Cue Dramatic Music

Well, I did my skate test on Sunday. It was a gruelling day for all involved; an hour and a half of "bootcamp" (as we hadn't skated with our rollergirl teachers in three months), then straight into two and a half hours of testing which ended (NOT my bright idea) with the twenty five laps in five minutes part.

I did not pass. I did get close mind you, I got sixty-nine percent where seventy-one is required. When Bryan, the manager of the Chicks Ahoy (my favourite team) walked over to me and said lets talk about your results, I knew I had failed. He's a nice guy and had been part of the testing and clearly felt bad, the results were telegraphed.

I have always appreciated my ability to read micro expressions the most when it comes to bad news. It often gives me time to internally compose myself before being told the bad news so I can look like a champ when they actually say it. I did require some composure because I was pretty ticked off when I saw a few of the marks I had lost.

It's pretty impossible not to just sound like a whinger when talking about how you shouldn't have lost points you did in a test so I certainly didn't go on about it. I did tell Bryan I disagreed with a couple of them just for the record, but I am aware it doesn't matter in the end anyway. I failed, the decisions were already made so that was the end of that.

It is frustrating to feel pretty confident that the mark would have been different in a different testing scenario where the very few testers hadn't just finished a two hour practice of their own team before skating for three more hours with us. There are other sciencey sort of reasons about decision making fatigue and the human tendency to see trends especially in small populations and that sort of stuff but none of that really makes a difference either in the end. It is as it is.

I do the think the girls/boy testing did their best and they are all really nice people. They tried hard to help us with the bootcamp and I got some really great tips from Rebel Rock-it (who is just an incredible blocker if you ever see her play) about ways to strengthen my legs to try and counteract my physiological issue of having knock-knees, which of course effects my balance and skating. So, that was really cool.

I do feel I learned a lot, if nothing else that I can skate for four hours and still do an endurance at the end and get twenty-three laps in five minutes. Not a perfect score but I was pretty impressed considering when we began the endurance the first two minutes I was thinking, shit, I'm not even going to get twenty here. This feeling of doom was added to as the few other girls I was testing with were all higher calibre skaters then I (two were transfer rollergirls from BC), and both of the girls on the track with me did around twenty-eight laps in the allotted five minutes. It was good mind training, not getting defeated in the face of better athletes.

On the up side now it's done! Hahaha... I shall take away as much as I can from it and move on. I have already been in contact with the Renegade Derby Dames (their farm team is The Misfit Militia) who skate in Alliston, which is much closer to me anyway, and will be skating with them as of next weekend. I will be able to retake my test at the end of November which sounds fine to me. I really look forward to meeting them and getting to be a part of a league for real.

I really wish I could have continued with ToRD though, I'm sad to leave the girls I went through freshmeat with and all the people I was just starting to get to know and whatnot. I was really excited to skate with them on the D-Vas. But, unfortunately, the only choice I would have with them is to redo the whole freshmeat programme and then be able to try again for the test, next summer. That's a bit insane for me for numerous reasons, the biggest one being I want to start playing derby already I know how skate well enough to be on a farm team.

I was very touched by the response my news got on facebook. I'm not big on being felt sorry for and wrote my news there for continuity. I knew I had been talking about the test for days so everyone would want to know how it went. It was nice that there was a lot more empathy then anything else and I really appreciated the love being sent my way. I even had a couple of girls I skated with in freshmeat personally message me kind words. Super sweet. Thank you all of you.

So, for the record here are the things which I was marked down on (lost one point):

3.3.2 - hop from one foot to other - I  do need to improve with this clearly, I didn't even realise it was on the test until a few days before it
3.5 - cone weaving - well, this one was just unfortunate, I did this perfectly four times practicing an hour earlier but when it came time to do it for the test... poo.
1.6.2 - propel with eight wheels on the ground - this one as well, I hadn't practice correctly. That is, I knew we had to do this, and I do it well - when I'm moving. I hadn't realised we have to start from a standstill. This is WAY harder. It's really the starting that they are testing as we skated only a short distance, what they were looking for was the ability to get up to speed from standstill while keeping all wheels on the ground. I shall absolutely be practicing this.
5.2 - positional blocking - I did a fairly crap job of this for the test, I was tired it was near the end, it's not my strongest ability anyway.
5.3.1 - hip blocking - I disagree with this mark off but will continue to practice I can only get better.
5.3.2 - shoulder blocking - I disagree with this mark off but will continue to practice I can only get better.
4.1.3 - receiving hip whip - I STRONGLY disagree with this mark. I find this VERY easy and simply stumbled on my last try as I was getting tired (we did it three times though and it is meant to be best one of out three; two were perfect)
4.3 - pacing speed - I STRONGLY disagree with this mark as well. I am very good at this. (Not only in my estimation, I have been told so numerous times by rollergirls in class.) Also I had my arm up often (as it is about staying an arms length away from girl in front of you at all times as line speeds up and slows down) to check. I will note however that all of the other girls (who were overall better skaters then me) had trouble with this as they were all commenting about it afterward and I know the girl in front of me bumped into the pace keeper a couple of times.
2.1.2 - single knee fall right - I don't understand what would possibly have been wrong with this either but I have to imagine something - practice, practice, practice.
1.4 - 23-25 laps in five min

So, there you have it. I shall now strive to improve on these things. It is interesting to note that one of the things I had been worried about, jumping, I got full marks on and a number of things I felt extremely confident on I got marked down. I don't know what that says, but there you have it. I endeavour to be better at all of it. One day the title of the blog will be a lie, one day!



               

Skate test! Skate test! Skate test!

Well kids it is time for my skate test, scheduled as it is four to eight on Sunday. Once tested I will finally be out of freshmeat limbo and able to move forward with my derby career, or revisit my freshmeat one I suppose.

I am nervous about the test but of course very, very excited. I have been skating a fair bit over the summer, generally at least once a week and it does seem to be improving my skating. I even finally went to Scooters and checked out there absolutely amazing jam skaters. Wow. Those cats can dance.

One day if I'm as cool as cool can be I'll be able to skate half as well as the seventy five year old man speeding around the rink at Scooters jam skating in this way that looks like he's dancing out of control and about to fall yet he is so clearly constantly in total control. I think it's the way he skates on the back wheels of either skate with such ease that is so disconcerting. One day baby, one day.

But today is not yet that day. I can not skate on the back wheels of my roller skates without landing on my ass, but, I have improved my crossovers and they now speed me up as I'm going around the bends. It's really neat. I'm actually using my inside foot to push out and thereby propelling myself forward faster.

I want to be even better at balancing and I really continue to work on this skill. I need to be the best balancer ever to be the best skater and player ever. At the CN Power versus Montreal Sexpos game last Sunday at the Bunker (ToRDs new digs) I watched Bambi play half her games on one fucking skate. It's insane. That girl has some great balance; also she's a great jammer.

Okay I have lots more to write about lots of things but I am supposed to be studying for my written test right now, which is what I am now going to go do. I look forward to having something new to tell you about my derby status in the very near future. More to come soon!
Derby love!
NN00

Not YET!

What's the Deal?
Seriously, am I a derby girl yet or what? No! I am not. Not a fully functioning WFTDA-tested-and-passed one anyway. I am still Freshmeat technically I suppose, though at this point I feel more like I'm in some sort of derby purgatory.

The Freshmeat programme is all but done. We no longer have training once a week as all but a handful of us have written the test whether it led to passing or failing. If the girls passed they are now ostensibly on the D-VAS, the current farm team at TORD, and can go to league practices with them. If the girls didn't pass the test then they are now done until the next Freshmeat programme where they can try again to gain their WFTDA testing expertise and hopefully pass the test next time around.

There are however a handful of us who missed a whole module (a session made up of two weeks of training sessions). We were allotted a maximum of three misses for the whole programme but we were not allowed to have a whole module missed. When I had my car crashum-smashum I missed two weeks of derby, and, unfortunately it was a whole module that I missed in doing that, not one piece of two different modules as I had thought at the time.

When this was pointed out to me I was tres unhappy, until Lady Gag-Ya said that they would be doing a bootcamp for the handful of us that had this situation. Yay! This is an excellent thing, this means that I will still have a chance to write the test. That is very good. But right now, due to TORD changing venues, there is confusion as to when this bootcamp will actually occur.

So, now I skate in purgatory, waiting for my time to prove my skating prowess, or lack thereof. It is more difficult of course now to practice my derby skating. I can practice skating of course outdoors now, when it's nice and better still go to the skate rinks. But I don't really have anyone to practice hits with or things of that nature.

Well, I didn't that is. I may now in fact have some options for getting hit. Cause, we all want to get hit dontcha know! These new possibilities come about from making new friends and finding out new derby stuff in my NSOing for 2 Fast 2 Furious, the tournament which took place last weekend for farm teams/new derby girls.

2 Fast 2 Furious
This was a super fun derby experience for me for multiple reasons. First, before even getting there I was excited because it was a derby thing where I knew practically no one and I was getting to try out a new NSO position, jam timing. I love doing new things.

Another reason for excitement was I would get to hang out with my friend April Cruel, who skates with GTA Rollergirls, who were putting on the tournament. I hadn't actually even thought of this possibility when signing up but was delighted that I got to spend the day hanging with a good high-school friend.

Here is the main arena at the start; warm-ups and organising.

All of the other reasons were the lots of fun stuff that happened to me and fun people I met AND finding out about the South Simcoe Rebel Rollers open skate night on Monday's at Orillia's Rolling Skate Place. This is AWESOME. Well, I hope it's actually awesome but I'm sure it is. I haven't yet attended said open skate practice, but I will be this Monday. I am SUPER stoked to be able to skate and have someone yell at me to get my ass down and hit better. I want to pass my test!!!

Of course, another reason I had been excited about for the tournament was that I was getting to see my girls skate. That is, girls who had gone through Freshmeat with me. I had of course held hopes of skating in 2 Fast 2 Furious, [check out that link, by the Derby Nerd, he is so great, great review!] but it was not to be. Still, it was super neat to see my girls playing for real. It made it seem so much more real. *sighs* My time will come. Also, they were so cool. They did so well, you couldn't tell it was their first game ever.

Also at 2 Fast I was gifted my first whistle. I needed help learning how to blow. Le sigh. It is so sad that that is actually true.

There was a bit of disorganization when I first arrived on the scene at 2 Fast 2 Furious at Ted Reeves Arena. Not total chaos or anything, just some minor chickens-running-with-heads-cut-off. It was no surprise, GTAR isn't a huge organisation, and it's not-for-profit, volunteer run of course. There were eighteen farm teams there to play and two buildings were going with games occurring simultaneously with at least eight NSOs needed for each game at any given time and of course the refs. I'm trying to think what is the least amount of refs a game can have and I think it may be five, though I'm not sure. I should look that shit up I should probably know that. [Somebody should tell me... hint... hint..]

So in any case, I wasn't wearing white like I should have been, but nobody had told me that I should do that. Not surprising since I had had to write to the volunteer wrangler and ask where and when I was supposed to be at the tournament. But, tra-la-la, everyone is doing their best I have no doubt. It's all volunteer time so we all can understand the difficulties.

Here is a game taking place in the bubble which has been stopped, with all of us going down, for a girl who is hurt on the track. It was one of the players for Violet Uprising from Guelph, she hurt her ankle badly unfortunately. 

When I went to do my duties they asked me if I had brought a whistle and a timer. Gah! I hadn't. I didn't know I should have. No, I am assured, I was not meant to, they had just been hoping because one of their whistles had run-oft so I was without whistle.

This was not good. I'm not great at whistling. I sort of looked around helpless and befuddled while they did some more chicken-with-heads-cut-off running around. What to do, what to do. Then, suddenly, up skates a lot of leg; Bratty Cardia. She was one of the referees working the first game and had been warming up ( I am familiar with her from TORD but don't know her very well yet). She says, "You need a whistle? I'll get you a whistle." And off she skates, presumably to obtain said whistle.

It was interesting that while she was gone on her mission of whistledom a number of other NSOs around me began talking about their whistles and how they had acquired their first whistles. In fact they all had little stories about someone giving them their first whistle. And now, I have mine.

So, here begins (continues really) derby lore. Like a Buddah statue, one is best given their first NSO derby whistle, I imagine so that they might glean all of the knowledge of the one who gifted it. Sounds good to me, Bratty is like a rules dictionary. Also, I love my whistle, it has plastic around the mouthy part which in practical use at said tournie was waaay better then the ones without. Yay me. Thank you Bratty.

Here are the winning teams (r-l), Coal Miners Daughters first, D-VAS second,  Queen City Brawlers third.

Test Time

Hello! I know I have continued my dismal writing trend this month but I really have had a lot going on a much of which has been derby or derby related business. 

As you know the test was fast approaching and in fact occurred on Sunday. Well, it occurred for many of the Freshmeat girls, but not me. So sad! But, it is not the end of the world so I take heart. The reason this happened was that I had (when I had my car accident) missed a whole module. The rules set out at the beginning say that this makes you ineligible for the test writing. 

Luckily the ladies in the Freshmeat Committee are actually going to do a boot camp for those of us who fall into this category, and then let us write the test at that time. They said that they will let us know but they are hoping for in a month or so to make that happen. So, that's that.

Because there is a whole month before my test now there are some good and bad things. It means that I can practice more jumping and hopefully become more comfortable with that. (Although I don't really know where I will practice that as I don't relish falling onto pavement from a jump.) It means, in fact, that I can become better at all of my skating skills, as long as I am vigilant about skating practice as there will be no regular training scheduled at the hangar for me.

It also means that I will be further away from the training and practice of the derby skills (hitting, blocking etc.) which require another person to practice with. I am hoping that I will not forget those skills and obviously I will try and do my best to practice the skating skills which help in those derby skills. That's a lot of skill. 

I have become very comfortable with my previous issue, the one foot weaving. This is no longer an issue for me especially since finding out that we do not have to weave on each foot, we just choose our strongest. No problem.

I also found out that the test that is points based, that is, for each skill you get a mark of 0, 1 or 2. To pass the test of 79 skills (each is very specific, ie. giving an outside whip, taking an outside whip etc,) you are allowed two get eight 1s. You are not allowed to get any 0s. Also, for the endurance portion, which is 25 laps in 5 minutes there is a special marking, 0 to 3. This means that you do not have to get 25 laps in the 5 minutes to actually pass the test. You only need to get 20 laps in the least, which will give you 1 point, 23 laps gives you 2 points and 25 gives you 3 points. My current best is 23 laps.

So, before finding out that I was not able to take the test I was very excited and feeling pretty good about taking the test. I am going to do my best to take the extra time to learn the rules perfectly as I would hate for that to be the reason I fail, and continue to do my squats and keep on rollin'. If I pass the test when I take it in a month it will still be time for me to be up for the draft (though I highly doubt I will be placed on a team (which is okay as you immediately go in the farm team the Divas and can still play), there are like 30 new girls in the league and last year they drafted seven girls).

I have volunteered to work as an NSO (non skating official) for 2 Fast 2 Furious, the rookie tournament being held by GTAR Rollergirls in Toronto in July and will continue to be a part of derby in this way. I'm very used to NSOing though I think I will be doing a new position as jam timer which sounds pretty funnerific to me! 

That's updates for now. I will try and write more soon!

May Already!??!

How it is possible that time passes this quickly I can't even imagine.

Last week was an absolutely FABULOUS training session with the Dolls. We just love them. We had three groups set up and each did different drills with the Dolls at that station. 

My first drill section was weaving with one foot! I was so excited to try this on my indoors for the first time with my new truck set-up, but things did not go my way. I was disappointed in how wobbly and off kilter I felt on my skates. I had done better outside on the shit pavement with my outdoor wheels, well, after a while I had. I only started to feel normal on my skates nearing the end of the training session too. Meh. 

The Dolls did have lots of input as to how to improve as they watched and shouted things at us to try and help mould us into the best skaters we can be. One of the biggest things to remember is of course bending the knees, so we heard this a lot. I start out good and bendy but as I'm concentrating on other aspects of what I'm doing I slowly raise up. 

Keeping my ass down is also something I have to work on a great deal, though sometimes I feel it is down when they tell me to put it lower. Like at least twice after being told to think, shit in the woods, I was thinking, this IS what I look like shitting in the woods already. My back hurts me a lot when I am in this position for an extended period and I'm trying to find ways, by being stronger and with better posture, to combat this.

Today I practiced in the parking lot besides my kids circus school. (Yeah, circus school, cool eh? I wish I was my kid.) This turned out to be really awesome because it's a decently clean pavement area and also the business there had these uber reflective windows so it was like having mirrors there. This was super helpful because I was checking out my posture a lot thinking about all the things I am being told and actually being able to see how it looks. I look forward to practicing there again.

I did, while practicing today, really get a better handle on weaving with one foot. I'm wondering after today's evidence whether I do better skating on my outdoor wheels? I'm thinking of leaving them on for this weeks practice and see how that works out for me. They are narrower then my indoor wheels so that is making some amount of difference in how they skate for me. But, they are softer so they will not skate as fast as my indoor wheels; but do I even skate fast enough for that to be a noticeable difference? I dunno. We'll see how it goes.

Okay, that's it for now brothers and sisters. I should be sleeping. I shall write more later and answer some questions for Ana about outfitting for derby.

Skate Upgrades!

I have been lagging with my writing and have in fact had three sessions since last I wrote. Not only have I learned a whole lot more about roller derby but I have also greatly increased my knowledge of my skates. 

Even though there is more skating session info and other stuff to talk about I first have to tell you about my skates. I got new bushings!! Do you know what a bushing is? I just learned. I do recall hearing them spoken about as well as my trucks, and knowing it had something to do with the bottom of my skates but that's about it. But now I know for real. You can too! Check out the diagram here (you have to scroll down a little) if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, it is really good and makes it simple to see all the bits on the bottom. 

The whole assembly with the bushings (numbers 4 and 6 in the diagram) is called the truck so loosening the nut at the end is having looser trucks. I also learned that there are different hardnesses of bushings, so not only had my trucks been tightened tightly I had the hardest bushings possible (I switched to medium softness). So with the hard bushings there had been very little give of the boot on top of the wheels, leaning to either side didn't really make the skate turn just start to tip over. This is also why (I can tell now) I had an easier time with plow stops then some others. With looser trucks and softer bushings plows are now more work for me. 

The reason getting new bushings on my skates, and loosening my trucks a bit, was such a big deal for me was how it has allowed me to weave on one skate. This is a skill I will need to pass my WFTDA test (I have mentioned it before) and had hoped that hardware changes would help. Guess what? They did! 

When I went to Cardinal skate shop (if you recall, earlier I didn't purchase items there and felt bad) the girls who were working there (who turned out to be Bambi and Dust Bunny of the Gores) were super helpful. Dust Bunny actually showed me how to take my skates apart and put new bearings in the wheels, put in new bushings, loosen my trucks and change my wheels (to the red outdoor wheels I purchased). I feel like a pro! Also I couldn't help myself I bought a pair of those cute bootie shorts with the skeleton hands on the ass. 

I had already been skating outdoors on my indoor wheels. I went to the skate park near us where I take the kids to ride their bikes (it has ramps and stuff that they like to use). The ground is asphalt and somewhat littered with broken bottle bits and crap. I did end up getting used to it with my indoor wheels on, but it took a while. It came down to little steps, better footwork. I figured that was a good way to get better at that, nothing motivates like the the fear of falling on broken glass.

At any rate, I was hoping it would be a bit better with outdoor wheels on and of course I wanted to know what the softer bushings and looser trucks felt like. I reminded myself that I would have to tighten my trucks no matter what initially as the new bushings squished in a bit. I had a new skate tool now too to do this with. See, pro! 

So when we got home we stopped for bikes and off we went to the skate park. It was SO exciting in how different it felt. When I first got on my skates I felt like I was on jello, they are bouncy and squishy now. Of course being on the bumpy asphalt made me have to get used to the new squishiness fairly quickly, again the fear of broken glass was a good motivator.

I was very excited to try and skate on one foot and do some weaving but I had to skate around in circles getting used to the new feel for a while before I could do that. Eventually it was feeling more normal and I tried the weaving on one foot and I could do it! Not to say I was a super pro and perfect at it, but I can do it. I still need lots more practice to be super good at it but the difference in how I can move my skates by the pressure in my foot is crazy! As you can tell this excites me a great deal.

I have many more things to talk about (cool derby websites, the upcoming test, a derby moniker for me etc.) but I think I will leave you with this for now. I am going to re-watch Doctor Who episodes to try and spot The Silent. 

I'm BAAAAAACK!

Well, I was pulled out of the country there for a bit due to familial issues and property dealings. I had a visit with the old country, which for me is Latvia. I wonder if they have roller derby? I suspect not but I had no time to find out as I was busy, busy, busy!

But the day after I got back it was time for derby practice once again and I was ready to go! It had been two weeks since I was on skates and though I have been trying to do extra squats and whatnot none of it compares to actual on-skate time.

We were hosted for training by the Death Track Dolls and they were absolutely delightful. We were working on hits and whips, both a lot of fun. I found it interesting that the way they split us was by asking those who felt they were a bit more advanced to go to one side of the hangar and those who didn't to go to the other side. It wasn't an even split but it worked okay.

 It was interesting to note how many of the actually advanced skaters went into the less advanced group, and then there was me, smack dab in advanced knowing it might be the case that I oughtn't to be there. But, how else are ya' gonna get better! I have high a bar, I hope one day to actually be able to reach it!

So first my group did whips, we tried the inside whip and the outside whip. I found these a lot of fun and really not too hard do. They are very intuitive. Inside whip grab girl, who is coming up on the inside, with your outside arm, whip forward. Outside whip, grab girl, coming on your outside, with your outside arm and fling her (that one is super fun!). I initially wasn't grabbing my partners arm too well for the outside whip but with a little insight from the Dolls and my partner it was all good. Whips are fun! You get to go even faster then normal.

The hits were fun too but actually a bit harder then I had expected. That is, hitting in the best way possible required more of a fine tuned hip raising motion then I had really thought about. I hadn't considered the fact that you're really trying to get under the girl you're hip checking.

The Dolls told us to watch the youtube clip of Beyonslay doing some great hip checking. So of course I went and watched the video (good stuff stuff is at :44). Here she is doing it again to a different jammer. She is AWESOME at getting under her opponent and depositing them on the sidelines, certainly someone I will try and emulate in my hip checking.

The last thing we did was play a game they called Last Chick Standing. I'm sure you can guess the idea. We had to practices our hits and try to stay standing while others did the same. If we went out of bounds or got put down we were out of the game. I actually did pretty well at this, took some girls down and lasted till close to the end.

 I know that all of the girls were not hitting with all their might though, nor was I. You can't help but monitor what you're doing with the girls who you know are less capable skaters, it just feels nasty. I mean, you hit them, but I don't think most of us were using all of our strength on each other, I know I wasn't. I still don't know what it will be like when I use all of my might, I will have to be surer on my skates to release most power I can.

Of course, I did feel a bit wobblier then I would have liked on my skates this session. I know that I have not had enough time on them lately. I have been doing some exercises, like this great one from the great Hard Knox Roller Derby Fitness site to try and improve my ability. As well, I actually have been watching youTube videos roller skate instruction and derby. This has also been very enlightening, but no comparison to time on skates. I am waiting with bated breath for summer to come so I can skate outside and get better faster.

Speaking of the videos, I really like this one and this one, which show how to turn from skating backwards to forwards specifically, but also really helps with the turning stop and whatnot (which I STILL can't do properly, though I am getting closer). Also this one here for the sideways skating skill that is SO important for a lot of things that I can't do!

I have been practicing the ballet first position, feet pointed out sideways from body, an awful lot lately, cause doing that in skates is not as easy as bare feet where your feet stick to the floor a bit and hold you. In skates you roll, shocking as that may be. My knees are not used to stretching in that direction either so practice, practice, practice.

Clearly being able to have yourself with your feet, knees and hips in first position is very important to derby and good roller skating. I have to be able to more comfortably flip my skates around into different positions and, of course, I still can't do the steering around pylons on only one skate. Need to get that one still too. Lots more to know that's for darned sure.

So, more skate time required, I need to start improving more. Plateaus can be annoying, but I shall keep on keeping on.

It's game time on Saturday, I shall be trying out a new NSO posting as Outside Whiteboard. I am frightened, I do not know the ref hand signals well enough. Learning is FUN!