Game Day

Well this training session was a ref run event. This means that we spent a fair amount of time going over rules and having questions answered.

The first thing the refs went over were some hand signals. I have actually been reading the book, and have looked at the hand signals more then once (though I certainly haven't studied them) but I couldn't remember what any of them were standing there looking at her motions. Meh.

In any case it reminded me that I really need to keep up with studying the book as well as trying to become a better skater. I certainly wouldn't want the written rules test to be the thing that kept me out, that would be embarrassing!

After the sit down lesson we did the funnest part yet. We got to play! Real scrimmage, like we all knew what we were doing. Hahahaha...well, actually not so much like we knew what we were doing, but it was still LOADS of fun.

When the ref announced we were going to play everyone was really excited, but when she told ten people to take places not everyone jumped in at once. I, on the other hand, immediately went to be the jammer, I was so excited to try for real. I was up against a guy (who had also immediately gone into the jammer position) who was training for refdom; he was a better skater then me but that just made me want to try even harder.

I almost made lead jammer but was checked to the ground and lost my place. Du-oh! But I kept on keeping on and did my best to catch up with him and make it through the pack. I had two skaters from the other team doing a great job blocking me but eventually I made it through. It was so much fun! I even got two assists from my teammates, one push and one mini-whip. Super COOL!

I was so happy that playing was as much fun as it looks. It's awesome. I also got to try blocking in our second time around, which our team, team Rainbow (we were all delighted by this in a very silly way) got to do because there had been fewer people not wearing black shirts. So we got to skate more whilst the black shirted people sadly waited in line for their turn.

Blocking is hard. I know it is SUPER important because I have seen (as I've spoken about here) the difference in a team with good blockers, with a strategy, working together and one without. A team without good blockers could waste a super jammer, leaving her stuck behind the pack without a way out. They are exceedingly important.

I found it difficult as a blocker to keep looking back and keep track of where everyone was and where I needed to be in relation to them. Even though I know we were move in slow motion compared to a real derby game, it really felt like stuff was happening SO fast.

Going from slow pack to trying to move quickly to get in the jammers way to stop her, while also fighting your way in the pack for a good placement to clear your jammer's path. It's a lot of stuff to think about while skating and looking backwards and fending off other blocker's hits and shoves and whatnot.

It was all great though. I liked being a blocker and a jammer. Being a jammer is a bit easier in a way, certainly not in skating skill but in how much thinking is required as there are a lot fewer decisions to make really. There could be decisions of course about calling the jam and whatnot but that would be about it. You know you have to skate fast and then get through the pack, and then skate fast and then get through the pack and then skate fast and etc.

A number of the women are too frightened to be jammers. This works out well truthfully because with the amount of us not all of them would have gotten to try it yet. There were some girls trying the jamming who were not the strongest skaters though and I loved seeing their bravery. I love being able to be proud of other women, there is so often I am ashamed.

If even most of these women finish the fresh meat programme TORD will have to add another team, I've heard rumours that it would be another farm team (newbie team) which certainly makes sense with so many new players. I hope that this means that eventually the TORD teams will change from having so many shared players, making the teams more even and team fan following more compelling.

It does seem now there are a couple of all-star teams on the league and then those same all-star players playing on other teams to make them better. Though, one imagines that the reason for this shared-ness is due to the lack of players and with more players that problem would slowly solve it self. I hope I can become one of the good players the teams actually want!

Here is a picture of me in my gear!

Next Up: The Game Continues

Drilled Into Submission

Time for derby drills! Everybody loves drills, it means you get to show everyone over and over again how well you do or do not know a skill. And, well, it is also a lot of really good practice especially with two roller girls watching you and giving you pointers the whole while.

For this training session we were split into four groups, which is good because though we have lost at least twenty fresh meaters there are still about sixty of us which can be a bit unwieldy at times. There were four stations on the circuit and we spent about fifteen or twenty minutes at each (which seemed like an hour when it was a hard one let me tell you). The stations were stops (plough and t), rockstar fall (and 180 stop), baseball fall and duck walk.

The group I was in began with baseball fall. This is a fun fall to do, in a way, once you get it. The thing that some girls had trouble with at first was not falling on both knees at once (ouchy!) but dropping first to one knee and tucking that leg, bent, under your body, and then dropping to hip/bootie while you slide in.

Also there was the whole coming to understand how to fall on your hip or ass in the right way so that you weren't totally hurting yourself. It's fun to learn. I had also learned in the warmups that my left leg has definitely been injured in a real way, in that first or second training session.

This is the muscle in my left leg that I have been able to instantly feel when I try to raise from a fall since that initial hurting time. I think it is my adductor longus or possibly magnus, which I have strained badly (I hope that is all at least) and hasn't yet been able to heal all the way. Anyway, this just means that the falling isn't the part that hurts me the most (though I did fall once REALLY hard on my hip), it's the getting up.

The next stop for me was duck walk. Duck walk is so ridiculous and hilarious yet very effective. It is tough getting your skates to be in the first position of ballet, pointing out sideways and sort of stomping about but it's fun to try. It sure does allow you to start quickly when you get it working right. It is a skill I look forward to trying to put into action in a game.

Rockstar fall looks cool. There's no denying it, the sliding in on two knees leaning back, very cool. This was no problem for me to do but my leg sure was starting to be angry with me. With this fall part of the requirement is a no hands on the ground get up. Hello burning thighs! We've met here before haven't we?

G-Force then showed us the 180 stop, which starts with a one knee slide except right after you begin your slide you take the leg still up on it's skate and swing it around the outside of your body, which swings you around and then you quickly lift up your other leg for getting up. If you do this right it just whips you right around so you're facing the opposite direction and you can get up and skate away all cool like. I really liked this, it was fun whipping around. Even with my stupid leg hurting I did some giggling.

Ploughs and t-stops were, well, stoppy. Not exciting but great practice and some good insight from the roller girls how to do them better and faster. You get the drill.

We also did measuring for endurance again. I forgot to mention that we did this last session, I don't know how cause I thought it was so cool. For the WFTDA test to be a part of roller derby you have to be able to skate around the track twenty five times in five minutes, this is called endurance. So, we got to try this last week and I got twenty laps in five minutes.

I was proud of my last weeks number, and I wanted to try and get at least one lap better. It may have been a lofty goal considering the insane drill session we had just been through but, it's good to have goals. At any rate, I was lucky to get twenty. I think I pushed to hard at the beginning and there was so little left to give, I was happy with my twenty by the end of it cause I wasn't even sure I would get that!

My very sweet husband had a hot bath ready for me when I got home, because he loves me and enjoys it when I take off my clothes. I have been trying to take good care of my leg with nice stretches, hot baths with epsom salts, massage, rest balanced with minor muscle building exercises. Until next weekend of course, then it's back into battle.

Coming Soon: Game Day!

Back on My Skates

Well was I ever happy to be back on my skates. I was however also a bit worried about how awful I would be having not been on my skates for two weeks. Although I was a bit wobblier then I had been two weeks ago I  hadn't slipped too far back.

I certainly noticed the difference that the two weeks had made in the skaters around me. Many of those who had just started on skates didn't look that way anymore and the skaters who had been rusty weren't looking so rusty anymore. Gah! I had catching up to do.

In my absence the girls had moved forward but I was determined to claw my way to their skill level. I spent a lot of this session practicing skills we had already gone over and trying to catch up on things I had missed. I asked a lot of questions about what I had missed and a had the instructors show me the moves I didn't get, which they were so willing to do.

It was a very informative session but not that exciting news wise. The one neat thing we did do was jumps. I found out that one of the sessions I had missed they had done a class of jumps, so I thought they must all be pros at it. Luckily this wasn't the case and it turns out I was okay at them. I didn't even fall on my ass! That's always a good omen.

The other thing which we did that left an impression (because of how much I couldn't do it) was weaving between pylons on one skate. So that means after you have some speed just lifting one skate up (I can do that part) and then making yourself turn and weave using your body weight and skate edges to turn the skate where you want it to go.

When they did the demonstration of this skill we were all a bit frightened. Gliding on one skate is one thing but turning? I did my best here, but I have to say, I sure didn't get it. And, even the times I got a tiny bit close to doing it  I was always on my left skate, and we have to be able to do this on each foot, respectively, to pass our WFTDA test. Crumbs.  This will require some practice.

A number of us skating were a bit downhearted about this skill and our lack of ability in it, but one of the roller girls pointed out that this is a difficult skill and in fact kept her from passing her test on her first try. So, try and try again. And, try and try again.

Hopefully, eventually I will get it!

Coming Soon: Drilled Into Submission

Birthday Double Header Fun

Well it was my sweet man's birthday on Saturday and besides having a scrumptious dinner (I had the surf & turf, it was yummy!) we checked this out.

TORD's double header featured a bout between newbie teams Toronto's Dvas and Sudbury's Nickel City, and then headliner teams CN Power and opposition Michigan's Killamazoo Derby Darlin's. These sure were two different games to watch.

Interjection

It was really interesting for me to see the newbie teams play as I hadn't seen this before and it was nice to see that there is a place for starters to ease in if they are not sure enough or skilled enough to be in the big leagues. This will be one of the options open to me when I complete TORD's freshmeant programme.

If I pass the WFTDA sanctioned skillz test (written and practical) I can put myself up for draft or simply choose to enter the Dvas, TORD's newbie team. If I were to put myself up for draft and not get drafted then I also fall into the Dvas to bone up on my skillz and if I want to try again, putting myself up for next draft pick or whenever I feel ready.

I have heard from some cool rollergirls that they did not start out super skaters and immediately pick everything up. A lot of them speak of getting stuck not being able to do certain moves and I've also heard stories of failing their first test and having to skate with the newbie team for two years. This is nice to hear. They make it look so easy it's nice to be reminded that they got that way by working hard; I can do that!

Now Back to the Game

The biggest difference with the newbie teams was in skating speed, so it was sort of like watching a regular game in slow motion. This turned out to be really great because CBB (my husband) had never been to a match before and really didn't know what was going on. He was mostly confused watching the first match, though he did seem to enjoy it. (I knew he would love all the ass, who doesn't?) He asked lots of questions about what was going on in the action and I obliged with the answers I could.

It was actually pretty funny when I was explaining stuff because different people in our vicinity would hear me and then lean in and sometimes even ask some questions. I felt like the information fairy. The game ended with the Dvas kicking butt to the tune of 71-38. Yeah Dvas!

The second game was faster but less gripping because Toronto absolutely trounced Michigan, at the halfway point they led 112-11. Ouch! By the end of the match CN Power had the score at 197-35. The biggest difference between these two teams was the blocking. It seemed like the team from Michigan just had four girls sort of haphazardly trying to stop the other team each with their own idea of how that should be done.

In the first half the Michigan team's coach was asking the team who wanted to be jammer or pivot, like, they didn't even have a real plan of who played what. Didn't they think about each skaters strengths? He was offering them to any takers. It was weird. That's how the blocking struck me as well, like they forgot that it's a thinking game too, they needed some plays. This was VERY different from the CN Power team who had coaches with clip boards with different plays written out with who was in what position, not only jammer and pivot but front blocker, back blocker etc.

Clearly everyone on the Toronto team knew there were different jobs for every part and they worked as a team. This was a great difference in coaching I think and it was certainly evident in their games. The CN Power jammers are superb and their blockers were just awesome at opening up all of the roads for the jammers to just slice through the pack like it wasn't there. They worked like a machine and the score shows just how well.

I loved the crowd at derby games SO much. Have I mentioned that before? I know I have, but it really pleases me. All the mixing. Young and old, gay and straight, boys and girls, punks and conservatives all happy together to appreciate watching girls skate around a track. It's what sports are supposed to do, but so often don't. I'm lovin' the derby kids.

Next up: Back on My Skates

Session Four: The Let Down

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!

Crashum Smashum

Well another derby practice has come and gone, and I missed it.
C'est what? How could you miss practice *littlestar? After all of your vigour and big talk?

Well, I do have a pretty good excuse, I cartwheeled my car three times and landed it in the middle of a field. You know, just for fun. Because, I had never done that and of course I have wondered what it would be like. And, now I know. It's mostly not a lot of fun because you don't know if your careening to your demise. I would not recommend it to my friends.

It is fairly disconcerting, flying in a car. As you're flying it occurs to you, you know, this is not right, usually I'm much more upright then this and my wallet doesn't hit me in the head as it is flung about the cabin. Luckily for me when all of its energy had been spent the Matrix I had been driving, catlike in its descent, landed on all four tyres.

It took me a while to find my phone after we landed. I unbuckled my belt and opened the car door and looked around. It was very confusing to be in the middle of a field. The road was strangely far away from me, and there was a fence between us. How peculiar. It took me a bit of time in the bright sunshine to discern from the marks in the snow what had occurred. The area of the fence I vaulted over had been slightly pushed down but was really only evident because of the marks on either side of it. Car vault.

I have always thought that being a stuntman would be a neat job. I still do.

I wrote to one of the lovely ladies who run the Freshmeat programme for TORD and let her know I would be missing the practice on doctors orders (SEE! I do listen sometimes!) and asked her to let me know what they went over. She was very sweet and let me know that they practiced snow plows (I already know how to do these) cross overs (good at right, not so good at left), T-stops (can't do that well) and one foot chase, which is when you pump with one foot while gliding on the other.

I don't know if I've really tried one foot chase since restarting my roller skating career. I think I may do it when I'm skating without knowing it has a name. I will have to try it out next session to make sure.

I will be returning to the track this Saturday for practice but I may be pushing a bit less hard then usual due to my still somewhat dodgy body situation. I am trying things out tentatively but have noticed that my muscles fatigue very quickly right now. It still hasn't even been a week since the accident so this seems like fairly normal muscle behaviour to me.

I may in fact find that I suddenly feel horrible a week from now, I'm told that happens now and again with accidents. I'm hoping that it won't be the case for me. It will take a little while for my body to bounce back though, from being shuffled about as it was in the cartwheel. I hope to continue good recovery and will take to the track with vigour.

Session Two: The Hurting

After seeing the game on Saturday I was even more excited to go to the next training session  in hopes of one day looking as cool on a pair of skates as the roller girls had. It is very important to have goals!

In the first training session I had acquired a blister on one of my feet, where the tongue of my boot rubbed on the front of my ankle. I hadn’t actually noticed while skating but as soon as I undid my skates it started to hurt; funny how that is. One of the roller girls had sent out some helpful tips specifically about foot lesions and blisters and how to do deal with them when skating again the next week. Very helpful.

It was suggested to first put a blister pad around the blister (or in my case open wound!) then bandaid and then tape around the ankle so the tongue of the skate slides over it more easily. I knew I would be skating no matter what but I hoped that it still didn’t hurt so much which all the layers never mind about rubbing more skin off.

I bandaided up and brought the tape with me and taped over my sock. The rigging seemed to work very well for me and I felt no pain from the blister the whole night. When I took the tape off at home there was as new blister formed but it didn’t hurt at all so I consider it a win.

There were a lot less ladies at this second session which was in keeping with what I had been told about the rate of dropouts. There were eighty to start and I would say that there were about twenty less for session two.

I also noticed that there were a few women who were in attendance but not on skates. I have to imagine they had been hurt but didn’t want to miss; but, to note, they could all walk around just fine (not even limping) so I don’t get why they couldn’t get on skates. If you can’t take a bit of pain then I think you’re in the wrong sport.

As I skated around the track for warm up my legs felt a bit funny. There was a muscle at the top of my right thigh that felt… strange. The first drill was knee drops, not my favourite but needs improvement so I threw myself into it. Then, BOING! It was like that muscle, the funny one, stopped laughing and started screaming. Either that or some invisible person was stabbing me in the leg. (Why would they do that?)

I knew the drill wasn’t going to go on forever so I switched to dropping on my left leg. Not to be left out the same muscle in my left leg also decided to get angry, though not quite as angry as the right leg. So, I stuck with my left leg for drops, which I am not as good at so it forced me to become better. Painfully. That was NOT a good drill. But, what doesn’t kill ya’…

The next drills were about learning the plough stop. I was excited to learn a new stop until halfway through the drill I realized that this is really how I already stop I just didn’t know that’s what it was called. I had been wondering why I couldn’t  do it faster, but learned that in fact it is not a quick stop, so I felt like less of a failure.

In learning this stop we did a drill of push out and pull ins to learn the technique necessary. That is, we widened our legs out and forward to meet and then pulled them back in and together, making a sort of circle in totality.

There really are many things in this world that look so easy when other people do them aren’t they? This is one of them. I did really like this exercise though, you could feel your inner thigh muscles growing stronger with each movement. This will be one I will absolutely add to my exercise regime. (The one I haven’t started yet but have REALLY been thinking about.)

I have been really impressed thus far with the roller girls who are there doing the training and TORD's Freshmeat programme in general. I have no basis for comparison of course, but I feel like I'm getting a really good deal. Each session there have been at least five roller girls there doing demos and skating around helping. This is a really big deal considering the number of women as well as the varied skating levels.

Some of the ladies are really just starting on skates and obviously can use more one on one, hands-on time, and they get it. This is pretty cool considering you're not really paying to be taught to skate, it's just part of the deal for joining derby. I mean, I guess it makes sense (and having to pay more money would have impeded me from joining, the skates on their own cost SO much), and they do need skaters and most people don't already have that skill, but still - I recognise that we pay for our kids to attend progammes like this to learn new skills. It's pretty neat that if you are really interested in this sport and want to take part in it they take you in and teach you how so you can participate. It's so communal, what's not to love.

We also did glides on a single leg which is easy peasy for me to do on my left leg and for some reason was hard on my right. I guess I couldn’t balance as well as usual because I was having intense pain in my thigh, but it still seemed odd to me. It’s different muscles so it made me wonder if I may be having bearing issues of some kind. I will have to learn more about this as  I have been informed that it’s a big deal, there will have to be a an exciting post about bearings at some point. Oh what intrigue there is in store for you.

Coming Soon: Session Three – will the coughing have ended…? Stay tuned to find out.