Well guess who missed another training session? Yeah, you know it, it was me bitches. This means that I have only one pass left. Go on, judge me!
Of course I had a good reason! I must say that in fact I had a really good reason. I didn't want to die. It's sort of a base emotion, the survival one, and after having had an accident one week before it was pretty strong. The weather decided to mess with my shit and have some sort of insanamaniac snow/ice storm. The roads were a skating rink covered by blowing snow and of course on and off white outs.
I did set out, I was very determined to not miss another session. I drove for some time. I witnessed numerous accidents all around me. Numerous. I did not get very far kilometre wise when I witnessed yet another accident, two cars spinning out on either side of the road because they were idiots and driving too fast (there were people PASSING!! wtf?).
I thought, you know what, I don't wanna die. I can still taste the fear of imagining missing my children's lives should things have taken a different turn a week ago. I turned around and went home.
It did not make me feel good to do this. I was NOT happy. I felt wimpy, weak. I do not like giving in to things. I am my own master. Except when I'm not. Clearly I am the weather's bitch. I am coming to terms with this reality. (It also shows me how I'm getting old..er.)
The next training session is on Sunday, you can bet your asses I will be there, come hell or high water (though I REALLY hope those things just leave me alone.)
Roller Derby Basics
To keep things derbyish I thought I would take a moment to go over the basics of roller derby for those reading this with no derby background. The game is played on an oval shaped flat track (thusly the sport is now called Women's Flat Track Racing) with two teams who have a maximum of five players on the track at a time.
The five players consist of four blockers, (one of whom is a pivot blocker) and the jammer. Each jam lasts two minutes on the clock unless called to end by the lead jammer (explained below). There are two half hour periods with an intermission between them. There is a bar.
As I spoke of earlier the jammer is the quarter back of derby, she is the player who races around the track as many times as possible (deeking out the other teams blockers with the help of her own blockers) collecting points on the second and all following passes by passing the opposing team's players. A point is gained for each player passed.
Then there are a whole lot more complicated things. When the 'jam' (two minute bout) starts the first jammer to get past the group of blockers (the pack ) is called the lead jammer. Whoever becomes the lead jammer has the ability to call an end to the jam.
Why would this be important you may ask (or you may not, but shut up who asked you anyway). Well, this gives the lead the jammer the ability to keep the other jammer from grabbing points. So, when she has gone past the pack for the second or third time, the other jammer could very well not have passed any opposing players and when the lead jammer calls the game to an end (by putting both hands to hips and raising and back to hips) her team has banked good points and the other team has not.
Being the lead jammer has clear advantages. It is possible that neither jammer gets called as lead if no one has presented as clear leader in the first circuit around the track. In this case the jam comes to an end at the allotted two minute mark.
There is far more. I shall continue with this in my next post!
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