Lessons Learned from Cologne

1. Must master my nerves. Panic = neither fun nor acceptable. Also, it hinders showing how awesome I am getting. I only managed a few short bursts of coolness in battle, interspersed with frantic, spastic "I-have-no-idea-what-to-do-next"-ness. Also I wanted to skate very far away and hide underneath a big rock until it was all over and I could go back home.

2. I'm just going to go ahead and plan some runs. I know I have said it before, but I never do because I am a bit morally opposed. I abhor the non-freestyling of freestyle, but I really need to have a better plan when I go into the cones.

3. Time management = issue. In battle, in school...*sigh*

4. People often give me more credit than I give myself. What gives?

5. I improved a lot since Korea without even realizing it. Power, speed, tricks, style...really everything has gotten better. The sitting trick odyssey is really starting to pay off. So I'm happy about that, but not with my actual skating over the weekend.

In summary, since I'm running short on time (time management!), I'm just going to keep training, but not just tricks. Also I will create runs and train my mind to be calm under pressure. (What pressure? We are all friends, for crying out loud! And there wasn't even any public there.) What strikes me as so strange is that I've never had this sort of fright when doing anything else, ever, in my whole life. And I've done my fair share of theater in front of hundreds and hundreds of people. Theater never made me nervous. Why does skating?

The obvious answer is that I don't want to disappoint myself, and then I set myself up to do so. Disappoint myself, that is.

Overall, I'm just going to try to move forward with constructive criticisms, not beat myself up too badly, and try to keep smiling when people joke about how I always fall down.

Seriously, it really gets to me. And if people don't joke about it, then it's the elephant in the room, and then I'm no fun because I can't take a joke or make fun of myself. I can do both of those things. But I really want that to become a distant memory. One day I hope people say, "Hey Meg, do you remember back in your first couple seasons of battles how you always used to fall down?" And I will be all, "Yeah, that was unbelievable! Can you imagine?" And then we'll all laugh and joke and I'll do 20 sevens down the line.

:-)