Practicing with PFM

This weekend a few Raw Meat friends and I traveled to Seattle to skate with the PFM Practice Squad. It was an incredible experience.

The travel down was great because it gave the 4 of us a chance to really connect. I’ve only known Ginny, Amy and Wendi for a month so it was great to get to know them better. Over the course of 4 hours we created a lifetime worth of inside jokes.

New Skater Practice

This Saturday was a New Skater Practice. These sessions are open to anyone and are used to gauge an individual’s ability. If they pass, they graduate to “Regular PFM”. For 2 hours the skaters are drilled on stops, falls, pack skating and other basics. It’s amazingly structured, organized, and informative. If I was on my skates for the first time, I would have been scared shitless. They don’t hold back and they really force everyone to stretch themselves. While we were quite comfortable with the pace, new skaters would certainly have been challenged. Less than a third of the skaters graduated to “Regular PFM” that night.

We definitely took notes regarding how they ran this session as I’d like to implement as much as possible within Raw Meat. I think some of the girls might freak on me when I get them to try some of these drills.

Special “Core” Skate

Directly after the New Skater Practice was a special session for “Core” members only. Core Members are those that commit to PFM enough that they pay monthly dues. Since this was a special session it was very low-key. We spent a lot of the 2 hours working on backwards skating and transitions. Again, there were a couple of great drills I’d like to implement up in Vancouver (especially the transitons with a partner drill that looked like dancing).

Drinking & “Crafting”

We were invited to a “Crafting Social” Saturday evening. Upon arrival I discovered that these girls craft just the way I like it. With copious amounts of beer and very little crafting. It was a very memorable evening that I only slightly regretted the next day with a brutal hangover.

Regular Skate

On Sunday, PFM holds their “Regular” Practice. This is for all the girls that have graduated from “New Skater” and it is definitely at a much brisker pace. We quickly formed into a pace line that was cruising along at a much faster pace than in the New Skater session. It was really really nice and comfortable. My new wheels and bearings are very efficient so I barely need to move my feet to keep pace. Slight adjustments was the name of the game to react to the pace. We did a series of drills as part of the pace line, my favourite being the worm. The last skater in the pace line weaves through every skater in front of them until they reach the front. It was such a great test of my agility and I felt really confident and comfortable doing it. Another fun drill was where the front 2 skaters in the pace line race around the track until they reach the back. It was really fun to sprint then try to quickly slow down and reform part of the pace line.

The big focus of the session was on hitting and blocking. Hip-checks were the name of the game. This was my first time with contact and it’s going to take me a while before I feel confident with it. What I can say however is that it was FUN. One of the later hitting drills had us all in a pace line. Every fifth skater had a helmet cover and they were allowed 1 hit on an incoming jammer. The last person in the pace line acted as jammer and raced up to the front of the pace line on the inside of the track. The pace line kept a 3 tile space away from the inside line so the jammer only had a small area to skate within. The jammer had to avoid or successfully receive every hit to get to the front of the line. This was TERRIFYING. My adrenaline was pumping so fast. It was AWESOME.

Our last drill of the night was a pseudo-scrimmage drill called “Lazy Jammer”. There are 3 people acting as blockers for 1 team. The other team has 4 blockers and a jammer. The jammer can’t skate and can only move when their team pushes or pulls them forward. The goal is to pull your jammer through the pack at which point the teams change players. It was crazy and gave my brain a basic feel of what a real scrimmage might feel like. I was terrible, but I learned a lot.

What I was really happy about was the fact that I was able to keep up with the PFM skaters during most drills. I’ve only been skating for a few months so I was really doubting my skills. A really special moment for me was when I was in the middle of these really complex drills and I completely forgot that I was skating. I didn’t have time to think about my skates so my body took all of my experience and just handled everything for me. Fancy footwork weaving through people with 2ft of clearance, minor speed adjustments to keep the pace line, blazing up the inside track with only 3 tiles of spacing preparing for the inevitable hit from the blocker coming up… Pure skating zen…

Applying What I Learned to Raw Meat

There were definitely a few drills that I’m going to start showing the Raw Meat crew. It will be impossible to get Raw Meat to a state where I can introduce most of what PFM “Regular” practices. I have only 41 days until Fresh-Meat try-outs and many of the Raw Meat skaters are still very shaky with their stops. But I can at least focus on bringing everyone’s basic skating skills up.

Looking ahead, I’ve been thinking about how I can keep Raw Meat alive after TCRG’s fresh-meat intake. I think this is where I’ll be able to start applying a lot of the structure that PFM has going on. Anyway.. lots to think about.

I left Seattle in awe. PFM is a fantastic group full of wonderful people. I was honoured to have skated with them and I can’t wait to meet them on the flat-track again sometime soon.

TCRG Try-Outs

The Terminal City Rollergirls have announced that fresh-meat try-outs will be August 22nd and 28th. Some of the Raw Meat girls are pissed that the date was pushed up. As for me, bring it on. I can’t wait to get into some serious training.