Fast Girl University is putting on several clinics this summer utilizing some of the amazing players who are going to be in town for sanctioned play. Yesterday we had four hours with London's Stephanie Mainey. She's someone I had never heard of or seen play at the time I signed up, but I figured that FGU usually does great stuff and I happened to have the cash.
Best call I've made all year.
Here's the thing: Last month marked my one year with CarnEvil. I've learned a lot with my team by just drilling the things I already know and getting more exposure to gameplay but we hardly ever break stuff down into its tiny components. Even when we do there are some principals that I accept generally because it's what I was taught to do as fresh meat 2 years ago by the women I still skate with now. I don't challenge these assumptions.
One of these was blown out of the water in the first five minutes of the clinic yesterday. Our first task was transitions. I know transitions. I've worked on them endlessly - gone to adult skate nights and done thousands of them - drilled them to perfection (at least on my left side) so I was surprised to hear Steph tell us to do them only on either our front or back trucks. It's faster.
What?
I was taught to take a step, roll for a split second in a mohawk and then step with the other foot. Always with two distinct steps and always with all 4 wheels of each skate on the floor. The way she prefers to do it is to shift the weight to the front two wheels of both skates and pivot both feet simultaneously. In other words, you should put all your weight on both front trucks. To go from back to front do the same except with the back two wheels of both skates. Sometimes I pivot without realizing it. I've been trying to train myself out of that, but as soon as she mentioned it I could think of a half a dozen other fantastic players who I know do the same thing. Lesson learned. Pivot good.
The next hour was spent on various ways to get another player out of bounds.
1.) You're right next to the opposing skater and she's on the line. Get low with your butt behind her butt and your thigh into hers and then pivot her out of the way. Wingardium leviosa! Again - I can do this. I have done this, but it's been too long since I've drilled it at a slow speed with good form. I'm a better player now than I was the last time I worked on it and it shows.
2.) Get mid track, drive her out and finish her off with the same butt flick. Steph emphasized the importance of getting your entire legal hitting zone into her entire legal hitting zone as the overall transfer of energy would make the work easier for you as the initiating blocker. First we practiced leaning into wall with our whole bodies and were asked to notice just how much more power was derived from the foot furthest away from the wall. This was another thing I thought I had been doing wrong as a player, but apparently that's not the case. Your outside foot should be doing most of the work.
3.) Steph explained that you can think of yourself and other players as a big triangle. If your body goes outside of the triangle created by your feet and your center of gravity you'll have to step over to either correct yourself or lose your balance. If you want to control another player you have to do so by getting your triangle into her triangle.
Enter Gotham's stepping drill. Stand hip to hip with your partner, step over her thigh and put your foot between her feet. She will do the same to you. Switch. We also did a variation where instead of just leaning and stepping we stepped into and took our partner's space by displacing her. I know it's basic derby but I don't begrudge practicing it. The last time I specifically worked on stepping into another player's space it was in PFM and I had been skating for approximately 3 or 4 months. You had better believe that it feels different now.
There's more but I've run out of time to type today. Stay tuned for group work, the Hockey Honey shuffle and reaction drills.
<posted on 6.13.13>
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