Today, after almost two years of skating...

 ...I am finally on a roster for a bout I will actually get to bout.

Yes.

So, last night I had a dream that I was buying warpaint for derby, and then today the roster went out for NRV's B team bout against the Blackwater Rollers. Coincidence? I think not. (Yes, I have dreams about derby. I often hipcheck Ze Boyfriend in my sleep.)

Okay, so I've been on rosters before. At VDL, I had been drafted to both the Cheerbleeders and the Dishonour Rollers, but I never actually got to do their bouts since I was overseas or injured. I did the CRDL Scrimmage (which was terrifying at the time because I had NO idea what I was doing) and I also did the mini-bouts at Season's Beatings last year.

But this upcoming bout will be my first proper bout with a team that I actually am in a league with. I will get a jersey with my name on it, and I will get to hit people in the name of my league. These things matter; it means that I'm not such a late bloomer after all (although I admit I was getting worried that if I didn't have any bouting experience and I had been skating for years, people might think there was something wrong with me).

It also will be the first time I get to do a rollout. Yay!

Eastern Region Roller Derby Smackdown

I am having the biggest fucking proud right now.

Last weekend it was BAD, and this weekend is all about reppin' VDL and the Dishonour Rollers:

I think I am trying to look fierce but I just
look disgusted and many-chinned.

My time at VDL was relatively short and while it was in its infancy; I never did any bouts (they all happened while I was overseas), and the only thing I did that was remotely representative was be on the DishRollers team for the Cannery Challege interleague scrimmage last year. That was already a big deal. But now VDL has sent a team to a FUCKING TOURNAMENT and are actually doing more bouts than they have EVER done before in one weekend.

The final score was CRDL C 155 to VDL's 151. But that's the closest margin we've EVER had. I bet everyone there is over the moon about it. At this rate they'll probably win their next game! And definitely the afterparty. Oh god I wish I was at the afterparty.

It's taken time but the team has needed it to come together, I guess. I know I'm not part of it anymore, but it is awesome to see people who have been just starting out a few months ago make it onto the rep team and kick some ass. It's like seeing the baby league all grown up and dishing out some awesome smackdown of its own. Dawwww.

Anyway, I am in particular extremely proud of my awesome derby wife, who captained the Rollers this time around. About a year ago, we were just rolling around and being freshies who were shitty about failing white star tests and not getting put in the same cohort as people who we started with but were better than us. But fuck, she's now the freaking captain of the travel team! And she went in as a triple threat. A year ago, Boudi wrote a blog post about how much she wanted to get to the point where she could bout. She said:

I want to be a bouting derby skater. I want to be able to tear up the track as a kickarse jammer. I want to be a great blocker, able to give the kind of hits that silence the crowd. I want to be a pivot who seems to have eyes in the back of her head. I want to be really good at this amazing amazing sport, and I want it so badly I could burst. The idea that I might not be capable of it is heartbreaking.

But now she is all that, and more. So in a way, ERRD's not just like "yay she made it onto the travel team and is the captain", but it is much more "yay, she kicked a lot of ass to get there, and all that effort and learning has paid off, and she is far more than capable of all of this." She is a fucking inspirational superstar.

Look how far you can come in a year of derby. It makes me so proud right now. Okay, I may or may not have something in my eye.

And that goes for everyone on the team. You've come a long way. I am so fucking proud of you all.

The Other Side

I don't remember very much about what happened today. And not because I'm concussed or anything. Yes--I'm relatively injury free! Whoo!! Anyway, let's start at the beginning. We started with a team breakfast, where I thought at first I would be too nervous to eat, but then my inner fat kid got the better of me and I ate two poached eggs with fancy weird shaped toast, three hashbrowns and Tori's spinach from her eggs florentine (haha, why the hell would you get eggs florentine if you weren't going to eat the spinach?). Then we headed over to CRDL's HQ on the other side of town.

As I am clearly the goddamn Jesus of Team Munt, I had welts on my feet going into the Cannery. Last night, in a fit of mega-organization, I packed my derby bag, as well as a bag with extra clothes and a blanket (it was supposed to be mega cold today) and still had time to spare so I decided to preemptively tape up my ankles and my knee before tomorrow. I wanted to tape them a bit tightly and then have the tape loosen up overnight to accomodate for movement and stuff. Clever, huh? Well, then in the middle of the night I woke up because my feet had swollen up around the tape and I couldn't get it off and when I did I left big red welts on the sides of my feet (like on the outside of your foot where the bottom of your foot creeps around the side) and then today I had to tape over those. Ugh.

I'm glad I wore my PJ pants. They were warm and looked good.

Anyway, that aside, we got to the Cannery in the morning and filled out our paperwork and whatnot, and had a while to warm up and whatnot. It was pretty chilly in the morning (it dropped down to 0 overnight) so we were all pretty rugged up. I had brought my pyjama pants because I also don't own full-length sweatpants and the only full-length leg things I own are jeans, which I actually wore to breakfast because I thought it'd be weird to turn up at breakfast in pyjamas. But it was cold enough that I could wear my pj pants OVER my jeans, which in turn were worn over my skate pants (which were knee length but then I also wore my gaskets to make them 3/4 length, haha), and those were over my crash pads. By that stage I couldn't actually really move my legs to walk, but I was warm, so meh.

Gear check before Game 1. (photo from Slanders)

And then we started! Well, we did warmups, then a couple of pack drills, and then we were gear checking and sitting on benches and having our lineup done on a whiteboard. I wasn't in the first jam, but I was up as a blocker in Jam 2. When the first jam was going I was on the "next lineup" bench, I remember sitting on the bench next to Roller, and she was like "are you alright?" and I was just like "OH GOD WHAT AM I DOING HERE" kind of thing. Best timing to have an existential crisis or whatever. But yeah, once we were called on, then everything went. Kind of because it had to go, but meh. Either way, it was okay.

I think we had a pretty shaky start. We were nervous and it showed. I guess it didn't help that Slanders got me to jam, and I couldn't get through the fucking pack. I really wanted to jam, and I was excited that he gave me to the opportunity to try for my debut. But wow, that stuff is hard. Actually, this is arguably the most terrifying moment of the entire day:

OH GOD I AM ABOUT TO JAM AND POSSIBLY DIE

I was jamming against Pink Mist, who is on the CRDL VCRs. I think I got off the jammer line faster than her and then just got plowed into by their pack. I fell down a lot there. I don't know how many points they racked up that jam, but I think it was over 20. I really want to be able to jam, but I need to work on getting through the pack. I found prancing around on my toe stops worked, but I can't do that for the entire 2 minutes. At least I got props for being the "energizer bunny" and constantly popping back up after I took a hit. But yeah, that was a hard two minutes! I was pretty bummed I couldn't even score a single point. Gah. :(

I can't remember what was happening when I took this photo.

About halfway through, we picked up our game a little. We communicated more. People listened to their pivots and to the coach more. People worked together better, there was more touching and talking it up on the track. I also got to pivot, but I don't think I was loud enough and then I didn't pivot again after that. :P I think our final score was 130-something (to the Belters) and like 40-something to us, but I could be wrong. I wasn't really keeping track.

Then we had a bit of a break and got to watch the Red Bellied Black Hearts take on Sydney RDL, which was pretty awesome. It was a close game, and I saw some neat things to try out. One thing the teams would do is knock the jammer out of play with their power blocker, and then have another blocker drop back so that the jammer have to get past a wall of two people, one of whom could keep knocking them down while the other one pos blocked them.

After that was a potluck game, with a mix of players from various leagues. Rav and Smack also played with them, but that was right before lunch and I was hungry and got hot dogs instead.

Yay, so we had a bit of a team meeting at lunch, and talked about what worked and what didn't. Then Uzi and Slanders tried a new strategy and split us into two groups and did lineups within those groups. (Of course, if the previous lineup's jammer/blockers were in the bin and got released in your jam, then you still got to play with them.) So we did that in our second game, which was against the Black Hearts.

Unidentified butt

I found the RBBH game more fun than the Belters one. We were friends with some of the skaters, and I think the Rollers as a team were much more cohesive and worked together better. Melee pivoted a lot on my lineup and would literally throw me into the path of the jammer and I would take them out. Ha ha ha. I think my designated role in the team is the Human Cannonball: I did a lot of getting pushed into blocking people, and once I was in position I could pos block them okay until someone hit them. I also managed to do a few hits of my own and also knock a few people out of bounds, which was much more than what I had planned to do. But yeah, you hit the jammer out of bounds, and then back the fuck up, so they have to enter the pack behind you. I tried this a few times but I need to go back much faster. Rav did an awesome one when she made Bebe (on the RBBH) go through the ENTIRE pack. Hahaha. But yeah, I felt much, much better when everything was done. Our final score for this one was 71-38. This is the BEST differential we've ever had as the Rollers, and we were so psyched about it. Our plays were working, and we were actually working as a team, rather than a bunch of individuals with coordinated action. (Um, if that last sentence was just like a WTF, it's probably because I've been spending too much time working on my dissertation and talking about different kinds of collective action. Basically, the idea is, "yay, stuff was working"!)


No injuries either, hooray. But at one point in the first game Jillie hit Dirty Torque, and then she backblocked into me, and I fell and she fell on me and then Jillie went flying over both of us. Also, after the first game when you do your "high five line" thing past the other skaters, Wrecks gave me a big hug and lifted me up. But she was on skates and so was I, so she fell backwards on her skates and I crashed on top of her and we both went sprawling on the track. Ha ha ha. I'm surprised I didn't get hurt. But that's a good thing. I have bruises on my back but that's minor and wasn't on my list, right? :P

It was a great day. I felt really awesome when we were done, and there were hugs and smiles all around. Then I went home and had a shower and nearly passed out in bed even though it was only like 4:30pm.

AND I FORGOT MY SKATES. YES. I LEFT THEM AT THE CANNERY BECAUSE I AM A MORON. Melee very kindly is looking after them for me until training tomorrow night but seriously, who the fuck does that!?! And they're Antiks!! And it was my first bout!! Seriously. Haha, so now I am no longer a bout virgin and I don't have my skates.

These are my peeps.

Also, I somehow managed to eat three hot dogs at lunchtime and then skate without throwing up. Yay me.

Hardly! I got 1 minor in each game. Heh.

The Cannery Challenge, 2012

VDL has a team called the Dishonour Rollers. It's the rep/travel team, although the furthest it's travelled so far is to the other side of Canberra. It's made up of some amazing skaters. They're fast and hit hard. And they're coming out to play tomorrow at CRDL's Cannery Challenge. Basically, the CC is where CRDL hosts a bunch of teams and there's a series of bouts (or half-bouts) so we can meet other teams and whatnot.

I'm not unfamiliar with the Dishonour Rollers. I went to the first Cannery Challenge last year. I had provisionally made the first DR team ever, but then I stupidly wrecked my ankle and couldn't skate and benched instead. And that might have been a good thing because a lot of people got injured. (I wrote about it here.)

Then there was the TGSS team bound for Adelaide, and I was on that but we had to pull the entire team out due to injury and insufficient numbers.

Then there was another CC earlier this year, but I was overseas.

But tomorrow, I am going to be a Dishonour Roller. And I mean, actually skate as a Dishonour Roller. I'm excited, but at the same time, I am fucking terrified.

YES PLEASE.

It's my first bout, or bout-type thing, and I'm on the rep team? WTF. What a place to start. Everyone else on the team has bouted before, so I guess the whole first-bout-ever jitters don't really work for them. But yeah. I sometimes wonder how I got here; I mean, the rest of the team consists of either really fast jammers, really strong giant wall blockers, or pivots that actually understand game strategy and can employ it. I'm not fast (or I can be off the jammer line because I've improved my footwork when I was overseas, but I get held up in the pack. There's a lovely video of me somewhere on the internet where I take off from the jammer line really quick, and skate straight into Rubi Doom's butt and fall down. Ha). I can't really hit hard, although I much prefer positional blocking someone than hitting them and possibly getting majored or injured or whatever. And I have some REALLY minimal conception of derby strategy. I watch the videos and stuff on youtube, but they might as well be speaking French to me. (I actually understand French, but not enough that I can process it as fast as a native speaker, so you get my drift.) For someone almost done with a Ph.D., I can't get my brain to work for derby purposes. So yeah, it's no wonder that I'm just a little bit nervous.

Yes, yes, before you get all "you shouldn't worry about it because you made the team so you must be good and whatever", I guess I'm self-doubting because I've never actually tested my mettle in the field, as it were. Training and scrimmage at VDL is one thing because it's like, hitting your friends and you know how they react to stuff and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Hitting strangers is a different thing. Especially strangers who have frigging represented Australia at Blood and Thunder. In a way, I want to hit someone who meets that description, to say that I did. I'm sure that tomorrow night I'll be all like "WHOO THAT WAS SO AWESOME" but now, I'm just a bit bleh. Stupid nerves. Winning the afterparty might be an option though. I'll probably need a drink or two.

This shouldn't suggest that I plan to lose the bout.
I'm just planning to not lose the after party.

 My goal tomorrow consists of one thing: TRY NOT TO DIE.

(Subsidiary goals: do some good positional blocking, maybe even hit someone, maybe get through the pack and score at least one point if I get to jam)

Also, I have a list of things I would like to not injure, in order of highest preference of "it is crucial that this thing works" to "meh, I guess I can recover from that":

• My brain. If I get any sort of head injury, I can't do my Ph.D.. And I need to do my Ph.D.
• My hands/wrists/arms. How the hell do I type a dissertation if someone's broken all my fingers by skating over them?
• My pretty face. Well, not really, but you know. Also, I would really like to keep all my teeth.
• Ankles. I have TWO cruddy ankles already, and they will be taped up as much as they can. Also, no blisters on my ankles would be nice.
• Knees. That shit hurts, but not as bad as ankles.
• I can deal with bruises. Just no lacerations or shit. It's a bit rude to bleed all over someone else's nice derby track. Also, I will try very hard not to vomit everywhere.

The team's meeting for breakfast tomorrow, and then we're going to do some ass kicking after that. It's an all day event, so I'll try to update on Sunday or Monday or whatever. I will see you on the other side.

Making the team, from the other side of the planet

I checked my facebook this morning and found out that I've been provisionally drafted onto my league's away team for The Great Southern Slam in Adelaide in June this year. That's the Dishonour Rollers--last time I was provisionally drafted for the Cannery Challenge, and then I went overseas and came back and munted myself. Now I've been provisionally drafted and I'm overseas... well, let's hope that when I get back, history doesn't repeat itself. Gah. I'm going to really have to bring my game to earn this spot, but I'm excited to have the opportunity to be part of something as big as this.

But anyway. As big as what? Well, the GSS is the biggest roller derby tournament in the entire southern hemisphere, and all these leagues descend on Adelaide to bout it out for three whole days. THREE WHOLE DAYS OF DERBY!! Squeeeee! And afterparties and merch and learning a whole bunch of things and watching some of the best skaters in the Antipodes duke it out. I will probably be sitting in suicides the whole time if I can get in there. Anyway, this is the kind of stuff I'll be seeing: this is a video from the final jam of the final in 2011 with Sun State Roller Girls and Victoria RDL:

Holy crapballs. I'm kind of scared; everyone else who is going has infinitely more bouting experience than I do. But hey, learning curve and all that yeah? I'm certainly learning a whole bunch of stuff while I'm over here, and I'm excited to take it back home. (Also, this is the best reason to upgrade to new skates, yes? Antiks? Yes?)

The Cannery Challenge Post Mortem

So, today was the big day. Team breakfast at 8am (where I ate my own breakfast and part of Sarge's and half of Diazeslam's raisin toast and some extra hash browns and grilled tomatoes--I fucking love hash browns). The team was obviously pretty nervous; of all the teams at the challenge ours was the only one with no bouting experience. Anyway, preparation for the challenge also involved going to the supermarket and buying the following:

• One slab of 60 bottles of water
• 30 bottles of gatorade
• 1 box of oreos
• 6 bags of candy
• 2 boxes of those nutri-grain cereal bars
• A fuckload of bananas

After that it was on to the Cannery. Basically, the Cannery is this giant shed that CRDL has which is taken up mostly by a giant concrete derby track. Anyway, there was a quick team meeting, then gearing up and getting ready for our first bout aginst a CRDL team. Whambulance was also nice enough to tape up my ankle so it didn't look all fucked up. It was a better job than I did, so yeah.

Excellent strapping job, Whambo.

Anyway, then we set up our bench. But boo, early on crapballs: I got sacked from benching because you were only allowed one benchie and the designated alternate (who was Sarge). So Bubbles had to do lineups and panty bitching and give people water and write their numbers on and everything. On the other hand, this meant that I had a free ticket to watch the bout!

I don't actually remember that much about that bout except I was yelling a lot. I think VDL was psyching itself out and it showed. One thing I noticed happened a lot was that the blockers weren't really helping out their jammer, so the jammer would be pinned behind a whole row of CRDL blockers and our blockers would be skating ahead. And there was too much bossing around and shouting and getting aggro at people from the bench which made it kind of hard for the skaters to hear actual instructions from Sarge.

Lineup sheet, Bout 2, 1st half.

Marie was the first casualty of the day by copping a shoulder (I think?) to the face and almost breaking her nose. I didn't see what happened (Boudica and I got sent on a mission to get a big fat permanent marker to write people's numbers on their sweaty arms) but we got back just in time to see her fall. Then she got up and had a towel over her nose and was icing it a whole bunch and stuff. That was kind of scary. Anyway, I don't really remember that much as I said, but the final score was 21-180-something or something like that.

Clearly people were rattled after the first bout. I guess that is to be expected; if this is a baptism by fire, then it really was a fucking good one. Marie was still out, and Sarge had a serious talking-to with everyone to make sure that they listened to him when he was yelling out instructions from the bench and stuff. Bubbles and I were frantically redoing the lineups since we had to take Marie (injury) and Rubi (exam) out of it. Also, note to self: remember that there are two halves of the bout; so you need about 40 lineups, not 20. :P Oh yeah and there was some general VDL/CRDL interesting interactions; most of them were really nice, and I guess it was weird to expect anything from how that was going to go. But I did wish I got a photo of me standing next to Bo-Rap; she was on skates (so taller than ever) and I had jandals on. I think the top of my head reached her boob. Ha.

Anyway, then suddenly it was time for the second bout. This time it was "Team Potluck", which was a combination of people from a bunch of other leagues. I was benching this one, and holy shit I was hoping that everything would go well. The first half was awesome! NO MAJORS FROM ANYONE!! That made doing lineups SO much easier. I feel that I need to yell more sometimes and be a bit more assertive, but for most part I think it went well. Plus scorewise we were doing pretty good: we were like 30-something in the first half (which was more than tht total score for the previous bout) and the margin was HEAPS smaller.

And then there were like 4 injuries in the second half! Legz fell and fucked up her ankle or something, and Diazeslam might have broken her wrist. Tank got shouldered in the neck (WTF??? And nobody called anyone on a major for that) and Junk got smashed in the knee. I was frantically amending the lineup every couple of minutes or so; originally Bubbles and I had the plan to have two lineups that we could rotate, but then we just ran out of people. I felt kind of bad making people do like 3 jams in a row or something but we just didn't have enough skaters for that. :/

There were also a few dodgy calls. There was one when Jillie was jamming and BOTH the jam refs were calling no lead jammer... wtf? And a lot of hitting out of target zones happened, and cutting, and not much seemed to be called. I understand that everyone's still learning though, so yeah. Early days for all of us. Sarge did put in a formal complaint I think though.

2nd half lineup sheet. You will note that shit got crazy around Jam 8-9.

We didn't have enough people to continue the bout (we were down to a full lineup and maybe 2-3 on the bench), so we called it. The final score was 57-81, which I reckon was fucking awesome. I think I ended up doing an okay job for seriously having seconds to make decisions about the lineup as people got taken out of it due to injury, and we didn't have too terrible a time. Plus afterwards I got to hobble around the track and high five the random PotLuck people, not that I had any idea who they were. But yeah, overall, I think we did a really good job in the second bout and recovered a lot to pull the score as close as it was. So, hooray. :)

Oh yeah and I met ShortStop! Like about fucking time. Brad was running the BBQ and I wanted to get some food in me before the second bout (which was the one that I was benching) so I went to get a vegie burger and she was there! And Brad was all like "Shorty have you met Mouse, she is like your evil twin who is following you. She had a party on the weekend and all the derby girls were at your party first and you both have pikachu costumes although hers is sexier" or something. Hahahaha. And then there was no tomato sauce because someone put out like 4L of BBQ sauce or something instead so she got some and put some on my burger for me. Hahahaha.

And league drinks tonight! FUCK YEAH DRINKS.