The Lurby Circle

When I started at VDL, Pitts (who was then-President of the league) introduced a new term: lurby. It's supposed to be some portmanteau of "derby love". I'm not a huge fan of the spelling but whatever, the idea is that you have love not just for roller derby itself, but those who play it, and those who enable you to be able to be part of it.

Sometimes we all need a bit more lurby. Every league goes through some drama where there's some internal squabbling over something or another. But in doing so we sometimes lose sight of what matters, and then people get angry and frustrated, and then they cry and walk away.

I've already written a whole giant blog entry about derby drama. I'm not going into that again. But when I was recently back in Australia and skating with VDL, I noticed that they had a new tradition to counteract the problems that came with politics and drama. Basically, at the end of each practice session, all the skaters--regardless of their skill levels or who they were--sat down in a circle while they were taking their gear off, and each went around and said who they had lurby for based on that session. So you might say that you have lurby for a freshie who has just nailed a new skill, or for a coach for an awesome session, or whatever it is. But it was a good way to bring everyone together at the end and just refocus on the important stuff, which is the fact that we are all in it together.

P.S. The awesome Derby Love ring showed above is available at I heart roller derby. Squee!