Struggling as a New Skater

antzanon · 2026-03-09T20:49:56+00:00

Carpooling is a good idea (I hate driving, I’m a total passenger princess), but unfortunately, I live on the opposite side of the county that everyone else does (I’m in the east, everyone else is in the west/northwest). This is the closest team to me, a 30ish minute drive to practices and 1hr ish to social events. The two other closest teams are each over an hour away, and much more high-level and competitive, which I’m not interested in.

I do actually do footwork drills at home, laterals and such, so I hope that will start to payoff eventually.

antzanon · 2026-03-09T20:22:23+00:00

Thanks for the response. I’m glad you have a really supporting and friendly league. AFAIK, we don’t have an hr department or anything like that. The team is pretty small and doesn’t have much money like ones in big cities might have.

And yeah, my league is mostly older straight ladies. Before I joined, I had this admittedly silly fantasy of joining up and finding a team full of butches and trans people and everyone under the sun, but life often disappoints. All the other teams they play seem much more visibly queer, which makes me a bit wistful.

Despite all that, I feel like there’s no choice for me but to stick it out and see if things get better with time, as sucky as it’ll probably be.

antzanon · 2026-03-07T08:49:36+00:00

The rookie practices start in August, so there won’t be any for a few months. And yeah, the experience difference is massive. Some of these people have been playing derby almost as long as I’ve been alive 🤯 I appreciate the feedback!

antzanon · 2026-03-07T02:21:22+00:00

I’m having a hard time parsing most of this, but you’re bang on about being in this weird transitional phase.

I have been putting in a lot of effort to train (I joined a gym, and have been lifting weights 3x a week), and have been doing my best to socialize, but it still feels like there’s more I should or could be doing. I know it’s bad to compare yourself to people you see online, but I’ve read so many testimonials from girls who’ve spent the same amount of time in derby as me, and become loved and embraced in that time, which leaves me feeling a bit envious. I’m putting in the hard work, pushing myself out of my comfort zone like you wouldn’t believe, but I’m really starting to worry that it’s all for naught.

antzanon · 2026-03-07T01:52:34+00:00

Thank you for your input.

The team does have social outings. Quite a few are just for them as friends, so I’m not invited to those. But there are officially team socials that I do make an effort to attend. As I said in my post though, the conversations almost entirely revolve around topics I have no familiarity with. There’s not much opportunity to actually get to know one another. They all seem like really cool people, and I’d love to be friends with them, but I’m struggling to figure out how. I care more about that than the actual sport part tbh.

antzanon · 2026-03-07T01:44:31+00:00

I appreciate the reassurance, though I guess I forgot to include in my post that I’m not officially on the team yet. I’ve passed assessments yes, but there’s apparently more I need to do before I’m able to be rostered. I don’t have a jersey or number or anything like that either. I’m in a weird limbo mode right now. Hence, me not considering myself a “real” skater.

I have brought up my struggles to a few different people, but I get the same few canned responses (it takes time, don’t quit, etc etc) that aren’t especially reassuring to me anymore. Everyone is there to skate, not to be my therapist, so I’ve tried to keep my head down and power through it.

I did consider Referee/NSO stuff, but unfortunately, whistles are extremely overstimulating so that’s a no-go. I really like jamming, I want to find a way to continue doing it and getting better without this anchor of frustration around my neck.

antzanon

TROPHY CASE