Aggressive jamming with Bambi and Shortstop

On Tuesday at training we had our first in a series of guest trainers from Canberra Roller Derby League who were going to come and teach us some new tricks. I almost didn’t go because of Ph.D. dramas, but I ended up going and I am so fucking glad I did.

Firstly, Bambi was a great coach; I think she’d give Pain from SCRD a run for her money. She was really good at explaining stuff and what the strategy was for doing things and how to apply it and also just some general stuff about learning in derby, which was useful since obviously she’d been where we were. Shorty didn’t really say much but gave people a lot of one-on-one pointers and did a lot of demo type stuff. She’s pretty damn funny though.

Warmup was dynamic stretching and then some endurance type stuff; we did 15 laps of the track anti-derby, then 30 squat jumps (on skates!) and then 30 “dead bugs” which seemed to be really similar to bicycles but you have the same arm and leg going instead of the opposite ones (see video). Then it was 10 laps derby direction, 20 squat jumps and dead bugs, then 5 laps and 10 squat jumps and dead bugs. Wheeeeeeee.

Our first drill we did was explosive something something. :P I can't remember the name. Basically, you paired up with someone and they put their toe stops down (or plow stop, or whatever) and you had to push them. Running on your toe stops for this was really useful, rather than just on your skates. I’d done some of this at SCRD, and I really like running on my toe stops, so yeah I was excited for this drill.

I was MUCH more excited when people paired off with others of roughly their size and I was the odd one left and got paired up with Shorty. Squee indeed. AND THEN I FOUND OUT SHE IS TALLER THAN ME. DAMMIT. Anyway, yeah so I did a bunch of laps of the track pushing her around, and then she had a go. My weak ankle (the right one) is mega dumb and doesn’t steer very well and I kept going in circles, which was kind of embarrassing. :( It worked much better when I was basically in plow stop position but on my toe stops so my feet were more pigeon toed, than straight. But yeah, I made her push pretty hard, and I have all the marks on my shoulders to prove it from where she was digging her hands into my shoulder meat :P

Then the variation after that was to push someone with your shoulder, so your pec was basically pushing theirs (and you had to keep your head out of the way so you weren’t going to headbutt the other person). I found this harder because when I run on toe stops I swing my arms a lot, and I wouldn’t have been able to do that without punching Shorty in the crotch or something. But yeah, that was a fun drill. :D

A scrum start. White would usually be taking a knee right on the
line and black would be standing but as close to them as
possible without touching. (Also because of my craptastic
paint skills it looks like the outside white blocker is leaving
an opening for the white jammer or something. Yep.)

Next, we worked on using the toe stop push to get through a pack. Bambi said that teams were more likely to do scrum starts now (i.e. have everyone at the jammer line), so once the jammer is released they immediately have to get through the pack, usually if one team knee started at the jammer line. Usually in these cases the blockers would make a wall, such that you'd have all four blockers in a line across the track, covering both inside and outside lines at the same time.

We worked on several techniques for breaking walls. Walls can be made of seriously ANY number of blockers, so we practiced a bunch of different things. Basically, the key thing in all wall-breaking cases was to pick some spot--either between two blockers, or pushing one blocker out of the way to create a gap--and then go for it. We started with a wall of three (with a fourth one bracing) and trying to get a jammer to bust through. I found the running-on-toe-stops thing quite useful for pushing through blockers.

Then we did wall-busting in between two blockers. Importantly, in a game situation your blockers won't be completely stuck shoulder-to-hip together, but might be slightly spaced apart, so there is naturally a gap to get through. We tried a bunch of different things in a "jammer against two blockers" scenario:

• Shoulder charge: basically you use your shoulder like a battering ram and aim for the the back of the blockers' arms, or straight through the gap that is between them.
• Kidney punch: I like this one a lot! You keep your head down and use your shoulders to basically hit the blockers in their kidneys. Seriously. Be careful not to headbutt them or (as I did) get my head stuck in the gap between the blockers. 
• Shark attack: you start low and "pop up" between the blockers. I think you can use the back of your shoulders to push them out of the way.
• Stepping through: If there's a big enough gap between where the blockers have their feet, get down and step through it to get past them. This is hard to do quickly, but it's essential that you actually do it quickly, or else you get stuck. 

Here's Shorty doing the shark thingy at TGSS (although it might have started as a kidney punch):

Photo: Steve Craddock

You can also combine them: for example, you can start low and step through between blockers and then pop up in a shark attack. Or you can do the shoulder charge and when the gap comes up you step through. What's important is that you have the element of surprise. For the record, Rubi and I were the "demo people" for Shorty demonstrating surprise, which was hilarious because obviously we knew she was going to bust between us, but then when she actually did I think her charging into me actually propelled me like 3 metres or something, and I was screaming the whole time.

Finally, we did some juking. For this drill, we paired off and you had to get past your partner who was booty blocking you. There were a couple of things to pay attention to. Juking is a combination of speed and agility--I think Bambi said that Bonnie D. Stroir said that there's some sweet spot where your speed and agility meet, such that you're maximally agile while not plowing into the back of people (and getting called for back blocking). Basically, the idea is that you only juke as fast as you can skate while being agile.

Attempted juking diagram. Basically, the
jammer skates straight up to the PoNR and
then does the 3-step thingy to get around the
blocker (clearly not to scale.)

Bambi described something called the "point of no return" or something--basically you should only juke when the blocker can't see your feet. If they can see your feet, they are likely to know what you are going to do. So you should skate up to them as close as you can before busting out your juke moves. (This is also where the speed/agility thing is important; if you skate too close to them and can't stop, you back block them.) We practiced doing a three-step juke, basically you go left-right-left or right-left-right and then around the blocker. It also helped if you confused your blocker by making them look over both shoulders. Crossing seemed to be quite useful here, although not necessary (if you can also clumsily stomp to either side for the juke).

Another way you could juke is by basically fast feeting (feeting?? WTF) behind the blocker, and then getting past them because they don't know what your footwork is doing. Also, one thing to do is to get your foot in front of theirs and block them with your hip/shoulder. If your foot is in front of your opposing blocker's, when the block you they'll actually be pushing you forward. (I found this kind of hard to do without wheel clipping, but maybe I just need to work on that more.)

And then there was a bit of a strategy chat while we warmed down, and then we were done! It was seriously an awesome session; I probably learned more in those two hours than I have for a very long time. Also, I was a bit of a nerd and got RefDonald to take a picture of me with Shorty at the end. Yeah.

When we were taking this Shorty was like,
"Yeah you have to go Asian style". Heh.
(Also, photobomb by Bambi.)