FMyLife #14: I H8 BALLS

Index finger was just feeling better.

Ring finger took over.

This weekend, we finally integrated a ball into gameplay, making much more sense than having a player acting like a pinball (duh!)

We had to change the rules a bit too. The track is rectangular with a basket at each end. The blockers have to dribble and pass the ball to each other in order to throw it into the basket.

We called it Roller Basket Ball. Because you put the ball into the basket with skates on (QED). I think it might become a popular discipline in the future. Maybe without the skates, though.

Training was fun. My finger didn't like it that much but hey... always complaining, that one! FML, it says.

Too busy skating to write.

Juno, the ultimate poser.

I haven't taken the time to write in here for ages - more than a month!

After a black hole of news stories due to my ankle's encounter with a Canadian player, things got pretty hectic at such a sustained pace that I didn't have the time to report them.

Okay, let's be honest, I didn't TAKE the time to do so, because first I was too busy being depressed by my gimpy leg, then I was too busy working out to chase the wrong karma away, and last I was too busy skating to make up for those months of deprivation! (Obviously.)

Here's a little chronological catch-up on the main events of those last two months!

My 'Teenage Tunes' on SoundCloud

"These songs were written by my teenage self some years ago. I thought that they would probably be better out here than shun away into music notebooks."

I started writing songs when I put an end to my music training at the Conservatoire - a complete classical package with violin, music theory, choir and strings orchestra. I was in my high school years and I wanted to have more time for my growing passion: SKATING. Looking back, I am sad I quit a few months before taking my final exam but I am also glad I bet on the right horse, given where skating has taken me, so far!

But I missed music right away so that I used my extra free time for learning the rudiments of piano and I started writing songs.

Lettering by Frednetik / Photo by Lightpunk

My first live performance as a singer-songwriter was for the annual Christmas Charity Concert organized by my litterary class in high school... I found myself singing a love song at a grand piano, in a crowded chapel (I was in a Catholic school), with my poor piano technique and my teenage voice. Quite an atypical and moving first time!
Especially the end bit with the standing ovation, which I'm just recalling as I'm writing those lines. I guess sincerity paid off...

A couple of years later I entered the world of electro-rock and drum'n bass by getting the singing part (and later the writing part too) in my band Akouphën.

But at about the same time, I got real skating opportunities and I moved to Paris, once more to focus on sports at the expense of music (that's cyclic).

Sports Nutrition: Optimizing Your Energy Supply

A couple of years ago, I had the great opportunity to attend SPORTS NUTRITION CLASSES as part of a rehab program in the rehabilitation center I spent a dozen weeks in, after a knee injury.
The CERS is a promised land for injured high level athletes who come from all around Europe to be brought back to the top in the hands of very professional medical teams, being provided with rehabilitation, workout, weight lifting, cardio, proprioception, reathletisation sessions and programs at a sustained pace with a heavy schedule of 5 1/2 days a week, and 8 hours a day...
All of this in a breathtaking setting: the center was built on the ocean side (the rehabilitation hall has a bay window - or rather a glass wall, onto the Atlantic ocean).

I did three stays of 4 weeks each in 2012 and learnt a great deal of things on various levels there, practically, physically, psychologically and socially speaking... (a little overview here)

We also had classes on sports nutrition, on which I had written an article during my first stay but I had mistaken a few notions so that the reasoning is simplistic and ERRONEOUS. However, THE MEAL SUGGESTIONS listed in there are correct, but not always for the stated reasons.

Here is a correction as well as a further look into NUTRITION ADAPTED TO THE NEEDS OF SPORTSPEOPLE, based on the powerpoint presentation I made during the Team France Training of last Fall.

Focus: Optimizing your effort conditions with good energy supply before, during and after effort. How? In understanding the absorption processes according to the types of food.

You can also refer to my notes on SPORTS HYDRATION with several useful tips and recaps related to sports nutrition!

Daily Food Intake .1

Carbs Absorption .2

Fat Absorption .3

Proteins Absorption .4

Pre-Effort Food Intake .6

Energy Supply During Effort .7

SkateXpress: "A Thousand Jacks"

I'm far from being the best dancer in the world, my body is far too new wave to be funky, but I do love doing weird technical stuff with my feet.

I'm one of the founding members of Parisian Rollerdance Crew SkateXpress, which rose from the ashes of the Rollerdisco Club La Main Jaune three years ago. When I stopped freestyling and started derby, it enabled me to maintain a creative activity related to skating, hanging out with crazy skating technique specialists... and all this, in a breathtaking setting.

The Beekoz "True Colors for Florida"

Despite all appearances this is not a cover of Cyndi's song. Or maybe it is. But with new original lyrics written by the Beekoz themselves!

No doubt that the BEEKOZ are going to create a stir in 2014! The band of two, made of Bee Fattal and Kozmic Bruise, has just released its first single "True Colors for Florida". That natural-born hit is part of "The Heat is On!", a charity compilation aiming at sending the Berlin Bombshells to the Beach Brawl (and at organizing the debut tour of the Beekoz in Florida)! 100% derby, 100% self-made.

The Beekoz...

The Heat is On! Charity Compilation

...recording their first single

The third track of the charity compilation, featuring the BEEKOZ, is now available in free streaming, joining the first and second skits by BONEZITA ("A Real Rollerderby Diva") and PAULINA POCKET ("Swears like a Sailor") on the Berlin Bombshells' THE HEAT IS ON Youtube Playlist. More is soon to come!

Note: If you feel like donating to help us / reward us for our creativity / compensate us for our lost pride / etc. go and visit our IGG CROWDFUNDING PAGE and get goodies in return for your generosity!

Peace out,
The Beekoz

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The Difference btw Sports & War: The Competition Dilemma

During our last Team France Training, we were confronted to a general atmosphere of competition within our very group which led to feelings of suspicion, jealousy and covetousness, in contradiction to the team bonding we had achieved, and against own will.
I observed it with an outside eye and the situation didn't affect me, because I felt apart from the group due to my injury--and thus not really concerned, and also because I had already settled my competition dilemma a while ago, in my two previous lives, as a dancer and as a freestyler.

Yet, that situation gave me food for thought as my previous experiences were in a context of individual and creative sports, i.e. the opposite of derby, a performance and team sport. In derby, two different types of competition should be highlighted:

1. competition with opposing teams on games, etc. but also
2. competition with individual team mates within teams.

GOOD COMP', BAD COMP'

To keep it VERY simple, and whatever the context, I would define those two notions as such:

• Bad competition is about domination by crushing.
• Good competition is about exploiting your potential to the max.

The person you have to surpass is yourself. Not because you are your own enemy but because YOU ARE YOUR OWN NORM and in order to evolve, you should pass that bar and set it higher. For your personal rising.