An interview with Shortstop!

(Which I didn't conduct)

So yeah, in Australia, derby is a big deal but surprisingly not majorly newsworthy, unless you count that debacle in 2013 about Women in Sport.

But here is an interview with Shorty done by the Saturday Paper. An interview! Usually it's reporters just speculating about stuff they see on the sidelines, so interviews are uncommon. I would have liked to have seen more about her role on Team Australia, but there you go. Woooo!

O HAI

Wow! I haven't updated this for a while. Sorry. Anyway, a LOT has happened since my last entry. I spent three weeks back in Australia, did my Ph.D. graduation (for which I deliberated wearing skates, but there was carpet and LOTS of stairs, plus I wasn't sure how wearing a giant robe on wheels would work without eating shit), went to a bunch of derby practices and did an awesome epic lake skate with Boudi. Actually, when I was in Canberra, the things I did the most pretty much was all skate related (even though I also had graduation and a conference to go to, I managed to wrangle a lake skate, skate shopping, social skate with CRDL and a few VDL practices. It turned out that I got to do something skatey pretty much every day. Yay). 

I learned a lot while I was away, and in the next few weeks I'll be doing a bunch of posts about particular things that I saw work well at other leagues, new drills I learned, and whatnot. Keep your eyes peeled!

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!

Apparently derby isn't a proper sport, still

So last night, the awards ceremony for the best female athletes in Australia took place in Canberra. I remember voting for this: basically, there was a poll open to the public to name the best athletes (across any sport) in Australia, in an attempt to boost the profile of women in sport.

The top 25, and an article about it, is here. There are a lot of good athletes--Australia does have a very strong sporting presence--but what is notable is that ShortStop (who was voted MVP of Team Australia at the Roller Derby World Championships last year) won the popular vote, but didn't even make the top 25. Her name is in the "and here are the other people who got voted on" bit at the bottom of the article.

Shorty at Blood and Thunder, with the other MVPs

Of course, the women who did make the top 25 are fantastic athletes--they are world champions, Olympians, superstars in their own right. I think that they certainly deserve to be up there. But what pisses me off is that Sports Hydrant, the organizers of the event, put this to a vote, and then "moderated" the result. I also like how the reporter for the article describes the potential result that a derby girl could have won the popular vote as "alarming". Really? What's the point of asking the public to vote, if you don't care about the result they will give you?

What this suggests to me is that roller derby is still not seen as a legitimate sport. Even though it's clearly really popular (and certainly more so than, say, shooting paralympics which made the list), there's still something it is lacking before it will be recognized as a sport in its own right. I have no other explanation for why such moderation had to take place, but then I wouldn't know what was going through the minds of the organizers.

Consulting other halls of fame and sporting records (as the organizers did) disadvantages roller derby, which does not have an Olympic presence (most of the other sports listed do), or at least have a well-established championship. Blood and Thunder--the roller derby world championship--is only a year old. Of course, the current reincarnation of sport itself is also relatively new. But it is a sport. It demands just as much athleticism, strength and strategy as any other sport on that list. What else needs to be done to show that it is a legitimate sport, and not just some random passing fad?

I honestly don't know what justifies taking Shorty off the list. CRDL is the most successful sports team to come out of the Australian Capital Territory. Team Australia got congratulated in parliament by the Prime Minister for their performance at Blood and Thunder. I also don't see the point in trying to boost the profile of women athletes if you take one of the most popular sports that there is for women, and publicly strike down one of its most successful players from a list of the top female athletes in the country, in the one sport that has been primarily developed by women, for women. I think it's extremely disappointing that this happened, but in a way I'm not surprised that it has. I just don't know what else needs to be done for derby to get the recognition that it should have.

Update: Okay, according to this article, it's the fact that people wear fishnets and have derby names that makes it not a sport. Really? Try telling a boxer that boxing is not a real sport because they wear little silk shorts or have nicknames for when they are in the ring.

Defensive blocking (unofficially) with Bambi and Shortstop

(Or: the flip side of Aggressive Jamming with Bambi and Shortstop)

 

What was useful about Bambi's coaching is that she explained what the blockers were doing while the jammer was trying to get through, and then what the blockers should do in respond and how the jammer should change her strategy and stuff, so that was really cool. So technically we were learning this stuff and aggressive jamming at the same time. But I thought it’d be nifty to separate them to get a clearer understanding of what was happening. (I think this entry will be shorter though, since we were supposed to be doing aggressive jamming, and in order to do that there had to be some defensive blocking, etc.)

Blocking and bracing your wall

Blockers 1 and 4 are on the outside, so they will be the
ones to brace the wall made up of 2,3,4 (for blocker 1)
and 1,2,3 (for blocker 4). There are two possible places
to brace for each blocker. They can also push the jammer
out over the line if necessary.

This was the main thing we worked on while the jammers were trying to get past. Basically, you can have your wall of four, and make a wall across the whole track. That's pretty handy, but if a jammer is going to be trying to get past, you will have at least one blocker who is not really doing anything because she's not at the part of the wall that the jammer is pushing at.

If this happens, the blocker furthest away (i.e. one of the line blockers) can swing in front and, facing the three blockers in the wall, use her arms to brace up the wall. Basically it's just to counter the force of the jammer pushing past. You're not supposed to be pushing the jammer back, but rather just holding the wall in place. Outside blockers to be sideways so they can also butt push jammer out of play and over the line if they try to sneak past.

Here's a picture of CRDL applying the bracing thing:

It's technically 1-on-1 bracing, but it's keeping the opposing
jammer from getting past Shorty (as pivot).

As a bracer, there are a couple of important things to note:

• Direction of gameplay: this was a big one. Just because you're facing backwards doesn't mean you can go backwards. You're supposed to be holding up the opposing jammer, not pushing them back. It's REALLY important to make sure you're still rolling in derby direction even if you're pushing on your teammate to counter the jammer.
• Hand placement matters: When you're bracing, you're putting force on your teammate and using her as a wall. Watch where you are actually bracing your teammate. Hands on shoulders/pecs works much better than hands on their sternum. Or their throat.
• Elbows: There'll be other shit going on around you while you are bracing. Keep your elbows in so you don't clock someone and get majored for it.
• Talk to your pack: if you're skating backwards, you will be best able to see where the jammer is. Tell your blockers which side she's coming in on or if she is switching tactics so they will be able to prepare for getting hit (which also makes your job easier).

Helping out your jammer 

Kinda like this. I imagine it's all pixelly too.

Okay, this is obvious, yes? But remember that derby is offensive and defensive at the same time, so while you're doing all this defensive blocking your jammer is still going to be hanging around trying to get past. Bambi said that, as a blocker, you have to do what you can to help your jammer. So, suppose that it's like in a video game and your jammer has an energy bar. Seriously. Every time your jammer has to take a step or a hit the bar goes down.

So as a blocker, you should be helping clear the path so she has to take less steps, or taking hits for her, or whatever. The best thing you can do is open up the inside line for your jammer, and you can do this by getting the blockers out of the way and off the line. 

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.)

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.

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.

Boys, you have been adequately warned.

So about a month ago I met a guy and we went on a date. He seemed okay. He said he had been to another bout earlier in the year, and he knew some of the CRDL girls, so yeah. And he seemed to be sufficiently interested in derby (and other things we had in common, like nerdery and comic books and gaming and whatnot) to warrant going on a a second date.

I think I mentioned that there was a bout the week after or something. Obviously I'd be there, so he also bought a ticket so that we could hang out there. So, our second date was at a roller derby bout.

We sat in the suicide section with the other peeps from my league, and of course a lot of what we (as in me and the other people in the league, not me and him) were doing was analysing what was going on in each jam, how the packs were formed, where the holes were, strategy and whatnot. I think I also made some effort to explain what was going on to him as well, but it's hard to do that and also watch the jams, you know? Or something would happen and I'd react and he would be like "what just happened" kind of thing.

Anyway, after that there is a post-bout party, so we went to that. And of course there was a lot of derby talk, and watching derby videos on people's phones and random hipchecking. That was also when Sarge told me and Boudica that we were going for our white star reassessments. I wanted to stay and talk to the people in the league, but I was pretty sure he was getting antsy so we made our excuses and left. Plus, I had my reassessment the next day, right? I was also giving one of the ladies in my league a ride home, so (probably sadly for him) there wasn't any at-the-car-makeout-session or whatever, if that was what he was after.

I got a message from him the next day saying something like "I had fun at the bout. Usually I'm okay to hold my own among strangers, but whe 90% of the discussion is "derby derby derby" I find it hard to keep up. Next time I will be ready for it."

Next time?

I don't think so.

The moral of the story is this: derby will come first. You fuck with that at your own peril.

The start

So, welcome to my blog. I’ve been meaning to write a blog for a while now, so I guess now I will (probably because this is actually a fit of procrastination, but whatevs).

I’ve been skating for about 4 months now, maybe. A couple of girls at my university started a league at the beginning of the year because the only other league in town (Canberra Roller Derby League) had like a 400-person waiting list or something. I’m on their mailing list, and they are having tryouts in November.

I’ve wanted to do derby for a while, even before I bought my first pair of skates and whatnot. I lived in the US a few years ago and derby was just taking off there when I was leaving. And then I went to the premiere of “Whip It” (NOTE: not the actual movie, just the fancy premiere thingy) at the Toronto International Film Festival. And they had a flat-track derby bout thing in the middle of Dundas Square (which, for those of you who don’t know, is a big square right in the middle of the downtown area). It was pretty awesome. To the untrained eye it seriously just looked like a bunch of women skating around in a circle and punching each other or something. So I thought that looked pretty cool. Then, back in Canberra, the then-boyfriend and I went to a bout between the Canberra all-star Vice City Rollers and the ladies from Sydney RDL in December. It was pretty epic. He was really into it, and when I managed to understand the rules I was like, “oh yeah, this is pretty cool”. I used to play hockey, and to some extent this had the same kind of fast-and-violent disposition about it that I liked.

That night all we could talk about was what my derby name would be. I wanted something that would suggest that I was small and fast, so I picked “Pocket Rocket”. Yep. (Later, I would find out that was taken, and I went through like 6 names before I settled on my current one. Gah. Picking a derby name is hard!)

I liked my first session so much that I wore my skates at work for a week.

And then I procrastinated for like 4 whole months wondering if I could actually do derby. Then one day the then-boyfriend (henceforth TBF) and I were walking across campus and we saw a bunch of people learning how to skate in the courtyard in the middle of the campus. And I was like, “yeah, I can do that”. So I jumped on their mailing list, and lo and behold I found out that they were doing a mass fresh meat purchase from Sydney Derby Skates with a huge discount. I love huge discounts. I managed to squeeze in a late order and then next week I had my awesome Riedell Diablos, and all the padding I could ever want. My friend McSmack skates with CRDL, and she came to our session too. It was probably WAY too basic for her, but it was nice to have someone there that I actually knew. :)

Anyway, I can’t really remember too much about what happened in those early days. There were only a handful of us, and we were being trained by Marie Slamtoinette from Central Coast Roller Girls. Marie had to leave CCRG because she moved to Canberra. Then, a newspaper article went out about how we had our own league and way more people joined, including Drool Sergeant, who is like a proper derby coach guy and actually used to train the CRDL girls. So that was a bit of a scoop. Sarge still trains us and Marie now trains the noobs a bit. There’s also a whole bunch of other people from those early days who have stuck around that I could talk about, but I’m sure that will come out in other entries.