Yesterday,  I hurt myself.  While we were learning pivots(1), I pulled a quad when I landed.  It’s not serious,  just enough to mean that I have to take it easy for the next couple of days,  which SUCKS,  because we’re learning plays at first base and two-person system and a lot of mechanics,  and I don’t get to practice at full speed.

It’s disappointing.

I have to rest it,  because if I don’t I could be seriously injured,  but now I’m the Girl On The Sidelines,  and that blows.  The good news–if you could call it that–is that several other people are also injured and it’s apparently par for the course, but the advertising for umpire school really undersells the amount of physical activity that goes on in training.  Of course, in real games, I don’t do thirty pivots in a row and there’s a little more breathing room between plays.  If I had to do it over again, though, I would definitely be doing agility drills to get ready.

The real good news is that I am getting this a bit.  Today we did our first day of two-person drills (I participated on the sidelines because I can’t go full speed), and it’s starting to make sense to me.  The classroom stuff especially, of course, but even the on field stuff.  I’m at slight disadvantage because I never played team sports, but I’m certainly as good as a majority of the class, which is reassuring.

There was a lot of talk today about keeping our heads up and not getting down on ourselves and keeping up practicing, et cetera, that surprised me.  I guess I didn’t expect that there would be so much of it.  I wasn’t discouraged or upset at all today(2), maybe because I’m not competing for a job here, or maybe because I’ve taught before and I understand that learning happens in waves, like the tide, and the key is to keep pulling, like gravity.

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(1) In the two-person umpiring system, on a routine fly ball to right field with no runners on, the base umpire comes into the infield and pivots with her chest to the ball to watch the tag at first and lead the runner if he goes into second.  You’re welcome.  🙂

(2) Aside from the limitations resulting from my injury, of course. Now I understand a bit why real athletes hate being on the DL so much.