Raw Meat Week 2

15th October 2012

We started the night off with a warm up from two of the three veg, Sweet Potato (The Philistine) and Cheesy Cauli (Count deBumps). After doing some dynamic stretching as we rolled around the stadium, we started working on learning each other's names by calling them out as we weaved through a pace line and also removing our personal space by skating together in groups.

Our trainers for the night were Elle Catraz, Tricksey Belt'em and Psycho Fox. They had skaters hitting the wall (literally!) with stationary snow ploughs, before practising t-stops across the stadium.

They then took slaloms and weaving to a new level, with skaters weaving between cones and carving with both feet. The trainers extended our ability to carve (weaving leading with one foot) by explaining how trucks work and helping skaters to adjust their own trucks (remember to read Foxy's post to fix your own!).

Elle introduced us to stepping in our skates without rolling forwards. We were stepping side to side and forwards & back. Foxy showed us how to keep your toes slightly pigeon-toed while stepping forward & back to help stop any wheels rolling.

We worked on our cross-overs, for which Tricksey taught us the importance of good cross-overs to maintain and quickly build speed, as well as get out of tight spots in the pack.  We started by doing the grapevine up and down the stadium, before moving on to exaggerated cross-overs and, finally, full cross-overs on the track.

We also worked on extending our understanding of riding the track. It's important to be aware and to get used to looking behind and around you.  Remember to turn your shoulders and point to where you want to go. Tricksey pointed out that short strides take much more energy, while long strides give more speed with less effort.

We finished the session with a chat from Roller Controller, and between himself and Frill Seeker they have covered injury management, cross training and preventative measures very well. Roller reminded us that ice is critical to stop swelling in injury affected areas, and that alcohol will make swelling worse as it thins the blood. We will have a blog post in the future with some of the key points from their chats.

Enjoy your week and we'll see you all on Monday!

Three Veg & Gravy
xox