Do It Anyway

Last night we had a black and white scrimmage with the league.  I almost didn't go.  Scrimmaging with people who are a lot better than you is scary and my general level of fatigue had risen to a point that it demanded some attention.  8:00 rolled around and I convinced myself to leave the house by reasoning that a.)  I have next week planned as a 'break' week with substancially less skating than usual and b.)  the last black and white scrimmage we had resulted in relatively little skating for the evening.
And then I jammed all night.
I have been afraid to jam.  I'm still afraid to jam, but enough of me wants to be able to do it that in the past I would volunteer every now and again .  However, I recently came to the startling conclusion that my coach would not be harping on me about my crossovers if he didn't intend to use me as a jammer in our upcoming scrimmages.  Blockers don't really need long beautiful fast crossovers.  Rather than being reassured I began to panic.  So many people count on you to do your job well when you jam.  What if I let them down?  What if I never make it through the pack?  What if I commit lots of penalties and spend half the night in the box?  Even worse, what if I look stupid or arrogant for even trying?
When I was a music student we had a guest professor for one year who came over to teach from Germany.  He was an old school, crusty guy who didn't have much in the way of complimentary things to say to anyone except himself but I do remember him making one really valuable point.  He said he used to spend time outside of practice rooms listening to his students play.  He could always tell from outside the doors which were the best players - they always came out of the rooms where he heard the most mistakes.  If you're doing well, you're not learning. 
I remembered the story because after expressing my worries about jamming to a friend of mine, she responded with, "it's just like everything else I've seen you teach yourself.  You just have to keep drilling it."  With that in mind, I went to the scrimmage last night having made the decision that I would jam every chance I got. 
If life were a made for TV movie this would be the point at which I overcame my fears, threw on that star and found that I was better than I allowed myself to imagine I could be.  What actually happend is that the opposing team kicked the crap out of me.  They kicked the crap out of me all night.  My blockers made holes and I would go in the opposite direction.  I would almost make it through and then trip myself.  I got cutting penalties, back blocking penalties, forearm penalties, sternum checks, a jammed elbow and one really hard hit to the stomach.  There were jams when I was praying for those four whistles to blow just to deliver me from hips of destruction.  By the end of the night I found myself in the penalty box almost unable to move even though the last whistle had blown.  My timekeeper patted me on the shoulder, "you can go now honey.  It's over."
We then gathered on the floor to hear some pointers from our refs on various things.  I was sitting there in a daze when one of the women who I've been skating with since November and was just picked up by a team came over and gave me a hug.  "You've gotten so strong!"  She said it more than once.  It served as an emotional balm for my aching body.
So here's the deal.  I may not have a huge amount of ability for this whole jamming thing, but the same thing could be said for my transitions or my crossover form or any number of other the other things I've managed to learn to do on skates.  Even people with ability have to practice and since no one else is being too hard on me for not being great right off the bat, I should be either.  So for as long as they're still asking me if I want to jam, the answer is yes.  Yes I do.
<posted on 3.16.12>