My goodness! She's back!

Did you miss me, intrepid followers?
Things have been very difficult for me on the work front, and so I didn't have a whole lot of energy to write about last week's practice.
We have begun scrimmage practices. We start out with pyramid drills, 5,4,3,2,1 laps interspersed with core building exercises. Then the inevitable stretching. We did some one on one blocking drills/jamming drills, where one person tries to get past the other. I am still learning. I am super easy to get past. I am not aggressive enough to get past others. In my defense, I WAS trying to get past the vets, not the other toffuti cuties. Then we did some two on one drills, two blockers, one jammer trying to get past. I am MUCH better at blocking when I have someone to hold the outside, while I cover the inside line after some extremely helpful coaching from Manna. I still need to work on maintaining my momentum when cutting the track.
Then we scrimmaged. it was awesome! Still no-contact scrimmage, since many of us are not very stable. I feel like I could take a mild hit and keep going, but big hits, not so much. In the first "jam" (we don't really keep score, mostly just practice the motions so far) I was actually taken down by my own jammer. Bless her sweet little heart, she felt bad about it, but them's the breaks, and this is derby. No "sorry" in derby. I took a fall. At the front of the pack. Everyone had to skate around me. Unexpected obstacle? Nobody kicked me, I don't think anyone else went down with me. That's a win in my book. I managed to fall small and avoid destroying the pack.
We also did the inevitable pace line. We have been doing an abbreviated version, where the person in the back weaves the whole line then stops at the front (time saver for a large group like ours). We did one where we just weaved, and one where we added light hits. I fell twice, once in each line. I feel good about my determination, now I just have to build confidence. I am a big girl, I should be the one others are afraid of right?
Feeling more and more confident on my skates, every week.
Still thinking about learning to ref once I have the rules more firmly in mind.
And to think, I almost didn't even go to practice last night! Thank you to my ever-loving husband for talking me into it when I wanted to sloth the night away and feel sorry for myself.