face, head, or opposing armpit with my left hand; inability to cut food; inability to put on and remove some clothes by myself.  Now I just have occasional pain from certain pressure points.  My butt also still hurts from where I landed.  And since I had 1 arm down when our personal trainer came on Monday, she choreographed a helluva leg workout that crippled my thighs and left me almost unable to get off the floor Wednesday when I did the knee taps and double-knee falls at assessments.  I’ll be redoing those tasks again.  You’re supposed to tap one knee and really not stop skating; fall on both knees not quite simultaneously and sort of slide as if you’re a cool person playing guitar and wearing sunglasses.  I tap one knee and get up…eventually, and I think I had to make several attempts NOT to use my hands.  When it comes to double knee falls, I’m just glad nobody was underneath me and I didn’t crack the floor, given the force with which I landed.  And again, there was no speedy rise.

But I am surrounded by great skaters and the more I skate, the better (and more comfortable) I get.  I’m pretty sure when I got my first pair of skates at Dovetail Court, I didn’t head straight for the huge hill on Fieldlark Trail…even if that is basically how I remember it.  In derby school, I fear things that have hurt me (such as the jump-fall, or a whip maneuver that caused my breastbone to hurt for 2+ weeks every time I sat up, coughed, sneezed, burped, basically moved at all).  I fear falling.  I fear permanent injury.  I fear failure.

But I have already done better than I actually thought I would.  And I am surrounded by other skaters to inspire and teach me how to keep doing better.  I watch them jump and I know I can.  I see them fly without a care in the world and I wonder how I can get a little bit of that.  And today, I keep thinking of this:

There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask “What if I fall?”
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?
― Erin Hanson

It is a wonderful feeling to accomplish something that I am not sure I can do and to conquer something that frightens me a little.  I do a lot of things that are not very challenging.  I think it’s time to see if I can fly a bit.