No Contact

My adorable, wonderful, brilliant little sister sent me a text last night “no contact practices suck.” She plays rugby and also hurt her back a little while ago, sentenced to the dread no contact for her first few practices afterward. I must say truer words were never text!

It is insanely hard to watch your team scrimmage without you, to see the jammer panty held out for someone to claim and not grab it.  In an effort to do something (anything!) I played ref for the scrimmage, not terrible, but not something I really enjoyed either. It was like being hungry and only having a glass of water. I learned things, I watched scrimmages grow chaotic, saw frustration, and noticed some good strategy. It was informative, a good class really. I’m attempting to keep a positive outlook in the face of another no contact practice tomorrow.

Off Season, Injury and Rehab

It’s been a long time since I posted anything. Sorry. There were a couple of reasons for this the first long span being due to the off season.

Taking a break from Derby is HARD, necessary for sure but very difficult. Once practice starts again, getting motivated can feel like a chore and while the first practice back is amazing fun, shit gets serious fast. We did not have practice from mid November to January and I’ll be honest, the holidays without practice was pretty awesome.

I went back to practice and tried really hard to get motivated and inspired. It worked! Combining some derby goals and exercise goals kept me busy and really focused. While I wasn’t very blog inspired (taking a break from writing turns out to be disastrous) practice was going well and things seems to be looking up.

Two weeks ago that all stopped. One practice my back was feeling a little sore, a few days later and I could hardly move. I have had a back injury before, I knew the best thing for me was rest  and chiropractor. The first appointment got scheduled and life went on, albeit more slowly and with a messier house than usual.  First appointment down and the chiropractor recommends no Tuesday practice, which I figure I can take one missed practice is not that bad. Except by the next practice it wasn’t better, so back to the chiro I went.  Another appointment and a staggering two weeks without skating and I feel mostly healed. My goal is to take the first practice easy, and build from there. There’s still occasional stiffness and its frustrating. Frustrating because I have to force myself to take it slow, frustrating because I know I’ve lost progress, frustrating because I’m afraid of being behind.

Injury is one of the most disheartening things about derby I have found. The major injuries that girls don’t come back from, the minor injuries that happen so often and the in between. The in between that puts you out for a few weeks, so you come back and have to force yourself not to work twice as hard right away, while still knowing that eventually you will have to catch up.

So Rehab. I’m taking suggestions. I have the back strengthening exercises, and the instructions for easing back in to practice but this is definitely not my forte. This is going to be the real challenge, because laying on the couch skipping practice and trying not to move sucked but I didn’t have a choice. Now its up to me to know my limits, make decisions and rehab. That sucks to, but I’m back and I couldn’t be happier.