Am I tough enough to be pleasant?

Apparently not.

While playing derby has helped me overcome my fear of confrontation with random strangers and bitchy clerks, it appears it has also taken down some of my walls which prevent me from being nice when I don't have to be.

For those of us walking around with general rage against everything, derby is no way helpful.  I know that there is a popular belief that says that playing a physical sport, especially a contact one, helps diffuse violent tendencies, but I haven't found that at all.  I think it actually stokes my rage a bit.  Sort of like how venting doesn't make anyone feel better, it just creates a bad habit of whining.

So, to the minivan lady in the crowded parking lot, who idled close to my kids while they were waiting for me to join them at the car, forcing all the drivers to go around her while dodging tiny pedestrians, when you pulled close to demand if I was actually leaving or not, I'm sorry I went on the defensive and snapped at you.  What I should of said was, 'yes, I am leaving,' and failed to say anything more, except maybe to politely direct you to the nearly empty parking lot behind the building.  Of course, I didn't shut up after giving the basic information, but I do believe there was little smile at the end of my choice words, though I fear it was more of the sarcastic type.

I really am a nice person.  It's just that I forget sometimes.

Feeling hot, cranky and aggressive is a bad combination for a woman hauling around small children.  There are so many small slights, so much thoughtless behavior, so many near misses on the road that it's very easy to feel justified when you decide to figuratively drop the gloves with someone equally cranky in a parking lot.  But, when I think about it with some emotional distance, I can't see how the solution to rude is to be rude right back.  I think of how strong people are made stronger by showing restraint.  By giving people the benefit of the doubt.  Keeping cool even in the face of extreme provocation.  I would be so easy to go off on another person, because I typically assume I am smarter and stronger, plus I frequently hit people for fun, but where would that lead me?  And, holy fuck, my kids are watching!

I can hear the snickers now by those who know me, but I actually began college learning to become a social worker.  I lasted one whole semester before I transferred my freaked out self right out of there into an academic stream, but my application essay comes to mind frequently.  I was asked to write about someone I admire and I choose to write about Mother Teresa, who was all kinds of awesome.  It is her example of compassion and mercy that pops guiltily to mind every time I find myself using hip checks to navigate the frozen food section or screaming out the window at bad drivers to, 'Put some skates on, bitch!'

What would Mother Teresa do?  I like to think that she would indeed put some skates on and come kick my punk ass, but I know she wouldn't.  She would probably just shake her head sadly at the way I allow my anger to move me through the world and perhaps give me some soup.  Put me to work with leper kids or something. 

The world does not need more ugly, especially from me.  My goal right now is to practice patience and control.  To take the next step beyond being a bad ass.  To say, yes, I could throttle that very annoying person, but I'm choosing not to because I'm a good person, fuckingdamnit.

Maybe some of this emotional control will transfer to the track.  Or maybe they're right, and I can bottle it until it's time to open up a can of whoop ass (which I'm not entirely the meaning of, but I'm starting to suspect it involves cow bells somehow).  Or maybe I'll just get into the habit of seeing people with a more compassionate eye and treating them accordingly.  As long as it doesn't interfer with derby.  Because right now I'd rather be the hammer and the nail, even if it doesn't make me popular with minivan ladies.

Got to have priorities, you know?

All the problems of the world could be solved if we'd just STOP talking to each other

In derby, as with everything in life, if one wishes to get better at it, goal setting is key.  Perfecting a hockey stop, getting 31 laps in five minutes, getting lower and more stable, there is is always something to work on.

I have a few of these personal goals going all of the time.  Usually I rotate a dozen or so skills, focusing on two or three for one week and then switch to a new set for the next, lest I become frustrated with my small improvements in my chosen areas because I fail to suddenly develop super powers in track cutting or booty blocking.  With a little gain here and there, I figure, overall I become a better player.

There is one particular goal, however, that I have been working on for several months straight.  It's something that is very difficult for me but so very important to this game.  The skill is deceptively simple in description but devilishly difficult to achieve.  This is the labour I undertake every practice, working hard at it with varying levels of success:

Shutting up and listening.

It's sooooo haaard! 

As I have already established, I am a comedic legend in my own mind and the little mini gatherings that happen between drills as we all get water or regroup to discuss provides an insta-audience that is hard to resist.  I usually have all sorts of droll (to me) observations about the practice and I enjoy the playfully combative banter that comes about as soon as a situational jam is ended.  In addition to this, I am a chronic low-level mutterer, a back talker, a nervous joker, and a sarcastic bastard.

On a good day this means I have a quip for almost any comment made and on a bad day I will emit a nearly continuous vocalization of my stream of consciousness.

None of this, despite being funny as hell (to me), is helpful at practice.  So I try, really, really try, to check my personality at the door. 

Which will probably come as a shock to anyone who has skated with me.

I know not everyone hates my mutterings and commentary.  One time, beautiful lady Bert leaned in closer when I was talking to myself and I said, 'Don't worry, I'm just muttering here.'

And Bert said, 'I know, I'm listening because that's when you say the funniest things!'

Bert, very seriously, taking lead jammer.  Photo by Argent Dawn Photography.

Of course, this is the same person who has been declared Most Likely to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse by giggling the zombies to death, with hugging to fatal ends being her second most likely deadly weapon.  But she's a pretty good skater, so I think I can believe she speaks some truth.  Because skill at roller skating is obviously a surefire way to accurately assess general enlightenment.  I do say funny things.  Often under my breath.  Yes, you should become very quiet and listen closely to everything I say.  I could probably change your life.

Or not.

It's that small voice of doubt that also suggests that my pithy comments and witty observations best be left for later.  Talking during practice, unless giving instructions, asking relevant questions, is extraneous, disruptive and rude.  If I am talking, I am not skating and not learning.  If I'm not skating and learning, then I'm missing an opportunity.  I can talk anytime (and I do).  Practice is for skating. 

Fighting this tendency of mine is a bit energy intensive, but again and again I remind myself, Shut the Fuck Up!

(Unless I'm skating in the pack.  Then, Where's the jammer?!  Communicate, damnit, Talk!  But only then.)

I am getting better at not making unnecessary comments, no matter how funny they may be (to me).  Even in the face of extreme provocation, I've held my tongue.  For instance, just the other day I let the phrase, 'hot vibe' used in all seriousness, go by completely unremarked upon.  Though in my head was a chorus.  And it was funny as hell.

So, those who have the mixed pleasures of sharing a track with me, or heaven help you, are on my team, I may seem a bit quieter lately, but while I stand there between drills, apparently listening to the coach with a squinty focused look and having a busy gnaw on my mouthguard, know that A) I am actually for really, real listening and B) I am also making a list of all the things I could of said that would of been a riot (to me) but did not because I am becoming a pure and virtuous practicer of derby.

And I'd also like to say to you, Shut the Fuck Up!

Because if I can't say it, neither can you.  So there. 

(And if you don't like it, get a blog.)