Be Well

This post is actually about my new wellness coach - but first I want to tell you about my awesome practice last night.
Monday nights are my B52's practice.  We spend one hour practicing with the Bombers and another by ourselves.  I have a deep appreciation of these practices, particularly in the second hour, because they teach advanced skills at a beginner level.  Want to jump the apex?  Transition out of a hit and ahead of the opposing blocker?  Skate sideways?  Block while skating backwards?  Learn advanced strategy?  Monday nights are where it's at.  These are the kinds of things I'd been leaving for my future days of glory but as it so happens the first steps are well within my reach today.
Last night in particular we were working on a move that we either refer to as the "shuck and roll" or "The Re-Animate Her."  It's when the opposing blocker goes in for a hit and you transition around her, using her force to maintain your balance by leaning against her with your chest as you roll around.  Evidently, Re-Animate Her also stares into her opponents eyes while she does this, but it's not required.  I've been working quite a bit on my transitions at speed lately and surprised myself (and several other people) by being fairly adept at this particular skill.  Why?  I blame visualization.  I think it's a really cool move and I imagine  doing it A LOT.  Step two:  I must try this in a scrimmage or at least a scenario drill.  Be prepared for stories about eating it and getting kicked in the face...
The second skill I've developed lately actually isn't advanced at all, but I'm still really thrilled about it:  Starts.  I have never in my life possessed anything that even begins to relate to fast twitch muscles.  In fact, the joke for distance swimmers was always that we could do a cannonball off the blocks without affecting our time.  As a result, my jammer starts have always been pretty abysmal.  Until this past Sunday.  Suddenly I was beating people off the line as a blocker.  In fact, I had to slow up in order to catch some of the jammers.  This has to be Cross Fit related.  Three cheers for plyometrics!
OK - I promised to tell you about my wellness coach.
On the face of it, wellness coaching is exactly the sort of thing I would roll my eyes at and dismiss as a yuppie therapy substitute for people who don't actually have problems.  Except that I've actually been to a fair number of therapists when I did have problems and have been less than enamored with the results.  The last time I tried therapy I looked into the face of the person who was supposed to be helping me and thought, "I don't need you.  I need a life coach.  This is depressing."  Of course, I was very depressed at the time which may have colored my opinion.
At any rate...
When I started actually scrimmaging and playing derby I thought it was really funny to go around telling people that if roller derby were a woman, I'd be staring deep into her eyes saying, "I've... never felt this way about a sport before."  Ha ha.  But, when I was in physical therapy with my knee injury I had a real moment of clarity. If roller derby was a woman, I'd be telling her that she makes me want to be a better person. 
If you're vomiting in your mouth right now don't worry - it'll pass.
What that means to me is that my life has often been full of adventures in burning out.  I love finding new hobbies and pushing myself at them to the exclusion of all other things until I lose interest.  I'm astonishingly proficient at a weird variety of things.  There's nothing really wrong with living that way, right up until the point where I found I didn't want to anymore.  Then it's just a matter of breaking habits and that's where the wellness coach comes in.
We're working on establishing patterns of behavior that represent a better life-work-derby balance.  I made a budget for the first time in a year.  We talk about meal planning and how much exercise is too much.  I have to hang out with non-derby people twice a week - no exceptions.  I swept the floor of my bedroom for the first time since December.
I so often find myself overwhelmed by the small necessities in life that I know I walk around with a lot of unnecessary anxiety about it.  Eventually that overwhelms everything else and my ability to function declines (or sometimes disappears entirely).  I change every pattern of behavior just to get at a few things that need to be different.  This too must change.
After all the epiphany really was that I don't want to burn out on derby lust in a year.  I want us to be together for a good.  long.  time.
<posted on 7.31.12>